His eyes blazed angrily.
“It is as I thought!” he cried. “You love one of them.” He half rose from the table and leaned across it toward her, menacingly. “Just let me find out which one it is and I will cut him into pieces!”
He ran his fingers through his long, black hair until it stood up on end like the mane of an angry lion. His eyes were blazing with a light that sent a chill of dread through the girl’s heart. He appeared a man temporarily bereft of reason—if he were not a maniac he most certainly looked one, and the girl was afraid and realized that she must placate him.
“Come, come, Esteban,” she whispered softly, “there is no need for working yourself into a towering rage over nothing. I have not said that I loved one of these, nor have I said that I do not love you, but I am not used to being wooed in such fashion. Perhaps your Spanish señoritas like it, but I am an English girl and if you love me treat me as an English lover would treat me.”
“You have not said that you loved one of these others—no, but on the other hand you have not said that you do not love one of them—tell me, Flora, which one of them is it that you love?”
His eyes were still blazing, and his great frame trembling with suppressed passion.
“I do not love any of them, Esteban,” she replied, “nor, as yet, do I love you. But I could, Esteban, that much I will tell you. I could love you, Esteban, as I could never love another, but I shall not permit myself to do so until after you have returned and we are free to live where and how we like. Then, maybe—but, even so, I do not promise.”
“You had better promise,” he said, sullenly, though evidently somewhat mollified. “You had better promise, Flora, for I care nothing for the gold if I may not have you also.”
“Hush,” she cautioned, “here they come now, and it is about time; they are fully a half-hour late.”
The man turned his eyes in the direction of her gaze, and the two sat watching the approach of four men who had just entered the chophouse. Two of them were evidently Englishmen—big, meaty fellows of the middle class, who looked what they really were, former pugilists; the third, Adolph Bluber, was a short, fat German, with a round, red face and a bull neck; the other, the youngest of the four, was by far the best looking. His smooth face, clear complexion, and large dark eyes might of themselves have proven sufficient grounds for Miranda’s jealousy, but supplementing these were a mop of wavy, brown hair, the figure of a Greek god and the grace of a Russian dancer, which, in truth, was what Carl Kraski was when he chose to be other than a rogue.
The girl greeted the four pleasantly, while the Spaniard vouchsafed them but a single, surly nod, as they found chairs and seated themselves at the table.
“Hale!” cried Peebles, pounding the table to attract the attention of a waiter, “let us ’ave hale.”
The suggestion met with unanimous approval, and as they waited for their drink they spoke casually of unimportant things; the heat, the circumstance that had delayed them, the trivial occurrences since they had last met; throughout which Esteban sat in sullen silence, but after the waiter had returned and they drank to Flora, with which ceremony it had long been their custom to signalize each gathering, they got down to business.
“Now,” cried Peebles, pounding the table with his meaty fist, “ ’ere we are, and that’s that! We ’ave everything, Flora—the plans, the money, Señor Miranda—and are jolly well ready, old dear, for your part of it.”
“How much money have you?” asked Flora. “It is going to take a lot of money, and there is no use starting unless you have plenty to carry on with.”
Peebles turned to Bluber. “There,” he said, pointing a pudgy finger at him, “is the bloomin’ treasurer. ’E can tell you ’ow much we ’ave, the fat rascal of a Dutchman.”
Bluber smiled an oily smile and rubbed his fat palms together. “Vell,” he said, “how much you t’ink, Miss Flora, ve should have?”
“Not less than two thousand pounds to be on the safe side,” she replied quickly.
“Oi! Oi!” exclaimed Bluber. “But dot is a lot of money—two t’ousand pounds. Oi! Oi!”
The girl made a gesture of disgust. “I told you in the first place that I wouldn’t have anything to do with a bunch of cheap screws, and that until you had enough money to carry the thing out properly I would not give you the maps and directions, without which you cannot hope to reach the vaults, where there is stored enough gold to buy this whole, tight, little island if half that what I have heard them say about it is true. You can go along and spend your own money, but you’ve got to show me that you have at least two thousand pounds to spend before I give up the information that will make you the richest men in the world.”
“The blighter’s got the money,” growled Throck. “Blime if I know what he’s beefin’ about.”
“He can’t help it,” growled the Russian, “it’s a racial characteristic; Bluber would try to jew down the marriage license clerk if he were going to get married.”
“Oh, vell,” sighed Bluber, “for vy should we spend more money than is necessary? If ve can do it for vone t’ousand pounds so much the better.”
“Certainly,” snapped the girl, “and if it don’t take but one thousand, that is all that you will have to spend, but you’ve got to have the two thousand in case of emergencies, and from what I have seen of
