“The clause which--at my death--makes you sole owner of the whole concession. You see--the odds were scarcely even, were they? It wasn't likely anything would happen to you!”
“I planned the thing,” Trent said, “and I saw it through! You did nothing but find a bit of brass. It was only square that the odds should be in my favour. Besides, you agreed. You signed the thing.”
“But I wasn't quite well at the time,” Monty faltered. “I didn't quite understand. No, Trent, it's not quite fair. I did a bit of the work at least, and I'm paying for it with my life!”
“What's it matter to you now?” Trent said, with unintentional brutality. “You can't take it with you.”
Monty raised himself a little. His eyes, lit with feverish fire, were fastened upon the other man.
“There's my little girl!” he said hoarsely. “I'd like to leave her something. If the thing turns out big, Trent, you can spare a small share. There's a letter here! It's to my lawyers. They'll tell you all about her.”
“All right,” he said, with sullen ungraciousness. “I'll promise something. I won't say how much! We'll see.”
“Trent, you'll keep your word,” Monty begged. “I'd like her to know that I thought of her.”
“Oh, very well,” Trent declared, thrusting the letter into his pocket. “It's a bit outside our agreement, you know, but I'll see to it anyhow. Anything else?”
Monty fell back speechless. There was a sudden change in his face. Trent, who had seen men die before, let go his hand and turned away without any visible emotion. Then he drew himself straight, and set his teeth hard together.
“I'm going to get out of this,” he said to himself slowly and with fierce emphasis. “I'm not for dying and I won't die!”
He stumbled on a few steps, a little black snake crept out of its bed of mud, and looked at him with yellow eyes protruding from its upraised head. He kicked it savagely away--a crumpled, shapeless mass. It was a piece of brutality typical of the man. Ahead he fancied that the air was clearer--the fetid mists less choking--in the deep night-silence a few hours back he had fancied that he had heard the faint thunder of the sea. If this were indeed so, it would be but a short distance now to the end of his journey. With dull, glazed eyes and clenched hands, he reeled on. A sort of stupor had laid hold of him, but through it all his brain was working, and he kept steadily to a fixed course. Was it the sea in his ears, he wondered, that long, monotonous rolling of sound, and there were lights before his eyes--the lights of Buckomari, or the lights of death!