"I tell you, sir, I had nothing to do with it," cried the young man. "If I had been present, they should not have hurt a hair of his head--They knew that well enough, and therefore they left me below to keep watch. As to the robbery, that I did consent to; and that was bad enough too--but then, that Harding had the tongue of the devil himself, to persuade one. He got round me when I was ill--He taught me to believe that all riches ought to be in common, and that no man should be wealthy, while another man was poor; and then he told me, that to take the money which the old miser made no use of, and left rotting in his chests, could be no harm--and then he harped upon my mother's poverty and misery, and made things ten times worse than they were; so at length I consented, on condition that he would promise not to hurt the old man. Well, even then, when he came down all bloody, and I saw too well that they had killed him, I do think that I should have either shot him for deceiving me, or should have gone and given him up, as he deserved; but I saw that he felt what he had done himself, and there was something so awful about him just at that moment, that I do not well know why or how, but he got the mastery of me, and I did what he liked, till it came to killing you, which the woman wanted us to do, as you lay stunned at the door. Then my spirit got up again, and I was master of them all till we came over here. But now he has forgotten all that he seemed to feel then--that Harding I mean--and he talks about it quietly, and sneers and laughs, and looks coolly at me, while he is speaking of things that would make one's blood run cold--and he persuades himself that it is all right."