‘I should mind that little orifice if I were you,’ he said, pointing to the yawning chasm that separated them in the centre, and from the murky depths of which ascended a faintly hissing, bubbling sound as of boiling water. Massinger, who in his excitement had advanced almost to its edge, started back again with an alacrity that showed the unstrung state of his nerves. When he had again dropped into his seat, and was playing nervously with the butt of the revolver in his coat pocket, Mr Denver took up the word. ‘Major,’ he said, ‘I’m going to have some talk with you, and you’ll pardon me if I deliver a little exordi_um_’--he pronounced it with an ominous emphasis on the ‘um.’ ‘I reckon the moon won’t be full up for another half hour, so we’ve considerable time.’ ‘What’s the moon got to do with it, and what the devil is it you want? Fire away and come to the point,’ said Massinger, twisting the ends of his moustache, and endeavouring to conceal his now genuine alarm under a boisterous bluffness. Mr Denver smiled a quaint little smile, as though his spirits were rising. ‘Things will begin to move right along about the time the moon’s overhead,’ he said, consulting his watch. ‘Now, see here, Major, I don’t want to bore you, but I’ve got to say you’re kind of the worst specimen of a man I’ve had the luck to meet’--a smothered curse from Massinger. ‘Keep cool, Major; you’ll want all your language before I’m through; guess I’ve brought you here,--at your own request, you know,’--he smiled,--‘just to explain to you a little idea of mine, which I reckon you’ll appreciate.’ Mr Denver’s resemblance to a cat at this moment was not reassuring to the mouse. For a moment he paused, changing his attitude, and leaning back against the wall with his hands in his pockets and his legs crossed. Massinger had taken out his revolver, and fingered it nervously. ‘Nice little iron,’ said Mr Denver, approvingly; ‘you’re a good shot, too, Major, I know.’ ‘Pretty fair,’ said the latter, grimly. ‘So much the better. We--ell now, I’ve been thinking a good deal ’bout you since I’ve had the honour of making your acquaintance, and--now don’t be wild, Major--you really are--as you Britishers say--a great cad.’ A furious oath and a sudden movement forward from Massinger was as suddenly checked by the appearance of a little shining tube held straight at his head, and the imperturbable drawl resumed,-- ‘Guess I see you, and go one better; presently, my dear sir, you’ll have _your_ chance, but just now I must beg you to sit still and hear my little exordi_um_.’ A pause. ‘Four years ago you married the present Mrs Massinger.’ ‘You blackguard, how dare you mention my wife’s name?’ For the first time Dick Denver’s face betrayed emotion; his mouth twitched, and a sullen fire burned slowly up into his deep-set eyes, but his voice was none the less impassive as he continued: