"So I see. But I'm asking—did you take it away from those two cutthroats alone, without any help?"
"I did. And now I've come to talk business. It's a good proposition, Bendemeer."
The tall, grim white man studied him with a narrow regard glinting like a probe and equally cool, detached, and impersonal. He had the air of a surgeon who approaches a clinical experiment. "I'm inclined to think it may be," he decided. "Yes—a sporting risk; though I'm certain enough of the result, Peabody, mind that. I believe I might make a bit of a gamble with myself, just to see that I'm right. Come now—what do you want?"
"A thousand silver," said Junius.
"I haven't so much about me. Suppose we say a standing credit for a thousand drinks instead."
Junius stiffened against the bar.
"It amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?" continued Bendemeer: "Why should you trouble about dollars—mere tokens? You can't get away from Fufuti. The Jane out there, she's due to sail this morning on a round of my plantations. She's the only ship clearing for a month at least.... By the time you'd drunk yourself to death I'd simply have the money back again."
Peabody stared, and a streak of crimson leaped into his cheek as if a whiplash had been laid across it.
"Damn you—!" he cried shakily. "Give me that brandy—I'll pay for it. Here's the stuff. It's mine. I went after it and I got it. I earned it myself, and fairly!"