‘One moment,’ he said--‘reckon I’ll just shut that door; there’s kind of a hurricane playing around here;’ and, rising quickly, he moved to the saloon door and stood there a moment, hat in hand, as a slender white figure passed down the stairs. Her hand rested a moment in his as she glided by, and Mr Denver shut the door and returned to his seat. Massinger, manufacturing his fourth drink, saw nothing of this by-play, and the game was resumed. But the tide had turned, and Massinger was ‘rubiconed’ twice running. ‘As you was before you was! Look here, Denver, can’t end up like this, you know--it’s too infernal slow;’ his voice was getting thick and his hand shook somewhat. ‘Mussh’t see the luck through, y’know, somehow’n other--no craning.’ Dick, a covert sneer on his face, was far too considerate to disappoint him, and once again the cards were shuffled and dealt; the Major more boisterous, Dick more impassive than ever. With the end of the partie came the transference of £200 in notes from Massinger’s pocket-book to Mr Denver’s. Undaunted, the Major slapped the latter on the back, declaring him thickly to be a jolly good sportsman. ‘Have my revenge to-morrow night,--too tight now,’ said he. ‘Yes,’ assented Dick, cheerfully, ‘but I guess we get to St Martin to-morrow, and I leave the ship.’ ‘Oh, hang it! Never mind; I suppose we stay there a bit, eh?’ ‘Two days,’ said Dick. ‘All right! I’ll play you on shore. Is there any solitary thing to see in the d----d hole? My wife always wants to see everything, confound her!’ Mr Denver apparently paid no heed to this remark; he was sitting tilted back in his chair, his hat slouched over his brows, and only the slight twitching of the hand holding the pocket-book, and a curious smouldering fire in his half-closed eyes, showed that a struggle was going on in his mind. Presently, with a sudden jerk, he returned to a right-angled position, and stared straight at Massinger. The man looked particularly like a cod-fish at that moment, and breathed heavily. Dick shivered slightly and disgustedly. Through the open skylight above the wind could be heard sighing in the sails, ‘God! How I hate him! How long? How long?’ That was the refrain it took. A cold look of purpose and resolution settled in Dick’s eyes--the crystallisation of a vague idea. ‘Why, certainly no, not the smallest use! ’Pears to me as if there might be a chance,’ he muttered unintelligibly to himself; and fingering the pocket-book in his hand, he looked at the man opposite with a calculating eye. ‘What’s the matter with you? You’re drunker than I am,’ said the latter. ‘I ask you simply if there’s anything to see in the island, and, begad, you’re jibbering like a boiled owl.’ He stooped unsteadily to reach his glass under the table. Mr Denver’s look was that of one who measures the distance for a spring.