The strong excitement under which the young sailor laboured, afforded Beauchamp every means of drawing from him the whole details of the murder, and the events that followed; and he found that the crime at least, as far as robbery went, had been concerted long before it was perpetrated. The moment for executing their plan, had always been postponed by Harding himself, who had assured his accomplices, that a large sum of money, which he knew was to be paid into the miser's hands, had not yet been received; and Beauchamp easily divined that the murderer had alluded to the sum he himself had drawn for, through the instrumentality of the unhappy money-lender. So completely organized had been the whole design, that a French cutter, engaged by young Harrison, had actually lain upon the coast for several days, in order to carry the three culprits to Havre, whence they were instantly to embark for America. The master of the vessel, however, tired of waiting, had at length left the coast on the very night that the murder was committed; and the only means of escape that the four accomplices found, when they reached the beach, was the boat which the young sailor had provided with money furnished by Harding, for the purpose of conveying them from the shore to the ship, without the necessity of making signals, which might have betrayed them. The woman had, indeed, nearly brought the coast guard upon them, by accidentally falling into the sea as they embarked, and screaming for help; but nevertheless, they got her into the boat, and pushed off before any one came up. On their arrival in France, the young man added, they had taken, under Harding's direction, those measures of precaution which had baffled Beauchamp and the officers in their pursuit, and had at length arrived in Paris, where he, who might be considered as their leader, had boasted that he could lie concealed if all the police of France and England were set upon his track. Here he proposed to sell a variety of different articles of jewellery and plate, which he and his companion had contrived to bring with them, and then to take ship for the land of Columbus, as they originally had proposed. Harding, the young sailor said, had soon lost all appearance of that remorse which he had felt at first; but he described him at the same time as living in a state of reckless debauchery and excitement, from which Beauchamp argued that the never-dying worm was still tremendously alive within his bosom. He drank deep, Walter Harrison added, without getting drunk. The woman whom he had brought with him, and had before seduced, he treated with contempt and cruelty. He gamed also continually, in the lower and more brutal resorts of Parisian blacklegs and madmen; and, gratifying every passion to excess, it was evident that he was striving to drown the voice of remorse in a tide of gross and eager licentiousness.