“This is no time for jesting, my lord,” said Gervase, gravely. “I have come to carry you to the guardhouse, where I can promise you no favourable reception. Our hearts have been sadly stirred; your life even is in danger.”
“So much the more reason that we should decide this matter now. Look you, Mr. Orme, my friend and I have a difference, the nature of which I cannot now make clear to you, though it may also concern you nearly, and we have agreed to leave it to the arbitrament of chance. A few minutes more or less will not imperil the safety of the city. Pray be seated, and see how fortune deals her favours.”
“Oh! this is past a jest,” cried Gervase, “I tell you, my lord, you are in deadly peril.”
“And I tell you, sir, this is a matter of more importance. Nay, my good friend”--and here he held out his hand, “my mind is set on this, and I pray you to indulge me.”
Though his eyes and lips laughed, there was a serious undertone in his voice, and after hesitating for a moment, Gervase finally said, “Ten minutes you may have, my lord, but with your pardon, I shall wait without. My mind is full of care and my heart is heavy as a stone. I can take no part in this. I have seen this day that which I shall not forget did I live a thousand years. Good night, Mr. Carew. My lord, you will not keep me waiting.”
His steps rang along the stone pavement; then there was the sound of an opening door and the whispering of voices in the basement hall.
“‘Jacob was a plain man and dwelt in tents,´” murmured De Laprade. “Come, Carew, we who tempt the fickle goddess must not sleep. Jacob yonder would filch my birthright, and I will not lose the lovely Rachel.”
Carew, who had been as one bewildered and suddenly awakened out of a dream with the terror of it still upon him, drew a chair to the table and caught up the dice-box with a trembling hand. As his fingers closed upon the box, his face grew deadly pale; his heart stood still in his breast in an overmastering agony of fear and hope and hate. To him this meant everything in the world. The man opposite to him had stripped him naked--the man whose smile stabbed him like a knife, and whom he hated with a bitterness of hatred that he had no language to measure. Should he retrieve his fortune, and on how little that depended, not all the powers on earth would again tempt him to such unspeakable folly. A mere gull who had flung away his inheritance before he had possessed it! The happy chance of redemption had come to him unexpectedly. What had moved De Laprade to[to] make this strange and curious proposal, he did not stop to ask, he did not care to know. It was enough for him that it had been made. He knew that he could exert no influence on his sister´s mind; that his intercession would rather injure than advance the cause he advocated. That was the Vicomte´s business. He was a gambler and accustomed to take the chances, and it was he who had proposed the stakes. He passed his hand across his eyes to clear away the mists; the room seemed full of moving haze through which the candles burned with a feeble and uncertain light. He drew a deep breath.
The first throw Carew won; the second fell to the Vicomte. Then there happened a curious thing--when Carew was about to throw for the third time, the Vicomte stooped down to lift his handkerchief from the floor where it had fallen a moment before. While he did this somewhat clumsily for one in general so dexterous, the dice rattled on the table. Making a slight motion with his fingers Carew, hardly pausing, cried “Sixes.”
The Vicomte slowly raised his head. “Your play improves, sir,” he said drily; “that was a lucky throw. Come, sir, you are not yet out of the wood, and perhaps I shall yet see you through.” Then he threw himself. “By all the saints, the Venus! This grows interesting. We must have one more cast for fortune.”