“Well,” said Dyke, “I am at your service. What do you want with me?”
“With you not much”; and once more there was the muscular flicker about the brown lips. “But for myself I would like, if possible, to have a little fun.”
“Oh, damn your fun, Ruy Chaves,” said Dyke forcibly. “You are Chaves himself, aren’t you? But of course you are. There couldn’t be two such jokers knocking about at the same time.”
“Martinez.”
Martinez was growling. He picked up the coil of rope; but at a sign from the chieftain dropped it again.
“Well then, Chaves, I’m tired of your fun,” Dyke went on quietly. “Get to business. What’s the game?”
“So you don’t like fun. But your boy? Is not all this funny? Oh, that boy!” And for the first time he laughed. It was a rasping, whistling snigger. “Suppose now I ask you to spare me your boy.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Oh, ho. You speak resolutely. Suppose then the fancy comes to take him without your permission.”
“I should be sorry for you to try to do that, Chaves.”