"Their time might have been more profitably employed, at any rate," remarked Sharpe.
"Yes, it is a thousand pities that the wonderful brain which designed and organised all this should have had nothing better in view than brigandage and world revolution."
"More misdirected energy," moaned Sharpe; "the greatest brains often make the greatest criminals."
"You're a veritable misanthrope, Sharpe!" said his companion, laughing.
"I have reason to be," returned the other.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean this--we're not out of the wood yet."
"I agree; we're in the very centre of it," replied Keane.
"Yet you did not inflict the coup de grâce on the diabolical vipers, and they will shortly awake. Moreover, the Scorpion may arrive unexpectedly, and we shall be unprepared for her."
"What would you do?"