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Duncan went on coldly. "I looked it up, I got Flaubin before the Governor himself, and the old rascal confessed to sixteen hundred overcharge. Said you 'd stuck him up for it. Twelve hundred went to you, and his share was four hundred and the job. Don't interrupt. I 've got his affidavit below. Then was when I would have put you ashore, except for the cloud you were under. You had to have this one chance or go clean to hell. I gave you the chance. And what have you got to say about it?"

"What did the Governor say?" Captain Dettmar demanded truculently.

"Which governor?"

"Of California. Did he lie to you like all the rest?"

"I 'll tell you what he said. He said that you had been convicted on circumstantial evidence; that that was why you had got life imprisonment instead of hanging; that you had always stoutly maintained your innocence; that you were the black sheep of the Maryland Dettmars; that they moved heaven and earth for your pardon; that your prison conduct was most exemplary; that he was prosecuting attorney at the time you were convicted; that after you had served seven years