‘I couldn’t help overhearing you, Johnstone. But I’m in time, I hope, to stop more from being said than you’d wish me to catch. I admire your devotion to your cousin and thank you for it. It is what I should expect of one with Marian’s blood in him. Step this way, that our friend in the after-cabin yonder may not hear me.’
He led us into the berth I slept in, and closed the door.
‘Johnstone,’ said he, ‘I’ll ask you a question or two. How do you know that I didn’t attempt to scuttle the Arab Chief?’
The lad looked startled, and answered: ‘I don’t know, yet I’ll swear you never made the attempt.’
‘You wish to think me innocent, but you can’t be sure?’
‘On the top of Collins’s story I am sure,’ said Will.
‘Chaw! What is that evidence? Mere hearsay; the talk of a scoundrel seaman perhaps against his captain, and it’s two to one still even at that. How is Bates to know I’m guiltless? How is Marian, except of her great love and noble devotion and faith in me, to hold me innocent of a charge on which an intelligent jury and a sagacious judge condemned me, imprisoned me, expatriated me? Now,’ said he, talking with perfect temper, ‘I’ve a right to prove myself an honest man to you all, haven’t I? The machinery of proof, by a marvellous ordering of Providence, happens to be on board; I’m a little at a loss how to handle it; advise me, Johnstone.’
I seated myself at this point, and he put his arm round my neck, with a light, sarcastic smile as he looked at the lad.
‘There’s nothing to be done but wring the truth out of the beast,’ said Will.
‘How? As you wring a swab! Advise me, Johnstone.’