"Perhaps not. Your comrade in crime may have saved you the trouble."
"Nor him either. The deed was done before we reached the spot."
"What brought you there?" I said, abruptly.
"The hints you threw out for our destruction," and his eye once more flashed with its accustomed boldness. "You acted as decoy-duck, and your superior cunning has triumphed. In order to gratify your old hatred to me, you have killed your benefactor."
The moon was at full but the trees cast too deep a shade upon the spot we occupied to enable him to see my face. I was, however, taken by surprise, and gave a slight start. He felt it, and laughed bitterly.
"We are a pair of d——d scoundrels!" he cried; "but you are the worst, and you know it. I of course must hang for this, for you have laid your plans too well to allow me a loop-hole to escape. Now, Noah Cotton, for once be generous. I know I have treated you confoundedly ill, that I am a very bad fellow, and richly deserve the gallows. But I am very young to die—to die for a crime I did not actually commit. I have a widowed mother, an orphan sister to support, who love me, and will be broken-hearted at my death—for their sakes give me a chance of making my escape. I will leave the country directly, and never return to it again to trouble you more. Have mercy upon me! For Christ's sake have mercy upon me!"
My heart was moved. I was almost tempted to grant his prayer. But I dared not trust him. I knew that my own safety entirely depended upon his destruction.
"William Martin," I said, very calmly, "your attempt to charge me with this crime is a miserable subterfuge. What interest had I to kill Mr. Carlos? Did not my living depend upon him? The folly of the man who killed the goose that laid the golden eggs, would be wisdom compared with such a deed. Mr. Carlos was of more value to me living than dead."
"That is true," he said, thoughtfully. "I may have wronged you. It is a strange inexplicable piece of business." Then he muttered to himself, "'The wages of sin is death.' It is useless to ask mercy from him. He would not save my life if he could. Oh my mother!—my poor, poor mother!"
Hardened as I thought this ruffian had been for years, the big bright drops coursed each other down his sunburnt cheeks; his large chest heaved convulsively, and loud sobs awoke the lone echoes of the wood.