Sellon started. Well he might. There was a look upon the other’s face which he had never seen there before. Accustomed as he was to trade upon his friend’s good nature, he could hardly believe him in earnest now. He had felt a real liking for Renshaw, sincere, but dashed with a touch of superiority. A fine fellow in many ways, but soft in others, had been his verdict. And now this man was actually dictating terms to him. Even then, however, some faint stirrings of his better impulses moved Sellon, but greed of gain, selfishness, self-importance, came uppermost.
“I’m not the sort of man to be bullied into anything,” he answered.
They stood there facing each other—there on the brink of that marvellous treasure house—on the brink, too, of a deadly quarrel over the riches which it had yielded them. To the generous mind of one there was something infinitely repulsive—degrading—in the idea of quarrelling over this question of gain. But in this instance it was to him a question of self-respect, and therefore of principle. How was it going to end?
They stood there facing each other; the countenance of one set and determined, that of the other sullen, defiant, dogged. How was it going to end?
Suddenly an ejaculation escaped Sellon, and the expression of his face changed to one of vivid alarm.
“Oh, good God!” he cried. “Here they come! Look! look!” and, turning at the same time, he started off up the hill towards where the horses were standing, fortunately ready saddled.
Renshaw, suspecting a new trick, sent a quick glance backward over his shoulder. But the other had spoken truly.
Swarming over the opposite brow of the mountain, came a crowd of uncouth shapes. Baboons? No.
Ape-like, it was true, but—human.