I pictured him on the deck of his tempest-tossed galley against a strange and savage coast, standing among the hard-lipped sailors, with the woman at his side, facing death as one of that breed would know how to face it; but defiant, clinging to life and to love with grim tenacity, with a tremendous will to survive. He would be hard to kill—such a man—elemental; desperately resentful of the mischance. And I thought I could almost fix the image of him; and he was big-bodied, full-blooded, with arching great chest and tangled hair and fierce Saxon blue eyes.
The carro drew up with a sudden jolt; the curtains parted on a dazzling flood of light.
"Would the gentlemen kindly to step down?"
The gentlemen would, both somewhat surprised at having reached the hotel so soon, but rather more surprised the next moment at finding that this was not the hotel at all....
We were in an open, wind-blown street on the water front, where the rain and salt spray drove in our faces and the few lamps showed neither house nor garden. Beside the sea wall lay an automobile; we could hear the churn of its engine, and its headlight split the dark in a sharp wedge and threw a bright zone against the high stone embankment across the road. Midway, and just before us, stood the one who welcomed us so suavely.
It was the roulette banker, he of the spade-cut beard and the superior clothes. He was still superior, in a topper that shone like varnish and a long cape tucked most jauntily over one arm. And he smiled and smiled, like a villain downstage with the spot full upon him.
"Now w'ere," he inquired—"w'ere are that damn doubloon?"
He was effective—the sartorial rogue; and doubtless he knew it. He stroked his beard and thrust his hand to his hip; and behind him on the embankment his huge shadow moved alike, as if some monstrous power there was pulling puppet strings upon him.
"Gentlemen, you been kidnap'," he was good enough to explain. "We are sorry; but it was of a necessitate. If you got away with that gol' piece you are—'ow you say?—leaving us dished up. Therefore"—he waved a ringed hand—"therefore, we arrange' to 'esitate you here, so nize and comfortable."
He would have passed in comic opera anywhere; but the dart of his black eye was keen, his voice crisp and assured.