"What are you going to do about it?" he demanded again, imperatively, since the other was slow to answer.
"I need do nothing more—to thwart your fine schemes," said Farish M'Kissock quietly: "for—they will fail. Although it matters little to me now who may rule here, since the last of the old brood lies dead and unburied in Africa; and she was fond of me, too, as I was of her. 'Twas a notable revenge that I took on them-all! And I think ye'll allow that I've settled old scores handsomely with the both of you two as well.
"You might maybe murder me yet, to still my tongue, as you're thinking, but that would end as ill for yourselves, and I'm not here for long anyhow. There's nothing in this world or the next that will avail you against me now, and—"
His voice died away, wearily. He was gazing into the flickering flames, brooding over his own desperate memories.
"I might murder you, as you say, and in self-defence at that, Farish," replied Captain Dove, in a tone that he was striving to make more friendly. "But—how would it be if we went partners instead? What's the use of cutting your nose off to spite your face? There's surely enough here for all of us. And your share would more than make up to you for—"
The gaunt wreck in the armchair beside the fire broke into a low, mocking laugh.
"It's to close my account with you that I'm here, Captain Dove," said he implacably, "and not to open a new one."
Captain Dove, his face distorted with impotent fury, darted another devilish look at Slyne, but Slyne was still sitting motionless, staring at the ex-Emir, like one in a trance. Captain Dove glanced again at the stooping figure on the other side of the fireplace, set one foot firm on the floor, and leaped at his enemy like a wild beast.
Farish M'Kissock fought fiercely, with a strength surprising in one of his enfeebled appearance, had almost succeeded, indeed, in freeing himself from the old man's vice-like grip before Slyne at last awoke from his lethargy and, of mechanical instinct, came to Captain Dove's assistance. The two of them soon got him down, and then Captain Dove lashed his wrists and ankles securely with a strong fishing-line snatched from a rack on the wall.
"This way with him now," he panted, and, drawing aside a blind panel in the wainscot of the near wall, disclosed a low, wide opening, toward which he pulled their prostrate prisoner by the heels. And together they bundled the groaning body down a steep flight of dry stone steps, into an unlighted cell at one side of the dark tunnel below.