CHAPTER XXXVII
Sartoris sat a huddled heap on the floor, with his white snarling face looking out like the head of an angry snake. He was not in the least afraid, and yet the expression of his eyes told that he knew everything was over. As he struggled painfully to his feet, Mary ran forward and guided him to a chair. He did not thank her by so much as a gesture. All the care and tenderness was wasted upon that warped nature.
"If I were not a cripple," he snarled, "this would never have happened. And yet a cursed bag of aching bones has got the better of you all, ay, and would have kept the better, too, if I could only have moved about like the rest. But you are not going to get me to say anything if I sit here all night."
It was a strange scene, altogether,—Sartoris a huddled heap, cursing and snarling in his chair, the man Reggie and the woman Cora standing by, with uneasy grins on their faces, trying to carry it off in a spirit of false bravado. To the right of them stood Bentwood, now quite sober and shaking, and Richford sullen and despairing. Beatrice was in the shadow behind Mark Ventmore. Mary moved forward, followed by Berrington.
"What is the charge?" the man Reggie asked. "What have we done?"
Field shrugged his shoulders. Really the question
did not deserve a reply. Sartoris took up the same line in his snarling voice.
"That's what we want to know," he said. "What is the charge? If you have a warrant, read it aloud. We have every right to know."
"I have a warrant so far as you are concerned," Field replied. "For the present, you are charged with forgery and uttering a certain document, purporting to be an assignment of mining interests in Burmah from Sir Charles Darryll to yourself. The document is in my pocket, and I can produce it for your inspection, if you like. I need not tell you that there will be other charges later on, but these will suffice for the present."
"That does not touch us, at all," the woman Cora said.