“Come,” said Hare sternly, “I have put up with quite enough of your nonsense.”

“I’m treating you on the square.”

“Where are those diamonds?”

Frank’s blue eyes flashed angrily.

“Again I tell you I have no diamonds,” said Blair, “but if you give me freedom, I can tell you something that will interest you, or I am mistaken.”

“What is it?”

“Mind you, I only accidentally learned this thing.”

“Speak out.”

“I can tell you,” said Bull, with a sneaking smile, “who inflicted Monte Murphy’s death-wound.”

The villain’s promise to Quick did not weigh as a feather with him. Blair would willingly sacrifice Mike, or any one else, for that matter, to achieve his own ends. Better, he argued, that the dive-keeper should be hanged than he should end his days within prison walls. The brute was thoroughly selfish to the last degree.