cured."

"Do not speak of mine; think solely of your fortunes, and say if this
alone can save them."

"Just as firmly do I say, then, that once in the position I mean, you
can rescue me out of every peril. You will be rich enough to pay some,
powerful enough to promote others, great enough to sway and influence
all."

"Good God! what have you done, then, that it is only by sacrificing all
my hopes of happiness that you can be ransomed?" cried she, with a burst
of irrepressible passion.

"You want a confession, then," said Davis, in a tone of most savage
energy; "you 'd like to hear my own indictment of myself. Well, there
are plenty of counts in it."

"Stand forward, Kit Davis. You are charged with various acts of swindling
and cheating,--light offences, all of them,--committed in the best of
company, and in concert with honorable and even noble colleagues. By the
virtue of your oath, Captain Davis, how many horses have you poisoned,
how many jockeys have you drugged, what number of men have you hocussed
at play, what sums have you won from others in a state of utter
insensibility? Can you state any case where you enforced a false
demand by intimidation? Can you charge your memory with any instance of
shooting a man who accused you of foul play? What names besides your own
have you been in the habit of signing to bills? Have you any revelations
to make about stock transferred under forgery? Will you kiss the
book, and say that nineteen out of twenty at the hulks have not done a
fiftieth part of what you have done? Will you solemnly take oath that
there are not ten, fifteen, twenty charges, which might be prosecuted
against you, to transportation for life? and are there not two--or,
certainly, is there not one--with a heavier forfeiture on it? Are there
not descriptions of you in almost every police bureau in Europe, and
photographic likenesses, too, on frontier passport-offices of little
German States, that Hesse and Cassel and Coburgh should not be ravaged
by the wolf called Grog Davis?"

"And if this be so, to what end do I sacrifice myself?" cried she, in
bitter anguish. "Were it not better to seek out some far-away land where
we cannot be traced? Let us go to America, to Australia,--I don't care
how remote it be,--the country that will shelter us--"

"Not a step. I'll not budge out of Europe; win or lose, here I stay! Do
as I tell you, girl, and the game is our own. It has been my safety this
many a year th