The duke bowed, this time with a sarcastic smile. "Two." Again the disturbing, superfluous shout. "How long would it take you to send for the nearest, supposing you found him at home?" "Oh, about twenty minutes," Gage tried to reply casually. Once more the absurdly loud enumeration. "Three. And how long do you consider it would take me to put a bullet through your body?" Simultaneously with the question a glittering object shone in his hand. It was the highly polished barrel of a revolver which he had whipped out casually with a deftness which seemed born of practice, and with which he now covered his rival. Both men started to their feet with blanched faces. "Here, I say!" Peckover remonstrated in ill-concealed terror. "How long?" sang out the little demon of a duke in his commanding voice. "Oblige me by answering the question." "A second, I suppose," gasped Gage. "Now please turn that revolver away." "That is," proceeded the duke in a tone of satisfaction, "nineteen minutes and fifty-nine seconds before the policeman arrives." Still holding the weapon in his hand, but now pointing to the floor, he rose, brought his heels together and bowed. "I trust, milord Quorn and Mr. Gage, my most honourable friends, that at length we understand one another." Then he sat down again, his aggressive eyes moving with mechanical regularity from one man to the other, since the exigencies of the moment had sent the friends apart. But now, throughly roused by the critical situation, Peckover spoke. "I don't know, my lord dook, whether you are aware that we have strict laws in this country against murder." "And," put in Gage, "against carrying firearms without a licence." The duke laughed scornfully and with superfluous volume. "Do your Excellencies think we have no such laws in Spain? And do your graces suppose that if the Dukes of Salolja had cared a fig for them the occurrences which I have narrated to you would have happened? You hang a man for what you call murder here. But have you ever heard of your English law hanging a Grandee of Spain? And do you think you would be allowed to do so? Pah!" He snapped his fingers with a noise like the crack of a whip. "What is your English law compared with the immemorial traditions of the Saloljas? NOTHING! Shall it stand between a Salolja and his vengeance, his desire? NEVER!" He shouted the answers to the last two of his many questions with scornful vehemence. His manner was, no doubt, irritating, and that, perhaps, accounted for Peckover's boldness. "You don't bluff us you are above the law," he said, trembling at his own temerity. "If we haven't hung a Spanish Grandee as yet, it's because none of you have killed anybody over here that I remember." The demon duke grinned and spread out his hands before him, as though sweeping away a feeble protest.