"Drop those jewels, sir!" "Why?" "Principally because I order you to!" The Master's voice was cold, incisive. "They're worthless, now. No make-weights! We can't have make-weights at a time like this. To think of jewels at such an hour! Throw them back!" A flash of rage distorted the major's face. His blue eyes burned with strange fire. "Never!" he shouted, crouching there at the brink of the jewel-pit. "Call it insubordination, mutiny, anything you like, but I'm going to have my fill of these! Faith, but I _will_, now!" "Sir--" "I don't give a damn! Jewels for mine!" His voice rose gusty, raw, wild. "I've been a soldier of fortune all my life, and that's how I'm going to die. Poor, most of the time. Well, I'm going to die rich!" His philippic against poverty and discipline tumbled out in a torrent of wild words, strongly tinged with the Irish accent that marked his passionate excitement. He sprang to his feet, and--raging--faced his superior officer. He shouted: "Sure, and I've knocked up and down this rotten old world all my life, a rolling stone with never enough to bless myself with. And I've gone, at the end, on this wild-goose chase of yours, that's led you and me and all of us to a black death here in the bottom of a damned, fantastic, Arabian city of gold! "That's all right, dying. That was in the bargain, if it had to be done. Two-thirds of us are dead, already, a damn sight better men than I am! We've been dying right along, from the beginning of this crack-brained Don Quixote crusade. That's all right. But, faith! now that it's my turn to die, by the holy saints I'm going to be well paid for it!" Bohannan, eyes wild, struck his heaving breast with a huge fist and laughed like a maniac. "That's all right, you reaching for your gun!" he defied the Master. "Go ahead, shoot! I'm rich already. My pockets are half full. Shoot, damn you, shoot!" The Master laughed oddly, and let his hand fall from the pistol-butt. "This," said he quite calmly, "is insanity." "Ha! Insanity, it is? Well then, let me be insane, can't you? It's a good way to die. And I've _lived_, anyhow. We've all lived. We've all had a Hell of a run for our money, and it's time to quit. "Shoot, if you want to--a few minutes more or less don't matter. But, faith, I'll die a millionaire, and that's something I never expected to be. Fine, fine! Give me a minute more, and I'll die a multi-millionaire! Sure, imagine that, will you? Major Aloysius Bohannan, gentleman-adventurer, a multi-millionaire! That's what I'll be, and the man don't live that can stop me now!" With the laugh of a madman, the major fell to his knees again beside the pit, plunged his hands once more into the gleaming, sliding mass of wealth, and recommenced cramming his pockets. The Master laughed again.