Young Hartly if his thoughts were in the same channel as those of the watcher, didn't appear very much troubled about the matter, for he perched himself upon the table, while the six jurors sat in a semicircle facing him, and the captain a little to one side. "Well, sir, what have you to say, Hartly, in regard to this suspicion which has arisen against you--that you are a traitor to our cause?" "Nothing, sir, except that whoever started the suspicion, is a liar and a coward!" was the retort. "Then, you deny that you have ever betrayed the existence of this band, outside of its own membership?" "I do most emphatically. What assurance have you, that any one has betrayed you?" "Is it not ample proof, when strange men haunt this vicinity, and haunt the members to their very doors? These law-sharks, or detectives, only wait for some disclosure, to spring their traps on me and my faithful followers." "I am not to blame. Though forced into service against my will, and made to swear the oath of allegiance, rather than lose my life, I have kept such secrets as came into my possession. I believe I know who has excited the suspicious feeling against me." "Well, sir, who?" "Your rascally son, for one--your jealous daughter, for another," Hartly replied, shrugging his shoulders with a contemptuous laugh. "How dare you term my son rascally, sir, and accuse my child of jealousy?" "Because the boy is as unprincipled a villain as yourself, and as for your daughter, when she found that I did not court her favor, she at once turned against me. I despise both your son and your daughter, Captain Gregg, and that is all I have to say, except that I am not guilty of the charge preferred against me." "That remains to be told by the jury. You see the head of Bill Budge, just above you, Hartly? He was caught in an intended act of treachery, and you see his end. If Bill could speak, he'd tell you that the fate of the traitor is hard." "You're a cussed liar!" Budge's suspended remnant seemed to say, in a deep, hoarse voice. The captain and the jury uttered each a startled oath, and gazed at the offending head in astonishment. "Who called me a liar?" Gregg demanded, fiercely. "By the gods, I thought it was Budge's lips that uttered those words." "So it was!" the head seemed to say; then there was a gurgling sort of laugh, and the head shook, perceptibly. "Ten thousand furies!" Gregg yelled, and hastily wrenching open the door, he made a hasty exit from the room, followed by the jurors--nor did they stop, short of the bottom of the stairs. Hartly did not leave the room, but dismounting from his perch upon the table, walked off a few paces to where he could get a good look at Budge's unfortunate pate. "Something deuced funny, here, I'm blowed if there ain't!" he soliloquized, apparently quite composed. "It's the first time I have ever heard dead men talk. I say, Budge, how's the temperature up your way?"