“And now,” said Mr. Crewe to himself, as the departing figure of the goldsmith disappeared, “we will go and see the result of our little bet; we will see whether we have lost or gained the sum of five pounds.”
The old man, taking his stick firmly in his hand, stumped down the passage to the door of the room where the gamblers played, and, as he turned the handle, he was greeted with a torrent of shouts, high words, and the noise of a falling table.
There, on the floor, lay gold and bank notes, scattered in every direction amid broken chairs, playing cards, and struggling men.
Mr. Crewe paused on the threshold. In the whirl and dust of the tumult he could discern the digger’s wilderness of hair, the bulky form of Garsett, and the thin American, in a tangled, writhing mass. His friend Cathro was looking on with open mouth and trembling hands, ineffectual, inactive. But Scarlett, making a sudden rush into the melee, seized the lucky digger, and dragged him, infuriated, struggling, swearing, from the unwieldy Garsett, on whose throat his grimy fingers were tightly fixed.
“Well, well,” exclaimed Mr. Crewe. “Landlord! landlord! Scarlett, be careful—you’ll strangle that man!”
Scarlett pinioned the digger’s arms from behind, and rendered him harmless; Garsett sat on the floor fingering his throat, and gasping; while Lichfield lay unconscious, with his head under the broken table.
“Fair play!” shouted the digger. “I’ve bin robbed. Le’me get at him. I’ll break his blanky neck. Cheat a gen’leman at cards, will you? Le’me get at him. Le’go, I tell yer—who’s quarrelling with you?” But he struggled in vain, for Scarlett’s hold on him was tighter than a vice’s.
“Stand quiet, man,” he expostulated. “There was no cheating.”
“The fat bloke fudged a card. I was pickin’ up a quid from the floor—he fudged a card. Le’go o’ me, an’ I’ll fight you fair.”
“Stand quiet, I tell you, or you’ll be handed over to the police.”