“There is but one more to speak of—­my cousin? my poor friendless cousin?”

“There,” said Doe, “you needn’t be afeard of burning, by no means whatsomever.  We didn’t catch the gal to make a roast of.  She is safe enough; there’s one that will take care of her.”

“And that one is the villain Braxley!  Oh, knave that you are, could you have the heart,—­you who have a daughter of your own, could you have committed her into the arms of such a villain?”

“No, by G——­, I couldn’t!” said Doe, with great earnestness:  “but another man’s daughter is quite another thing.  Howsomever, you needn’t take on for nothing; for he means to marry her and take her safe back to Virginny:  and, you see, I bargained with him agin all rascality; for I had a gal of my own, and I couldn’t think of his playing foul with the poor creatur’.  No, we had an understanding about all that, when we was waiting for you on old Salt.  All Dick wants is jist a wife that will help him to them lands of the old major.  And that, you see, is jist the whole reason of our making the grab on you.”

“You confess it, then!” cried Roland, too much excited by the bitterest of passions to be surprised at the singular communicativeness of his visitor:  “you sold yourself to the villain for gold! for gold you hesitated not to sacrifice the happiness of one victim of his passions, the life of another!  Oh, basest of all that bear the name of man, how could you do this villany?”

“Because,” replied Doe, with as much apparent sincerity as emphasis, “because I am a d—­d rascal:  there’s no sort of doubt about it; and we won’t be tender the way we talk of it.  I was an honest man once, captain, but I am a rascal now; warp and woof, skin-deep and heart-deep, ay, to the bones and marrow,—­I am all the way a rascal!  But don’t look as if you was astonished already.  I come to make a clean breast of all sorts of matters, jist, captain, for a little bit of your advantage and my own:  and there’s things coming that will make you look a leetle of a sight wilder!  And, first and foremost, to begin.  Have you any particular longing to be out of this here Injun town, and well shut of the d—­d fire torture?”

“Have I any desire to be free!  Mad question!”

“Well, captain, I’m jist the man, and the only one, that can help you; for them that would, can’t, and them that can, won’t.  And, secondly and lastly, captain, as the parsons say in the settlements, have you any hankering to be the master of the old major, your uncle’s lands and houses?”

“If you come to mock and torture me,”—­said Roland, but was interrupted by the renegade.

“It is jist to save you from the torture,” said he, “that I’m now speaking; for, cuss me, the more I think of it, the more I can’t stand it no-how.  I’m a rascal, captain, but I’m no tiger-cat, especially to them that hasn’t misused me, and there’s the grit of a man about you that strikes my feelings exactly.  But, you see, captain, there’s a bargain first to be struck between us, afore I comes up to the rack—­but I’ll make tarms easy.”