"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 canal 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 assayed 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
passion.

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 butt 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.