"Your insinuation surprises me," exclaimed von Giespert. "I cannot understand why you should voice it."
"Supposing I am in a position to prove that you would do such a thing," resumed Harborough, "would you be willing to abandon your claim to the treasure?"
"I would," answered the German hastily, somewhat to Harborough's surprise.
"Villiers!" he called out. "Come here a minute."
Both von Giespert and Strauss turned a sickly yellow hue when Jack Villiers, cool and unperturbed, stepped briskly out of the chart-house. The Huns had up to that moment imagined that he had been drowned after he took his flying leap from the deck of the Zug.
"You've lost, Herr Giespert," said Harborough. "A charge of attempted murder would land you in a very tight corner. That, however, is Mr. Villiers' affair."
"No harm done," declared Villiers. "We'll call it a case of mistaken identity when you sand-bagged me, Herr Strauss. It was an episode—an experience that will come in useful if ever I take to literature. I might call it an asset, so we'll wipe off that account."
The Germans were dumbfounded. They failed utterly to grasp the young Englishman's attitude. Von Giespert, desperate, even when losing, tried to bargain.
"Suppose, Sir Hugh," he resumed, "suppose we work in partnership—on equal shares? Surely, after all the expense to which we have been put, you will not deprive us of a chance of recovering our losses?"
Harborough was on the point of declaring bluntly that he wanted no truck with a Hun, when he remembered the main thread of his scheme.