"Well leave them here," said Wolfgang; "what's the use of dragging them about any further? Either we will pronounce judgment upon them ourselves to-morrow, which, at all events would be the shorter course, or we will take them, bound, in the boat, to Memphis, so that they may be punished there."
"That will certainly be best," said Pastor Hehrmann, "for, may Heaven preserve us from executing the law ourselves, as I have heard is sometimes practised here in America! We will not dye our hands in human blood."
"Am I dreaming?" said Helldorf, who had stopped to listen as soon as he heard Wolfgang's voice, advancing towards the latter, and availing himself of the uncertain light of the moon. "Isn't that--by all that's wonderful!--Wolfgang!"
"Helldorf!" the other exclaimed, embracing his friend, and pressing him to his breast--"Helldorf, God bless you, my dear fellow--Helldorf!" and with that word, the name of a man with whom he had in past times shared joy and sorrow--the remembrance came upon him suddenly of all that he had lost, of all that he had suffered, and he cast himself in dumb and scarce bearable agony on the shoulder of his friend.
"Friends! I have a hundred dollars in gold upon me," Dr. Normann now suddenly whispered to the two men who kept watch over him; "they are yours if you will cut through the cord, and turn away your head for a moment."
"Hit him over the head, Hans, if he opens his mouth again," said Schmidt, growling a hearty curse to himself into the bargain. "Does the blackguard think to bribe us, too? Wait, you dog!"
Under any other circumstances it is probable that Normann would have been deterred by this not over-encouraging answer, but the sound of the voices of the two men, Wolfgang and Helldorf, filled his soul with horror, and he dreaded the worst.
"I have five hundred dollars with me," he whispered again, as he endeavoured to raise himself; "my men, I'll make you rich, only loosen my bands, and give me a minute's start. _Five hundred_ dollars, I say, do you hear?--five hundred dollars!"
"Shall I give him a tap?" asked the Alsatian, and raised the heavy iron-shod stick, which in starting he had seized in haste as the most convenient weapon of offence and defence.