“For God’s sake explain,” said I, now utterly bewildered, and frightened. “Tell me, Harry, what is it? You have not been gambling?”
“Ha, ha,” he deliriously laughed. “Gambling? red and white, you mean?—cards?—dice?—the bones?—Ha, ha!—Gambling? gambling?” he ground out between his teeth—“what two devilish, stiletto-sounding syllables they are!”
“Wellingborough,” he added, marching up to me slowly, but with his eyes blazing into mine—“Wellingborough”—and fumbling in his breast-pocket, he drew forth a dirk—“Here, Wellingborough, take it—take it, I say—are you stupid?—there, there”—and he pushed it into my hands. “Keep it away from me—keep it out of my sight—I don’t want it near me, while I feel as I do. They serve suicides scurvily here, Wellingborough; they don’t bury them decently. See that bell-rope! By Heaven, it’s an invitation to hang myself"—and seizing it by the gilded handle at the end, he twitched it down from the wall.
“Nothing, oh nothing,” said Harry, now assuming a treacherous, tropical calmness—“nothing, Redburn; nothing in the world. I’m the serenest of men.”
“But give me that dirk,” he suddenly cried—“let me have it, I say. Oh! I don’t mean to murder myself—I’m past that now—give it me”—and snatching it from my hand, he flung down an empty purse, and with a terrific stab, nailed it fast with the dirk to the table.
“There now,” he cried, “there’s something for the old duke to see to-morrow morning; that’s about all that’s left of me— that’s my skeleton, Wellingborough. But come, don’t be downhearted; there’s a little more gold yet in Golconda; I have a guinea or two left. Don’t stare so, my boy; we shall be in Liverpool to-morrow night; we start in the morning”—and turning his back, he began to whistle very fiercely.
“And this, then,” said I, “is your showing me London, is it, Harry? I did not think this; but tell me your secret, whatever it is, and I will not regret not seeing the town.”
He turned round upon me like lightning, and cried, “Red-burn! you must swear another oath, and instantly.”
“And why?” said I, in alarm, “what more would you have me swear?”
“Never to question me again about this infernal trip to London!” he shouted, with the foam at his lips—“never to breathe it! swear!”