The American's voice rose and filled the room, reverberant as thunder.
"P'r'aps it isn't so far away after all."
And out of the wreckage of his resources, Richard Frencham Altar brought up his big guns for a final effort at counter battery.
"P'r'aps it isn't, p'r'aps it is," he cried. "Why, you blasted fool, you'll get nothing from me—nothing. If you know so damn much go and find the place yourself."
Ezra Hipps seized him by the shoulders and flung him back against the wall.
"We mean to find out."
"Not from me—not from me," Richard repeated, but the power which had upheld him was dwindling fast. He knew, knew beyond question that in a few more moments the truth would be shaken out of him unless he could devise some means of slackening the strain. And then he had an inspiration.
"You fool! You fool!" he cried. "Can't you see what you've done, you and your idiot crew? As you've driven health from my body so, by your blasted privations, you've driven memory from my head."
He tottered drunkenly toward a chair and sat down all of a heap.
"What's that?" demanded Hipps, with real alarm.