"Not entirely. He knows too much for our safety."
"So much the worse for him!"
"Why? What would you do?"
"Shut his mouth! It matters not how. You do not want to—" and the attorney drew his under lip beneath his upper teeth, and produced an explosive sound, very much like the crack of a pistol, or a champagne-cork, but which Jaspar did not mistake for the latter. "You do not want to—f-h-t—him, if you can help it."
"It would be the safest way," returned the other, not at all embarrassed by the attorney's ambiguous method of expressing himself.
"Perhaps not; though 'dead men tell no tales,' it is also true that 'murder will out.' Besides, I have conscientious scruples."
Jaspar sneered at this last remark; but the attorney was too useful an adviser at that moment to be lightly provoked, and he suppressed the angry exclamation which rose to his lips.
"How would the slave jail do?" said he, with a fiendish smile.
"Too public. Our object is to save the man's life,—an act of humanity; but we must not endanger our own safety."
"No mortal man can ever know that he is confined there. The jail was built under my own direction, and, owing to its peculiar construction, not even the hands on the estate will know that it is occupied. I always keep the keys myself."