"And when the ship comes up, what then?" asked Dean.
"I make arrangements to acquire the cargo on—well, on easy terms," answered the half-breed with a smile.
"All right, you disgrace of two continents, you do all the arranging. I'm not in it. You shoot, my friend."
It was quite true that Jim Dean had looked into death's face more times than once, but he had hardly been nearer making his exit than during the next five seconds; for Da Silva's revolver muzzle was pressed over his heart and an angry finger was on the trigger. Then the half-blood hesitated, not because he had either fear or scruples, but because Dean at the moment was worth more to him alive than dead. He had great ambitions, for the realization of which the cargo of arms was necessary, and he could think of no better way of obtaining them than by using Dean in the way he had indicated.
"On the whole, I think shooting would be too sudden," he said. "If you refuse to do as I say I will invent a method of putting you out of this world of misery that will give you the longest dose of pain that a human body can stand. Savvy?"
Jim Dean did understand. Da Silva had in the hinterland an unsavory reputation for a ferocity that, rumor said, stood at nothing, and he was credited with one or two dark doings in the back no-man's land that will not bear repeating.
He lighted another cigarette, and with malicious deliberation he detailed the manner in which he would inflict death on the other which had something with a slow fire in it and added refinements, and then he retired to make arrangements for the exit, as he termed it, leaving Dean under the guard of one negro.
These circumstances set Dean thinking furiously, and after a while he decided that though a death by torture might be picturesque, there would not be much common sense in submitting to it when there was a way out, which, though humiliating enough, might yet afford him another chance. With his life he might get the game into his own hands—with death was the end of the game.
"All right," he said. "You've got the bulge on me this time. Just free my hands, and I'll write what you say."
Da Silva dictated with his finger on the trigger of his weapon, and the muzzle of it somewhere between Dean's shoulder blades.