At last came the decisive moment of the final call and the show-down, and through the dead silence of the moment sounded the distant sing-song of a sentry:
“Corporal of the guard, number one, relief!”
Over the window sill a tiny green lizard slithered quietly and hesitated, pressing itself flat against the whitewash.
Then the major’s cards came down face upward—and showed a queen-high straight.
“Not quite good enough, major,” announced Comyn brusquely as his breath broke from him with a sort of gasp and he spread out a heart flush.
But Spurrier, who had drawn three cards, echoed the captain’s words: “Not quite good enough.” He laid down two aces and two deuces, which under the cutthroat rule of “deuces wild” he was privileged to call four aces.
Comyn came to his feet and pushed back his chair, 5 but he stood unsteadily. The fever in his bones was playing queer pranks with his brain. He, whose courtesy had always been marked in its punctilio, blazed volcano-fashion into the eruption that had been gathering through these abnormal days and nights.
Yet even now the long habit of decorum held waveringly for a little before its breaking, and he began with a queer strain in his voice:
“You’ll have to take my IOU. I’ve lost more than I can pay on the peg.”
“That’s all right, Comyn,” began the victor, “Pay when——” but before he could finish the other interrupted with a frenzy of anger: