"Oh, no, since you insist on it," replied the latter, coldly, though he felt his heart contract within him; "but since I have set out to show I can play cards, I'll sell you the present turn up for ten thousand!"
"Don't! Don't do anything of the sort!" interrupted the host, turning pale. "I'll give you fifteen thousand for it myself!"
"Thank you; but now, since an outsider has intervened, I must stick to it myself."
"You are very right," remarked Captain Matasiete, with a scowl and an angry glance at the banker; "for it is the right one."
Gladsden had tossed the card down without looking at it.
"Cinco de Basto!" exclaimed all the lookers-on in the one voice. "Prodigious! What a splendid game!"
"You were right, right along, about your luck—at cards!" observed don Aníbal, with the most genial smile he could beam with. "The Little Joker is yours."
Gladsden had truly won, for there was the requisite card before him. He had been inwardly persuaded when he vaunted so boldly that he was bound to lose, and had only accepted his mortal enemy's challenge out of recklessness. The emotion he experienced in payment of his false glory was so deep for a couple of moments that he was like one stunned, and stared, still, with no possibility to get out a word.
In that brief interval the banker had conferred with the bandit-gambler, and to some purpose, moreover, for the latter loudly set to felicitating the Englishman on his continued good fortune; and, as at the end of his speech don Stefano put before him the corner of a sheet of paper, on which he had hastily written some lines, he went on to say:
"Gaming debts must be settled in four-and-twenty hours. Here is the transfer of my property in the Chilian goleta, the Little Joker, as she floats at this moment, with all she holds, in consideration of the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars, which I hereby acknowledge, before all this honourable company, to have received!"