“Ben, you will do it to-night—then?” Dupont said. “Sacre, it is time!”
“Do what?” rejoined the other heavily.
An angry light leapt into Dupont’s eyes. “You not unnerstan’ my letters-bah! You know it all right, so queeck.”
The other remained silent, staring into the fire with wide, searching eyes.
Dupont put a hand on him. “You ketch my idee queeck. We mus’ have more money from that Henderley—certainlee. It is ten years, and he t’ink it is all right. He t’ink we come no more becos’ he give five t’ousan’ dollars to us each. That was to do the t’ing, to fire the country. Now we want another ten t’ousan’ to us each, to forget we do it for him—hein?”
Still there was no reply. Dupont went on, watching the other furtively, for he did not like this silence. But he would not resent it till he was sure there was good cause.
“It comes to suit us. He is over there at the Old Man Lak’, where you can get at him easy, not like in the city where he lif’. Over in the States, he laugh mebbe, becos’ he is at home, an’ can buy off the law. But here—it is Canadaw, an’ they not care eef he have hunder’ meellion dollar. He know that—sure. Eef you say you not care a dam to go to jail, so you can put him there, too, becos’ you have not’ing, an’ so dam seeck of everyt’ing, he will t’ink ten t’ousan’ dollar same as one cent to Nic Dupont—ben sur!”
Lygon nodded his head, still holding his hands to the blaze. With ten thousand dollars he could get away into—into another world somewhere, some world where he could forget; as he forgot for a moment this afternoon when the girl said to him, “It is never too late to mend.”
Now as he thought of her, he pulled his coat together, and arranged the rough scarf at his neck involuntarily. Ten thousand dollars—but ten thousand dollars by blackmail, hush-money, the reward of fire, and blood, and shame! Was it to go on? Was he to commit a new crime?
He stirred, as though to shake off the net that he felt twisting round him, in the hands of the robust and powerful Dupont, on whom crime sat so lightly, who had flourished while he, Lygon, had gone lower and lower. Ten years ago he had been the better man, had taken the lead, was the master, Dupont the obedient confederate, the tool. Now, Dupont, once the rough river-driver, grown prosperous in a large way for him—who might yet be mayor of his town in Quebec—he held the rod of rule. Lygon was conscious that the fifty dollars sent him every New Year for five years by Dupont had been sent with a purpose, and that he was now Dupont’s tool. Debilitated, demoralised, how could he, even if he wished, struggle against this powerful confederate, as powerful in will as in body? Yet if he had his own way he would not go to Henderley. He had lived with “a familiar spirit” so long, he feared the issue of this next excursion into the fens of crime.