“Oh, you do?” half screamed the man, stamping up and down the room in ungovernable rage.
“Yes, sir; and no amount of swearing will scare me. Those papers are mine and if you won’t give them up peaceably, the law will make you.”
Suddenly the man stopped storming and became more tranquil.
“So you’re goin’ ter law erbout it, be ye?”
“No, I don’t think I’ll have to; I think you’ll see plain enough that it will be best for you to give them up. By your own confession you don’t know where the treasure is hid; but I do. Somehow I’m going to find the wreck of the brig and get—whatever it was father hid. But first, I want those papers that I may know what the—the treasure consists of.”
“Oh, ye do? Well, how be ye goin’ ter prove that I’ve got the docyments?”
“Very easily indeed,” Brandon responded frankly. “I’m going to look up the sailor who was with you on the raft. If father gave you the papers he doubtless knows it, and I don’t believe that there are two men as dishonest as you, Wetherbee.”
“So you know where the old man has hid the stuff, hey? An’ yer goin’ ter see th’—th’ other sailor an’ git his evidence, be ye?”
The man’s ugly face turned a deep reddish hue and he reached out his hands and clutched the empty chair as though he were strangling somebody. The gesture was so terribly realistic and the man’s face so diabolical, that Brandon involuntarily shrank back.
“You little fool!” hissed the other slowly. “You’ve put yourself right inter my han’s an’ let me tell ye I’m a bad man ter monkey with. I’ve let ye hev it all your own way so fur, but now ’twill be my turn, an’ don’t you forgit it! Ye know where thet treasure is hidden aboard the brig, hey? Then, by the great jib boom, ye’ll tell me or ye’ll never git out o’ here alive!”