"Yet the price? Let us settle that first," begged the Frenchman. "Captain Benson, I will make you one more offer—but it must be the last. Listen!"
Yet that word was followed by three or four utterly mysterious words, uttered in a low voice in Arabic.
"Yes," nodded Mlle. Nadiboff, as Jack glanced from one to the other, "but this must be the last offer."
"The last, the only, the highest offer," muttered Gaston, who had recovered from the blow Captain Jack had given him.
"Well, then, Captain Benson, bring me your plans within three days, with all the other data needed for the construction of one of your submarine boats, and I will hand you, in exchange, the sum of twenty thousand dollars. There you are, my good friend! Twenty thousand dollars. Now you are ours, are you not?"
Disgusted, yet crafty, Jack Benson pretended to hesitate.
"You must give me your answer at once," demanded M. Lemaire. "I cannot be played with any longer."
Captain Jack drew himself stiffly erect, looking the Frenchman full in the eyes.
"M. Lemaire, you must have been a spy for a good many years. You have been engaged so long in dishonest transactions that you are unable to understand such a thing as common honesty."
"Do you call it honesty," demanded the Frenchman, with a bitter smile, "to demand more than twenty thousand dollars for such an easily performed service?"