"Where's the child?"
"Here. Put the money on the rock to your right."
The man came forward, a raised hand pointing to where the top of a rock showed among the wayside grasses. From the lifted hand, the light struck a silvery gleam, touching the barrel of a revolver. Ferguson, without moving said:
"I must see her first."
He thought he detected a moment's hesitation, then the man stepped back to the car and called a gruff:
"All right—quick—look."
He swung the coupé door open and from an electric torch in his left hand sent a ray into the interior. The white shaft pierced the murk like a pointing finger. Its circular end, a spot of livid brightness, played on Bébita curled on the floor asleep. Ferguson saw her as if cut from an encompassing blackness, transparently clear like a picture suspended in a void. Then the ray was extinguished, and as he stood, blinking against the obscurity, heard the man's voice, "The money—on the rock there," and caught the gleam of the revolver barrel level with his eyes.
He walked to the rock and laid the money, in an envelope clasped with rubber bands, on its flat surface. The whole thing seemed to him like a cheap melodrama and he could have laughed as he righted himself and saw the round, shining end of the revolver covering him, and the silent figure behind it.
"Come on," he said, "get to the rest. You tie me—where?"
"The oak—behind you."