Sevier turned to his boat, hesitated, and then came back.
“Will you give us a share of the stuff? Say fifty thousand—twenty thousand?”
“Not a hundred. Not one cent.”
“Look here!” cried Sevier, with sudden passion. “Don’t you drive a desperate man too far. I won’t try to bluff you. Our men won’t fight any more, I’ll admit; they’re a lot of dogs. And Carlton’s dead—”
“Carlton killed?” exclaimed Henninger, taken by surprise.
“He was shot last night on the bridge, just before she went ashore. He died in an hour. It don’t matter; he was never more than a brute. But we can float the steamer in a day or two and make Zanzibar easy, and I’m ruined, clean, stony broke, and there isn’t anything that I’ll stick at. I’ll inform the British resident there, and you’ll be arrested at the first port you touch. You’ll find the Crown’ll claim that gold pretty quick.”
“You daren’t do it,” said Henninger, coolly. “You’ve got a record yourself, and you’ve tried to commit piracy.”
“I don’t care. For that matter, I can just as easy prove piracy against you. I’ll see your crowd done up anyhow, and I’d as soon be jailed as broke.”
Henninger appeared to reflect, and took a turn up and down the deck. “I’ll tell you,” he said, finally. “There are two chests of about seventy or eighty thousand dollars apiece still in the after-hold of the wreck. We’ve got all the rest, and they were the ones I meant to give you when I made our first offer. We’ll leave them for you, after all, and that’ll stake you again.”
“I’d never get a cent of it,” answered Sevier, sullenly. “We’ve got a rough crew aboard, and they’re out of all control.”