It was so strange to Somers, that he could not help thinking he had been brought there by some mysterious power to listen to and defeat the intentions of the conspirators. He was not so far wrong as he might have been. It was Coles who spoke; it was Coles who had been in Fort Lafayette; and it was Coles who had lost eighty thousand dollars by the Snowden. All these things were real, and Somers had no suspicion that he had inhaled some of the vile compounds in the bar below, which might have thrown him into a stupor wherein he dreamed the astounding situation in which he was actually placed.
Somers listened, and when Coles had mixed and drank his dram, he spoke again.
"I can and will get my money back," said he, with an oath which froze the blood of the listener.
"Don't believe it, Coles."
"You know me, Langdon," added the plotter, with a peculiar emphasis.
Langdon acknowledged that he did know him; and as there was, therefore, no need of an introduction, Coles proceeded.
"You know me, Langdon; I don't make any mistakes myself."
Perhaps Langdon knew it; but Somers had some doubts, which, however, he did not purpose to urge on this occasion.
"Phil Kennedy was a fool," added Coles, with another oath. "He spoiled all my plans before, and I was glad when I heard that he was killed, though I lost forty thousand dollars when he slipped out. He spilt the milk for me."
Somers thought not.