The latter’s face was now livid from uprising excitement, and his eyes like glowing coals. There could be but one meaning to what he saw—Moses Flood was indeed dealing a “brace game,” but he was dealing it against himself, and forcing Cecil Kendall to win! With form quivering in his chair, the menial looked at the master. He might as well have looked at the ceiling.
To Kendall it seemed like the interposition of fate. The spirit of fortune inspired him. He observed that his last bet topped the limit, yet he had not been stopped.
“How high can I go?” he asked suddenly, looking up at the dealer.
“Till I call you down,” answered Flood, with unmoved countenance.
“Look out, or I’ll break you,” laughed Kendall nervously, his face flushed, his eyes glowing.
“You cannot break me,” replied Flood, with calm gravity.
“How much can I win?”
The question came with strangely abrupt eagerness.
“Ninety thousand dollars,” was the nonchalant rejoinder.
A momentary pallor swept over Kendall’s face at the mention of the sum, and his glittering eyes flashed for an instant on Flood; but the latter’s countenance, void of insinuation, was as cold and calm as a sea of ice. The player’s brow darkened slightly, and his lips became drawn in the intensity of his mental action. Had he known what the humpback, shaking in his chair, knew at that moment, he would have won the sum in half-a-dozen turns.