The Pirate of Panama Part 44

"You're of a sanguine temperament."

"Poof! Life is a game of cards. First you hold trumps, then they fall to me. It chances that now I hold the whip and ride on the crest of fortune's wave. Hope you don't mind mixed figures."

"You'll ride at the end of the hangman's rope," I prophesied.

"Let us look on the bright side."

"I'm trying to do that."

The man knew something that I did not. I was not bandying repartee with him for pleasure, but because I knew that if he talked long enough he would drop the card hidden up his sleeve.

What was his ace of trumps? How could he afford to sit back and let us dig up the gold? He could not be merely bluffing, for the man had been laughing at me from that first wave of the hand.

"It is unfortunate that you and I don't pull together, Mr. Sedgwick.

We'd make an invincible team. You're the best enemy I ever met."

"And you're the worst I've met."

"Same thing, I a.s.sure you. We both mean compliments. But what I want to say is that it is against the law of conservation of energy for us to be opposing each other. I propose combination instead of compet.i.tion."

"Be a little more definite, please."

"Chuck your friends overboard and go into partnership with me."

"Are you speaking literally, or in metaphor, captain?"

He shrugged.

"That's a mere detail. If you have compunctions we'll maroon them."

"Just what you promised the crew last time," I scored.

"Wharf rats!" He waved the point aside magnificently. "I'm proposing now a gentleman's agreement."

"Which you'll keep as long as it suits you."

"I thought you knew me better."

"What have you to offer? My friends and I can keep the treasure. Why should I ditch them for you? What's the _quid pro quo_?"

"You and Evie and I will go shares, third and third alike. The better man of us two will marry her. If it should be you, that will give you two-thirds."

"You're very generous."

"Oh, I intend to marry her if I can. But I'll play fair. If she has the bad taste to prefer you----"

"In the event that I should happen to be alive still," I amended. "You know how dangerous yellow fever is in the Isthmus, captain. I am afraid that it would get me before we reached the ca.n.a.l zone again."

He chuckled.

"If you have a fault, my friend, it lies on the side of suspicion. When I give my word I keep it--that is, when I give it to a gentleman."

"I don't want to lead you into the temptation of revising your opinion of me and deciding that I am no gentleman."

"Come, Mr. Sedgwick. We're not two fishwives to split hairs over a trifle. I offer a compromise. Do you accept it?"

"You offer me nothing I haven't got already. A share of the treasure--that will be mine, anyhow, as soon as we have it a.s.sayed and weighed."

"You forget Evie."

"Who is safe at Panama, beyond your reach, you scoundrel. Why should I fear you as a rival since your life is forfeit as soon as you show your head?"

He could not have spoken more insolently himself. It was hot shot, but I poured it in for a purpose. The mask fell from his face. One could see the devil in his eyes now.

"You reject my offer," he said, breathing hard to repress his rising pa.s.sion.

A second man had come out of the jungle and was moving toward us. It was time to be going. I moved back a step or two, my fingers caressing the b.u.t.t of a revolver.

"Yes, since I don't want to commit suicide, captain."

He suddenly lost his temper completely and hopelessly. He glared at me in a speechless rage, half of a mind to fight our quarrel out on the spot. But the advantage lay with me. All I had to do to blaze away was to tilt the point of my revolver at him without drawing it from the scabbard. Then words came, poured out of him in a torrent. He cursed me in Russian, in French, in English.

I backed from him, step by step, till I was out of range. Then, swiftly as his rage had swept upon him it died away, leaving him white and shaken. He leaned heavily upon the man who had now joined him.

Unless I was much mistaken the man was George Fleming.

CHAPTER XXIII

ABOARD THE SCHOONER

Dignity be hanged! I scudded down the beach as fast as my legs would carry me. Alderson had been left alone at the cache and my heart was in my throat.

When I saw him strolling about with his hands in his pockets I could have shouted for joy if I had had the breath. For I had half expected to find him dead.

He came forward quickly to meet me.

"A tug rounded the bend five minutes since and stopped at the yacht, Mr.

Sedgwick," he told me.

I looked out into the bay. A boat was just leaving the _Argos_ for the sh.o.r.e. At the point where the sailors presently beached it I was waiting. Blythe jumped out and splashed through the shallow water to meet me. From the look on his face it was clear that something had gone wrong.

Taking me by the arm he led me a few yards along the sand.

"Bad news, Jack."