“Bah!” sneered the captain. “Can’t you think of anything better than that? Besides, there are four of them. That’s too clumsy, anyway. And,” he went on after a moment’s pause, “I don’t believe you could have done it. Jim Darlington is too smart for you.”
If it was the captain’s intention to arouse all the malignity and vindictiveness of the hunchback’s nature to the utmost, he certainly succeeded. The dwarf’s eyes blazed with fire, his form trembled with rage and his voice when he spoke resembled more the hiss of an angry snake than the utterance of a human being.
“Leave him to me now,” he hissed. “I will make an end of this Senor James and his whole tribe.”
There was a devilish malignity in the way he spoke that stirred even the captain, callous as he was.
“All right,” replied the captain, “if that’s the way you feel about them, I guess you’ll take care of the matter all right.”
Getting upon his feet with an inarticulate growl, the captain lurched across the cabin and up the companion way to the deck, where a quick glance around assured him that there was no one within eavesdropping distance. Returning to the cabin he dropped heavily into the chair again.
“So the professor is back again?”
The dwarf made a surly gesture of assent.
“Why didn’t you get the chart?”
“How could I? I paid the porter five dollars to let me handle the bag for a minute, but there was nothing in it.”