“You don’t rest content with your share. I grant you one devil, and you spawn out a dozen. As there’s hell smouldering for us all, I believe there was truth in the fellow’s story of your double-dealing with him.”
Brander rose to his feet.
“Mr. Bloody Jack Fern,” he said, “I’ll wish you good-bye and a happy release from your difficulties. I waive all claim to a share in the profits of this undertaking as conducted by you.”
“Sit down, man, sit down—by God, sit down! I believe you’ve the right honour, and I apologize. ’Twas a test, and the devil fly away with it! I don’t understand your methods. To me we’re as little advanced as two days back, and I begin to scent failure.”
“Of course. You’ve a crimson standard of measurement in such affairs. A murder or two would set you clucking like a hen.”
“The thaw, man, the thaw. Should it come, as that fribble hinted, before——”
“And where should we be the better then, for staining our hands? I play for our necks, Jack Fern. From the first I’ve founded our claim on the unlawful detention of the stone. But you want the leadership—you want the leadership and that means the credit for all. And you shall have it, by thunder, and set that fat head of yours, with the brains drawn out o’t, against a miry problem you shall sink in for all your frog’s croaking.”
Mr. Fern came slowly to his feet.
“Not empty enough,” he said, in an indrawn voice—“not empty enough, Ebenezer Brander, to misread the little game you’re contriving. Oh, I see through it, my friend! You’ll carry your brains to the enemy’s camp, will you, and——”
He choked with his rage. In a moment he had snapped out his knife and sprung round the table. The other was prepared for him in the same instant. They set at one another bent-headed, like a couple of game-cocks seeking to strike. Here promised an end of the pretty conspiracy; but the devil cares for his own. On the tick of combat the door was thrown open and one of the gang stood gaping in the entrance.