“Ah!” he sighed softly, as if convinced at last; “it is real, and not a dream.”
Tregelly turned his back, began to whistle softly an old tune in a minor key, and drew the coffee, the bacon pan, and the bread a little farther away.
“Ahoy there, my sons!” he cried cheerily; “breakfast! Fellows must eat even if they are millionaires.”
It was too much for Dallas, before whose eyes was rising, not the gold, for he seemed to be looking right through that, but the wistful, deeply-lined face of a grey-haired woman at a window, watching ever for the lost ones’ return.
At Tregelly’s words he burst into a strangely harsh, hysterical laugh, and then, too, he sank upon his knees and buried his face in his hands, remaining there motionless till a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and he started to find it was Abel who was gazing in his eyes.
“Dal,” he cried, in a voice that did not sound like his own, “we shall pay the old uncle now.”
At that moment the dismal tune Tregelly was whistling came to an end, and they saw that he was sitting with his back to them, looking straight away.
They stepped quickly to his side, and he started up to hold a hand to each.
“To win or to die, didn’t you say, my sons?” he cried cheerily.
“Yes, something like that,” replied Dallas huskily.