Laud glanced at Donald with a faint smile on his haggard face.
"Don John told me Captain Shivernock had a secret he wanted to keep."
"I told you so!" exclaimed Donald.
"You did; but you thought I knew the secret," answered Laud. "You told me the captain had given me the money not to tell that I had seen him near Saturday Cove on the morning after the Hasbrook affair."
"I remember now," said Donald. "Captain Shivernock gave me sixty dollars, and then gave me the Juno, for which I understood that I was not to say I had seen him that day. I refused to sell the boat to Laud till he told me where he got the money. When he told me the captain had given it to him, and would not say what for, I concluded his case was just the same as my own. After I left the captain, he stood over to the Northport shore, and Laud went over there soon after. I was sure that they met."
"We didn't meet; and I did not see Captain Shivernock that day," Laud explained.
"I supposed he had; I spoke to Laud just as though he had, and he didn't deny that he had seen him."
"Of course I didn't. Don John made my story good, and I was willing to stick to it."
"But you did not stick to it," added the nabob. "You said you had paid no money to Don John."
"I will tell you how that was. When I got the secret out of Don John, I went to the captain with it. He asked me if I wanted to black-mail him. I told him no. Then I spoke to him about the tin trunk you had lost, and said one of the bills had been traced to me. I made up a story to show where I got the bill; but the man that gave it to me had gone, and I didn't even know his name. He had some bills just like that mended one; and when I told him what my trouble was, he promised to say that he had given me the bill; and then he laughed as I never saw a man laugh before."