As soon as the quartermaster was brought into the presence of Lord Glenarvan, his keepers withdrew.

“You wanted to speak to me, Ayrton?” said Glenarvan.

“Yes, my Lord,” replied the quartermaster.

“Did you wish for a private interview?”

“Yes, but I think if Major McNabbs and Mr. Paganel were present it would be better.”

“For whom?”

“For myself.”

Ayrton spoke quite calmly and firmly. Glenarvan looked at him for an instant, and then sent to summon McNabbs and Paganel, who came at once.

“We are all ready to listen to you,” said Glenarvan, when his two friends had taken their place at the saloon table.

Ayrton collected himself, for an instant, and then said:

“My Lord, it is usual for witnesses to be present at every contract or transaction between two parties. That is why I desire the presence of Messrs. Paganel and McNabbs, for it is, properly speaking, a bargain which I propose to make.”

Glenarvan, accustomed to Ayrton’s ways, exhibited no surprise, though any bargaining between this man and himself seemed strange.

“What is the bargain?” he said.

“This,” replied Ayrton. “You wish to obtain from me certain facts which may be useful to you. I wish to obtain from you certain advantages which would be valuable to me. It is giving for giving, my Lord. Do you agree to this or not?”

“What are the facts?” asked Paganel eagerly.

“No,” said Glenarvan. “What are the advantages?”

Ayrton bowed in token that he understood Glenarvan’s distinction.

“These,” he said, “are the advantages I ask. It is still your intention, I suppose, to deliver me up to the English authorities?”

“Yes, Ayrton, it is only justice.”

“I don’t say it is not,” replied the quartermaster quietly. “Then of course you would never consent to set me at liberty.”

Glenarvan hesitated before replying to a question so plainly put. On the answer he gave, perhaps the fate of Harry Grant might depend!

However, a feeling of duty toward human justice compelled him to say:

“No, Ayrton, I cannot set you at liberty.”

“I do not ask it,” said the quartermaster proudly.

“Then, what is it you want?”

“A middle place, my Lord, between the gibbet that awaits me and the liberty which you cannot grant me.”

“And that is —”

“To allow me to be left on one of the uninhabited islands of the Pacific, with such things as are absolute necessaries. I will manage as best I can, and will repent if I have time.”

Glenarvan, quite unprepared for such a proposal, looked at his two friends in silence. But after a brief reflection, he replied:

“Ayrton, if I agree to your request, you will tell me all I have an interest in knowing.”

“Yes, my Lord, that is to say, all I know about Captain Grant and the Britannia.”

“The whole truth?”

“The whole.”

“But what guarantee have I?”

“Oh, I see what you are uneasy about. You need a guarantee for me, for the truth of a criminal. That’s natural. But what can you have under the circumstances. There is no help for it, you must either take my offer or leave it.”

“I will trust to you, Ayrton,” said Glenarvan, simply.

“And you do right, my Lord. Besides, if I deceive you, vengeance is in your own power.”

“How?”

“You can come and take me again from where you left me, as I shall have no means of getting away from the island.”

Ayrton had an answer for everything. He anticipated the difficulties and furnished unanswerable arguments against himself. It was evident he intended to affect perfect good faith in the business. It was impossible to show more complete confidence. And yet he was prepared to go still further in disinterestedness.

“My Lord and gentlemen,” he added, “I wish to convince you of the fact that I am playing cards on the table. I have no wish to deceive you, and I am going to give you a fresh proof of my sincerity in this matter. I deal frankly with you, because I reckon on your honor.”

“Speak, Ayrton,” said Glenarvan.

“My Lord, I have not your promise yet to accede to my proposal, and yet I do not scruple to tell you that I know very little about Harry Grant.”

“Very little,” exclaimed Glenarvan.

“Yes, my Lord, the details I am in a position to give you relate to myself. They are entirely personal, and will not do much to help you to recover the lost traces of Captain Grant.”

Keen disappointment was depicted on the faces of Glenarvan and the Major. They thought the quartermaster in the possession of an important secret, and he declared that his communications would be very nearly barren. Paganel’s countenance remained unmoved.

Somehow or other, this avowal of Ayrton, and surrender of himself, so to speak, unconditionally, singularly touched his auditors, especially when the quartermaster added:

“So I tell you beforehand, the bargain will be more to my profit than yours.”

“It does not signify,” replied Glenarvan. “I accept your proposal, Ayrton. I give you my word to land you on one of the islands of the Pacific Ocean.”

“All right, my Lord,” replied the quartermaster.

Was this strange man glad of this decision? One might have doubted it, for his impassive countenance betokened no emotion whatever. It seemed as if he were acting for someone else rather than himself.

“I am ready to answer,” he said.

“We have no questions to put to you,” said Glenarvan. “Tell us all you know, Ayrton, and begin by declaring who you are.”

“Gentlemen,” replied Ayrton, “I am really Tom Ayrton, the quartermaster of the Britannia. I left Glasgow on Harry Grant’s ship on the 12th of March, 1861. For fourteen months I cruised with him in the Pacific in search of an advantageous spot for founding a Scotch colony. Harry Grant was the man to carry out grand projects, but serious disputes often arose between us. His temper and mine could not agree. I cannot bend, and with Harry Grant, when once his resolution is taken, any resistance is impossible, my Lord. He has an iron will both for himself and others.

“But in spite of that, I dared to rebel, and I tried to get the crew to join me, and to take possession of the vessel. Whether I was to blame or not is of no consequence. Be that as it may, Harry Grant had no scruples, and on the 8th of April, 1862, he left me behind on the west coast of Australia.”

“Of Australia!” said the Major, interrupting Ayrton in his narrative. “Then of course you had quitted the Britannia before she touched at Callao, which was her last date?”

“Yes,” replied the quartermaster, “for the Britannia did not touch there while I was on board. And how I came to speak of Callao at Paddy O’Moore’s farm was that I learned the circumstances from your recital.”

“Go on, Ayrton,” said Glenarvan.

“I found myself abandoned on a nearly desert coast, but only forty miles from the penal settlement at Perth, the capital of Western Australia. As I was wandering there along the shore, I met a band of convicts who had just escaped, and I joined myself to them. You will dispense, my Lord, with any account of my life for two years and a half. This much, however, I must tell you, that I became the leader of the gang, under the name of Ben Joyce. In September, 1864, I introduced myself at the Irish farm, where I engaged myself as a servant in my real name, Ayrton. I waited there till I should get some chance of seizing a ship. This was my one idea. Two months afterward the Duncan arrived. During your visit to the farm you related Captain Grant’s history, and I learned then facts of which I was not previously aware — that the Britannia had touched at Callao, and that her latest news was dated June, 1862, two months after my disembarkation, and also about the document and the loss of the ship somewhere along the 37th parallel; and, lastly, the strong reasons you had for supposing Harry Grant was on the Australian continent. Without the least hesitation I determined to appropriate the Duncan, a matchless vessel, able to outdistance the swiftest ships in the British Navy. But serious injuries had to be repaired. I therefore let it go to Melbourne, and joined myself to you in my true character as quartermaster, offering to guide you to the scene of the shipwreck, fictitiously placed by me on the east coast of Australia. It was in this way, followed or sometimes preceded by my gang of convicts, I directed your expedition toward the province of Victoria. My men committed a bootless crime at Camden Bridge; since the Duncan, if brought to the coast, could not escape me, and with the yacht once mine, I was master of the ............