"Not yet—but I will, sir," Snell hastily answered. "All I want is to know that you will pay me as you agreed. Don't hold onto my arm so tight; I won't run away."
"Bah!" cried the man in black, as he half-flung Wat from him. "What beastly luck!"
"It is bad luck," confessed Snell, falteringly. "But it isn't my fault. I have done my best."
The man in black said nothing, but stood with his head bowed, the elbow of his right arm resting in the hollow of his left hand, while his right hand, fiercely clinched, supported his chin. The wind continued to flap the cape about his shoulders.
The man's attitude and his silence gave Snell a feeling of fear, and he drew away, acting as if he contemplated taking to his heels, for all that he had said he would not run.
"I do not propose to endure much more of this," muttered the man, at length. "I'll have that ring soon, by some means!"
"You must consider it very valuable," said Wat, curiously.
"Valuable!" came hoarsely from the lips of the man in black. "I should say so! If it were not, I shouldn't be making such a desperate struggle to get possession of it."
The lad who was listening a short distance away, strained his ears to catch every word.
"There must be some secret about the ring?" insinuated Snell. "The gold in it amounts to little, and the old black stone——"