Hawkshawe shrugged his broad shoulders. "As you please; but if the crash comes, don't say I didn't warn you. However, I didn't come to talk to you about this, but to ask you if you think it wise to have so much money at Yeo. There's close on a hundred thousand there, and the engineer on the famine works a native, too."
"What can be done? There is a strong guard, I believe?"
"Yes, twenty men, and old Serferez Ali, my inspector, commands them. He's the best man in the service. Still, I think you had better bring in the money."
"You think there is any danger?"
"Absolutely none that I know of at present; but old Bah Hmoay has been so quiet of late that I'm afraid mischief is brewing, and one never knows what may happen."
"We have, then, two alternatives before us--either to bring in the money or the greater part of it here, and send it out as it is wanted, exposing it to the danger of being stuck up, to use a slang phrase, on its passage, or to increase the police guard. Have we the men?"
"Yes," he said, "I can spare thirty men on Saturday, and will send them up then. With fifty men Serferez Ali could hold out against ten thousand dacoits."
"Very well, so be it."
"That's settled, then. Hola! what have we here, a billet-doux?" and Hawkshawe held between his finger and thumb the gray envelope he had taken from the messenger who brought it into the room and handed it to Peregrine. "Is the fair Ruys asking you to dinner?"
For the life of him Jackson could not help the hot blood rushing to his face, and there was something inexpressibly galling in Hawkshawe's tone. "Excuse me," and he tore open the envelope. It was an invitation to dine, and as he put it down Hawkshawe made a further remark that stung him to the quick. He turned round upon his visitor and said shortly, "Supposing we drop the subject or drop each other."