He spoke with such earnestness that he showed his meaning at once. “Why not say it plump out, Jack?” I asked with a smile.
“Confound you, don’t you understand? That part of the affair will need a longer head than mine to manage.”
“What I do understand is that you don’t agree with me about there being no danger for the prisoner on the Rampallo and that you want to be the prisoner instead of me. Don’t you think it’s like your infernal conceit to want to cast yourself for the star part?”
“Oh, come off,” he growled. “There’s no earthly good in your keeping the star part for yourself.”
“Didn’t you give me the cheering opinion that I should find a bullet in my head when they discovered me?”
“I’m serious, Ralph.”
“Well then, answer me this. If I’m right and there is no danger, I run no risk. And if you’re right and there is danger, why should I shove you into it instead of myself?”
“Fifty reasons. If anything happened to you the whole thing would be spoilt.”
“Not a bit of it. We should still have wrecked this little revolutionary move and you could carry out the rest of the plan with the much stronger card that these beggars would have to answer for what they might have done to me.”
“Yes, but hang it all, man, there’s—there’s the girl,” he said, hesitatingly and almost nervously.