“Hadn’t you better come closer?” asked the young man. “You might miss at that distance, or just wound me.”
Yellow Franz grinned.
“I don’t miss,” he said, and then: “You’re certainly a game one. If it wasn’t for the hundred thousand marks, I’d be hanged if I’d kill you.”
“The chances are that you will be if you do,” said Barney, “so wouldn’t you rather take one hundred and fifty thousand marks and let me make my escape?”
Yellow Franz looked at the speaker a moment through narrowed lids.
“Where would you find any one willing to pay that amount for a crazy king?” he asked.
“I have told you that I am not the king,” said Barney. “I am an American with a father who would gladly pay that amount on my safe delivery to any American consul.”
Yellow Franz shook his head and tapped his brow significantly.
“Even if you was what you are dreaming, it wouldn’t pay me,” he said.
“I’ll make it two hundred thousand,” said Barney.