Barclay crumpled up like a man hit in the stomach by a soft-nosed bullet, and the faded pink in his cheeks turned to a sickly copper yellow.
"Don't!" he gasped. "For God's sake, don't do that, Van Dyck! She may go—I'll make her go. I—I'm a sick man, I tell you, and you're trying to kill me! Go away and let me alone!"
Van Dyck came out of the palm clump where Barclay's hammock was swung—and found me eavesdropping.
"That was a piker's trick—listening in on me, Dick," he remonstrated half-impatiently. But, after all, I think he was glad he had a witness to Barclay's promise.
As may be imagined, Madeleine got her freedom, or some measure of it, immediately. It was Alicia Van Tromp who told me that a miracle had been wrought.
"I think Mr. Holly Barclay must be near his end," she said, with fine scorn. "He is insisting that Madeleine go for a walk. Wouldn't that shock you?"
When Madeleine made her appearance, I looked to see Bonteck monopolize her, as he had earned the right to do; but what he did was to thrust me into the breach.
"You heard what I said to Holly Barclay and you know why I said it," was the way he put it up to me. "Madeleine hasn't been out of shouting distance of her father's hammock half a dozen times since the night we were marooned. Trot her all around the shop and make her think of something different. I'll square things for you with Conetta."
"You are about three years too late to square me with Conetta," I said sourly. "Have you anything else up your sleeve?"
"Several things; but I'm not going to show them to you just now. Be a good sport and help me out. I'd do as much for you, any day; in fact, I've done a good bit more as it is, if you only knew it. Here she comes; don't let Ingerson get in ahead of you. Take her around the south beach and come back the other way. Jump for it, you crabbed old woman-hater! It isn't every day in the week that you have such a privilege jammed down your throat."