“When do you intend to tell me who you are, Scottie?”
“As soon as the queen gives her consent.”
“What has the queen got to do with it, I should like to know?”
“No doubt you would; but I have given my solemn promise not to reveal her name nor my own to any person without her permission; and she has promised that as soon as Ingomar’s story is finished all secrecy may be discarded. But now I want to hear what you have discovered about the two seedy men.”
“They are going to arrest Ingomar, and take him off at Vicksburg; he is charged with a bloody murder (so the seedy men say). They state that he committed the crime somewhere in Mississippi, and while in jail awaiting trial managed to make his escape. The friends of the murdered man offered a large reward for the capture of the perpetrator, and then the State added another large sum to that offered by the friends of the deceased, and those two seedy men are officers from Mississippi who have got Ingomar spotted.”
“Does Ingomar know they are watching him?”
“No, I think not.”
“Then why not warn him of the danger?”
“That would be wrong, because if he is guilty he ought to suffer; if he is innocent he is in no danger.”
“Do you believe he is guilty?”