sat up. Bryce dropped quickly but
soundlessly back into a prone position. But the alarm had been a false
one, and presently he quietly raised himself again. The indistinct
mumbling went on as before, and he strained his ears to catch some
intelligible word.

"Kill me, would you?" he heard the other say.

His voice sank again, and for a time he mumbled and mouthed his words so
that Bryce missed most of what he said. He was just on the point of
settling down again when Cumshaw suddenly sat up.

"I'll beat you yet, Bradby!" he cried with startling distinctness.
"You're dead now and the gold's mine."

His eyes opened and he stared dazedly around him. Bryce was lying prone
and snoring away hoggishly. He was fast asleep; there was not the
slightest doubt in the mind of the man who watched him so closely.

"I must have dreamt I said it," Cumshaw murmured to himself. "If I'd
spoken the way I thought I had he'd have been wide-awake." And then he
in his turn composed himself to slumber.

* * * * *

They were very quiet at breakfast. Bryce was turning the situation over
in his mind, viewing it from all possible angles and seeking some method
of getting Cumshaw to speak without in any way antagonising him. Cumshaw
himself was troubled by lingering doubts. It was quite possible after
all that Bryce had heard him, supposing he had spoken aloud, and was
quietly dissembling for some purpose of his own. His very thoughtfulness
seemed to lend color to that idea. He looked at Bryce across the carpet
of grass and at the same instant Bryce raised his eyes. They stared at
each other with the breathless intensity of two men who know that in all
things they are evenly matched. Each was striving to the last atom of
his will-power to break down the resistance of the other and force him
in some way to take the initiative. At last it was Bryce who dropped his
eyes a fraction and Cumshaw who breathed a sigh of relief. But his
relief was short-lived, for in the last half-second his guard had
relaxed. Bryce said:

"Why did Bradby want to kill you, Mr. Cumshaw?"

The quick yet calm question, covering as it did the one episode of which
nobody but the two participants could possibly have any knowledge,
startled Cumshaw. For once his impassive face showed signs of fear, and
his eyes became those of a hunted man. He half-rose to his feet and then
dropped back again, as if aware of the uselessness of flight. He tri