Both men were braced and accoutred as if for some immediate business of violence. Into belts drawn about their waists were stuck murderous-looking knives; pistol-butts stood from their skirt-pockets, and each had a flint-lock slung across his shoulders. For the rest they were the suave and the brutal, and a couple of as soulless ruffians as ever fouled the sunlight.
There was to be no more temporizing, it seemed; and the white-haired leader spoke up at once.
“We would ask your decision, Mr. Tuke,” he said.
The gentleman, his eyes blazing contempt, had paused opposite the two, as if he questioned a very daring intrusion.
“What do you want of me?” said he.
“The answer is simple. We demand our own—a ruby that goes by the name of the ‘Lake of Wine.’”
“I have no such ruby in my possession.”
“Tut, sir, tut; the prevarication is unworthy of you. Let us say, then, the skull that contains it.”
“The skull!”
“Mr. Tuke, Mr. Tuke, this will not serve your purpose. We have direct evidence of the truth, sir, and that from more than one source.”