“I should have said myself you did. And you got what you wanted, and now are clearing out with it. Exactly like a spy, in my opinion.” Richard opened wide eyes, and went pale. “A spy!” he exclaimed. “But it’s just absurd.” Jack did not vouchsafe any answer, but sat there as if he had come for some definite purpose, something menacing, and was going to have it out with the other man. “Kangaroo doesn’t think I came spying, does he?” asked Richard, aghast. “It’s too impossible.” “I don’t know what he thinks,” said Jack. “But it isn’t ‘too impossible’ at all. It looks as if it had happened.” Richard was now dumb. He realised the depths of the other man’s malevolence, and was aghast. Just aghast. Some fear too--and a certain horror, as if human beings had suddenly become horrible to him. Another gulf opened in front of him. “Then what do you want of me now?” he asked, very coldly. “Some sort of security, I suppose,” said Jack, looking away at the sea. Richard was silent with rage and cold disgust, and a sort of police-fear. “Pray what sort of security?” he replied, coldly. “That’s for you to say, maybe. But we want some sort of security that you’ll keep quiet, before we let you leave Australia.” Richard’s heart blazed in him with anger and disgust. “You need not be afraid,” he said. “You’ve made it all too repulsive to me now, for me ever to want to open my mouth about it all. You can be quite assured: nothing will ever come out through me.” Jack looked up with a faint, sneering smile. “And you think we shall be satisfied with your bare word?” he said uglily. But now Richard looked him square in the eyes. “Either that or nothing,” he replied. And unconscious of what he was doing, he sat looking direct down into the dark, shifting malice of Jack’s eyes. Till Jack turned aside. Richard was now so angry and insulted he felt only pure indignation. “We’ll see,” said Jack. Somers did not even heed him. He was too indignant to think of him any more. He only retreated into his own soul, and turned aside, invoking his own soul: “Oh, dark God, smite him over the mouth for insulting me. Be with me, gods of the other world, and strike down these liars.” Harriet came out on to the verandah. “What are you two men talking about?” she said. “I hear two very cross and snarling voices, though I can’t tell what they say.” “I was just saying Mr Somers can’t expect to have it all his own way,” said Jack in his low, intense, slightly husky voice, that was now jeering viciously. “He’ll try his best to,” said Harriet. “But whatever have you both got so furious about. Just look at Lovat, green with fury. It’s really shameful. Men are like impish children--you daren’t leave them together for a minute.”