"Aye verily there's your pride, Martin, which is cumbersome cargo."
"Call it what you will, I'll not sail."
"And your oath, comrade? Sail along o' me you must and shall! But having respect for your high-stomached pride you shall stow away in some hole or corner and she never know you're aboard."
Hereupon I scowled, but perceiving him so serene albeit a little grim, I said no more and he fell to pacing slowly back and forth, head bowed and hands locked behind him.
"I need you, Martin," says he at last, "aye, I need you even more than I thought, the one man I may trust to in a pinch. For, Martin, here's that I don't understand."
So saying he halted by the table, and presently taking up the dagger (and with a strange reluctance) fell to twisting it this way and that; finally he gave a sudden twist and the smiling head of the silver woman coming away, showed a hollow cavity, running the length of the haft, roomy and cunningly contrived. Slowly he fitted the head into place again and, laying the weapon down, shook his head:
"Here's Bartlemy's dagger true enough, Martin," says he, touching its keen point. "Here's what found Bartlemy's black heart—aye, and many another! Here's what went hurtling over cliff in Tressady's fist—and yet here it lies—which is great matter for wonder, Martin. And, since 'tis here—why then—where is the vile rogue Tressady? Which is matter for painful speculation, Martin—where?"
"Snoring, likely enough!" says I, "Not so far hence, or tramping hither."
"If so, Martin, then Death cannot touch him, the which is out of all reason!"
"'Tis more like the fall did not kill him, Adam."