You hell-hound--no! That is my limit, and you know it. Don't crawl
now, or do any more bluffing. Show your hand--I've called you."

Kirby sat absolutely motionless, his cards lying face down upon the
table, the white fingers of one hand resting lightly upon them, the
other arm concealed. He never once removed his gaze from Beaucaire's
face, and his expression did not change, except for the almost
insulting sneer on his lips. The silence was profound, the deeply
interested men leaning forward, even holding their breath in intense
eagerness. Each realized that a fortune lay on the table; knew that
the old Judge had madly staked his all on the value of those five
unseen cards gripped in his fingers. Again, as though to bolster up
his shaken courage, he stared at the face of each, then lifted his
blood-shot eyes to the impassive face opposite.

"Beaucaire drew two kayards," whispered an excited voice near me.

"Hell! so did Kirby." replied another. "They're both of 'em old hands."

The sharp exhaust of a distant steam pipe below punctuated the silence,
and several glanced about apprehensively. As this noise ceased
Beaucaire lost all control over his nerves.

"Come on, play your hand," he demanded, "or I'll throw my cards in your
face."

The insinuating sneer on Kirby's lips changed into the semblance of a
smile. Slowly, deliberately, never once glancing down at the face of
his cards, he turned them up one by one with his white fingers, his
challenging eyes on the Judge; but the others saw what was revealed---a
ten spot, a knave, a queen, a king, and an ace.

"Good God! a straight flush!" someone yelled excitedly. "Damned if I
ever saw one before!"

For an instant Beaucaire never moved, never uttered a sound. He seemed
to doubt the evidence of his own eyes, and to have lost the power of
speech. Then from nerveless hands his own cards fell face downward,
still unrevealed, upon the table. The next moment he was on his feet,
the chair in which he had been seated flung crashing behind him on the
deck.

"You thief!" he roared, "You dirty, low-down thief; I held four
aces--where did you get the fifth one?"

Kirby did not so much as move, nor betray even by change of expression
his sense of the situation. Perhaps he anticipated just such an
explosion, and was fully prepared to meet it. One hand still rested
easily on the table, the other remaining hidden.

"So you claim to have held four aces," he said