“If I did not know positively that Count Cadillac is at this moment ashore at the club-house, I would be willing to swear that he stands before me yonder,” was the detective’s mental comment, as he gazed upon the transformation wrought by the mere removal of the hat and wig worn by the pirate chief. “As it is, there can be no doubt now that my first idea was the correct one, and that the two men are brothers—aye, twin brothers, at that.”
“Well?” asked the woman of the pirate, permitting the book to rest upon her lap and raising her eyes to his face. She spoke in French, and he replied to her in the same tongue; but it was all perfectly intelligible to Nick Carter.
“It is magnificent,” he replied, throwing himself into a chair opposite her, and selecting a cigar, which he proceeded to light with evident relish. “It is much better than I ever dared to hope, from one affair.”
“Affair!” said the woman, with cold contempt in her voice and manner. “Why dignify your thieving operations by the use of such a word? Why not call them what they are?”
Sparkle shrugged his shoulders.
“Calm yourself, Hortense,” he said, puffing lazily at his cigar. “A few more expeditions like this one to-night will render us independent. Before the season is ended, if I continue as fortunate as I have been so far, we will have collected a million, at least—perhaps two millions; and dollars, too! Think of it! That seems between five and ten million francs. Why, do you know, petite, that Alexandre Dumas only gave the Count of Monte Cristo something like ten million francs, altogether?”
The woman sighed.
“But it is robbery,” she said—“robbery! There is no gentler term to apply to it. You call it making collections. You describe your piratical expeditions as ‘affairs,’ and you refer to our trips when we start out to accomplish this infamous work as ‘excursions.’ But they are not excursions, Jules!”
He waived his right hand deprecatingly.
“Whatever they may be, they are none the less necessary,” he said coolly. “I will thank you to regard them so, Hortense. Think of our estates in France. Think of the opportunities which will be afforded you over there for doing unlimited good with the wealth I shall secure for you. Think——”