At his feet two or three ants were busy with a grasshopper’s leg. Hal smeared them out with a dab of his sole.
“That’s the way to do with people that get in your way,” he muttered. “Just like that!”
He slouched back to the porch. The resemblance to what Captain Briggs had been in the old days seemed wonderfully striking at just this moment. Same hang of heavy shoulders, same set of jaw; scowl quite a simulacrum of the other, and even the dark glowering of the eyes almost what once had been.
As Hal Briggs lithely stepped on to the porch again he formed how wonderful an image of that other man who, half a century ago, had swung the poisoned kris upon the decks of the Silver Fleece, and, smeared with blood, had hewn his way against all opposition to his will!
“Afraid of an old Malay curse!” sneered Hal. “Poor, piffling fool! Why, Filhiol’s loose in the dome, and grandpop’s no better. They’re a couple of children—ought to be shoved into the nursery. And they think they’re going to dictate to me?”
He paused a moment at the front door to listen. No sound from within indicated any danger.
“Think they’re going to keep me in this graveyard burg!” he gibed. “And stop my having that girl! Well, they’ve got another think coming. She’s mine, that young porpoise. She’s mine!”
Into the cabin he made his way, noiselessly, closed the hall door and smiled with exultation.
He needed but a moment to reach the desk, take out the little slip of paper on which the captain had written the combination, and go to the safe.
A few turns of the knob, and the iron door swung wide. Open came the money-compartment. With exultant hands, filled with triumph and evil pride, Hal caught up the sheaf of bills there, quickly counted off five hundred dollars, took a couple more bills for good luck, crammed the money into his pocket, and replaced the pitifully small remnant in the compartment.