“I tell ye it isn’t!” cried Duncan, shaking his clenched fist again. “Mr Statham is in sair peril, I tell ye he is, an’ I’ve proved it.”
“Mr Statham must be allowed to be the best judge of that,” Levi said, placing his hands together, and holding his cigar between his teeth.
“Mr Statham knows me weel. He knows I’d nae tell him what I didn’t ken ma’sel’.”
The great financier rose thoughtfully and stood with his back to the mantelshelf.
“Look here, Macgregor,” he said, fixing his eyes upon the man seated before him. “When you called at the office and was fool enough not to give your proper name you had a difficulty in getting an interview with me. I hadn’t any idea till I received your note that—well, that you were in the land of the living. When we met before it was under different circumstances—very different, weren’t they?” and the millionaire smiled. “Shall I recall to your memory one scene—long ago—a scene that lives in my memory this moment as though the events happened but yesterday. We were both younger, and more active then—you and I—and—”
“Nae, Mr Statham. We’re better not bearin’ it,” he protested, holding up his hands. “I jalouse what you’re again’ to say.”
“To you, my friend, I owe much,” the old man went on. “The place was in a sun-baked South American city, the time was sunset, fierce and blood-red like the deeds of that never-to-be-forgotten day. There was war—a revolution was in progress, and the Government forces had been that day driven back into the capital followed by us. I remember you, with that great bullet furrow down your cheek and the blood streaming from it as you fought at my side. I see you bear the scar even now.” Then, with a quick movement he pulled up his sleeve and showed on his right forearm a great cicatrice, asking: “Do you remember how I received this?”
“Nae, nae, Mr Statham, enough!” cried the Scot. “Our days of war are long since past. They’ll come again nae mair.”
“You remember how we followed the troops of Hernandez into the capital, shooting and killing as we drove them before us, and how you and I and a few more of the younger bloods made a dash for the Palace to secure the President himself. I recollect the wild excitement of those moments. I was tearing along the street shouting and urging on my men, when of a sudden I found myself surrounded by a dozen soldiers of Hernandez. I fought for life, though well knowing I was lost. As a prisoner I should be tortured, for they had long sworn to serve me as they had served our friends José and Manuel. This recollection flashed across me, and with my back to the wall I fired my pistol full in a man’s face and blew it out of all recognition. A man had raised his rifle and covered me, but next moment I gave him an upward cut with my sword.
“At the same instant I felt a sharp twinge upon my right arm, and my sword dropped from my grasp. I was maimed, and stood there at their mercy. A dark-faced, beetle-browed fellow raised his sabre with a fierce Spanish oath to cut me down, but in the blood-red sunlight another blade flashed high, and the man sank dying in the dust.