'What a beauty!' ejaculated the Russian.
'You have fallen in love with her quickly, my friend,' commented Capietro. 'Do you want to buy her?'
'How much do you want for her?'
'Friends should not bargain,' said the Italian. 'Wait, I have it! Come, girl,' and he took Jezebel by the arm and led her into the hut, where Stabutch followed them.
'Why was I brought here?' asked Jezebel. 'I have not harmed you. Let me go back to Danny; he is hurt.'
'He is dead,' said Capietro; 'but don't you grieve, little one. You now have two friends in place of the one you have lost. Soon you will forget him; it is easy for a woman to forget.'
'I shall never forget him,' cried Jezebel. 'I want to go back to him—perhaps he is not dead.' Then she broke down and cried.
Stabutch stood eyeing the girl hungrily. Her youth and her beauty aroused a devil within him, and he made a mental vow that he would possess her. 'Do not cry,' he said, kindly. 'I am your friend. Everything will be all right.'
The new tone in his voice gave hope to Jezebel, and she looked up at him gratefully. 'If you are my friend,' she said, 'take me away from here and back to Danny.'
'After a while,' replied Stabutch, and then to Capietro, 'How much?'
'I shall not sell her to my good friend,' replied the Italian. 'Let us have a drink, and then I shall explain my plan.'
The two drank from a bottle standing on the earth floor of the hut. 'Sit down,' said Capietro, waving Jezebel to a seat on the dirty rug. Then he searched for a moment in his duffle bag and brought out a deck of soiled and grimy cards. 'Be seated, my friend,' he said to Stabutch. 'Let us have another drink, and then you shall hear my plan.'
Stabutch drank from the bottle and wiped his lips with the back of his band. 'Well,' he said, 'what is it?'
'We shall play for her,' exclaimed the Italian, shuming the deck, 'and whoever wins, keeps her.'
'Let us drink to that,' said Stabutch. 'Five games, eh, and the first to win three takes her?'
'Another drink to seal the bargain!' exclaimed the Italian. 'The best three out of five!'
Stabutch won the first game, while Jezebel sat looking on in ignorance of the purpose of the bits of pasteboard, and only knowing that in some way they were to decide her fate. She hoped the younger man would win, but only because he had said that he was her friend. Perhaps she could persuade him to take her back to Danny. She wondered what kind of water was in the bottle from which they drank, for she noticed that it wrought a change in them. They talked much louder now and shouted strange words when the little cards were thrown upon the rug, and then one would appear very angry while the other always laughed immoderately. Also they swayed and lurched in a peculiar manner that she had not noticed before they bad drunk so much of the water from the bottle.
Capietro won the second game and the third. Stabutch was furious, but now he became very quiet. He exerted all his powers of concentration upon the game, and he seemed almost sober as the cards were dealt for the fourth game.
'She is as good as mine!' cried Capietro, as he looked at his hand.
'She will never be yours,' growled the Russian.
'What do you mean?'
'I shall win the next two games.'
The Italian laughed loudly. 'That is good!' he cried. 'We should drink to that.' He raised the bottle to his lips and then passed it to Stabutch.
'I do not want a drink,' said the Russian, in a surly tone, pushing the bottle aside.
'Ah, ha! My friend is getting nervous. He is afraid he is going to lose and so he will not drink. Sapristi! It is all the same to me. I get the brandy and the girl, too.'
'Play!' snapped Stabutch.
'You are in a hurry to lose,' taunted Capietro.
'To win,' corrected Stabutch, and he did.
Now it was the Italian's turn to curse and rage at luck, and once again the cards were dealt and the players picked up their hands.
'It is the last game,' said Stabutch.
'We have each won two,' replied Capietro. 'Let us drink to the winner—although I dislike proposing a toast to myself,' and he laughed again, but this time there was an ugly note in his laughter.
In silence, now, they resumed their play. One by one the little pasteboards fell upon the rug. The girl looked on in wondering silence. There was a tenseness in the situation that she felt, without understanding. Poor little Jezebel, she understood so little!
Suddenly, with a triumphant oath, Capietro sprang to his feet. 'I win!' he cried. 'Come, friend, drink with me to my good fortune.'
Sullenly the Russian drank, a very long draught this time. There was a sinister gleam in his eye as he handed the bottle back to Capietro. Leon Stabutch was a poor loser.
The Italian emptied the bottle and flung it to the ground. Then he turned toward Jezebel and stooping lifted her to her feet. 'Come, my dear,' he said, his coarse voice thick from drink, 'Give me a kiss.'
Jezebel drew back, but the Italian jerked her roughly to him and tried to draw her lips to his.
'Leave the girl alone,' growled Stabutch. 'Can't you see she is afraid of you?'
'What did I win her for?' demanded Capietro. 'To leave her alone? Mind your own business.'
'I'll make it my business,' said Stabutch. 'Take your bands off her.' He stepped forward and laid a hand on Jezebel's arm. 'She is mine by rights anyway.'
'What do you mean?'
'You cheated. I caught you at it in the last game.'
'You lie!' shouted Capietro and simultaneously he struck at Stabutch. The Russian dodged the blow and closed with the other.
Both were drunk and none too steady. It required much of their attention to keep from falling down. But as they wrestled about the interior of the hut a few blows were struck—enough to arouse their rage to fury and partially to sober them. Then the duel became deadly, as each sought the throat of the other.
Jezebel, wide eyed and terrified, had difficulty in keeping out of their way as they fought to and fro across the floor of the hut; and so centered was the attention of the two men upon one another that the girl might have escaped had she not been more afraid of the black men without than of the whites within.
Several times Stabutch released his hold with his right hand and sought for something beneath his coat and at last he found it—a slim dagger. Capietro did not see it.
They were standing in the center of the hut now, their arms locked about one another, and resting thus as though by mutual consent. They were panting heavily from their exertions, and neither seemed to have gained any material advantage.
Slowly the Russian's right hand crept up the back of his adversary. Jezebel saw, but only her eyes reflected her horror. Though she had seen many people killed she yet had a horror of killing. She saw the Russian feel for a spot on the other's back with the point of his thumb. Then she saw him turn his hand and place the dagger point where his thumb had been.
There was a smile upon Stabutch's face as he drove the blade home. Capietro stiffened, screamed, and died. As the body slumped to the ground and rolled over on its back the murderer stood over the corpse of his victim, a smile upon his lips, and his eyes upon the girl.
But suddenly the smile died as a new thought came to the cunning mind of the slayer and his eyes snapped from the face of Jezebel to the doorway of the hut, where a filthy blanket answered the purpose of a door.
He had forgotten the horde of cut-throats who had called this thing upon the floor their chief! But now he recalled them and his soul was filled with terror. He did not need to ask himself what his fate would be when they discovered his crime.
'You have murdered him!' cried the girl suddenly, a note of horror in her voice.
'Be quiet!' snapped Stabutch. 'Do you want to die? They will kill us when they discover this.'
