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.