A tenseness about his mouth told the gambler that much was staked on this acceptance. He turned the nugget in his hand, noting the discoloration of the ore from which it had been taken. "It is a fine specimen," he said. "You will see," said David, "both its size and weight." And Connor knew; it was an exchange for the ivory head. He laid the nugget carelessly back upon the table, thankful that the gift had been offered with such suspicious bluntness. "It is a fine specimen," he repeated, "but I am not collecting." There was a heavy cloud on the face of David as he took up the nugget and passed it into the hand of the waiting servant; but his glance was for Joseph, not Connor. Joseph burst into speech for the first time, and the words tumbled out. "I do not want it. I shall not keep it. See, David; I give it up to him!" He made a gesture with both hands as though he would push away the ape-head forever. The master looked earnestly at Connor. "You hear?" The latter shrugged his shoulders, saying: "I've never taken back a gift, and I can't begin now." Connor's heart was beating rapidly, from the excitement of the strange interview and the sense of his narrow escape from banishment. Because he had made the gift to Joseph he had an inalienable right, it seemed, to expect some return from Joseph's master--even permission to stay in the valley, if he insisted. There was another of those uncomfortable pauses, with the master looking sternly into the night. "Zacharias," he said. The servant stepped beside him. "Bring the whip--and the cup." The eyes of Zacharias rolled once toward Joseph and then he was gone, running; he returned almost instantly with a seven foot blacksnake, oiled until it glistened. He put it in the hand of David, but only when Joseph stepped back, shuddering, and then turned and kneeled before David, the significance of that whip came home to Connor, sickening him. The whites of Joseph's eyes rolled at him and Connor stepped between Joseph and the whip. "Do you mean this?" he gasped. "Do you mean to say that you are going to flog that poor fellow because he took a gift from me?" "From you it was a gift," answered the master, perfectly calm, "but to him it was a price. And to me it is a great trouble." "God!" murmured Connor. "Do you call on him?" asked the brown man severely. "He is only here in so far as I am the agent of his justice. Yet I trust it is not more His will than it is the will of David. Also, the heart of Joseph is stubborn and must be humbled. Tears are the sign of contrition, and the whip shall not cease to fall until Joseph weeps."