"Van Bleit will never believe how entirely you surprised me," Denzil returned dejectedly. "He'll think I ought to have stuck to the packet at all costs. Man, I wonder if you know the value of what you've got there? Look here! ... Stop a bit!" ... His manner became eager and confidential. "Can't we do a deal, you and I? ... Let me stand in with you--or, better still, give me a sum down, and I'll let you into the know how to work those letters to the best advantage... What do you say, eh?" "What I have to say won't interest you," Lawless replied. "If I hadn't passed my word, I wouldn't touch the damned letters, and the first thing I mean to do with them is to get rid of their charge... But not to you... If you had your deserts you would find yourself on the breakwater. Now, march!" he added. "Turn your back, and keep going." He had hardly issued the order when something happened that put an altogether different aspect upon the face of things. Inexplicably, he saw Denzil grinning as he abruptly turned about, and the next moment something hurtled through the air and fell about his shoulders, tightening with a suddenness that pinned his arms to his sides. The revolver flew from his hand, and simultaneously he was jerked violently out of the saddle. He fell heavily to the accompaniment of raucous laughter, and, lying on the veld, straining impotently at the cords that held him, he realised with bitter mortification that Karl Van Bleit had securely lassoed him by a cowboy trick he was an adept in. CHAPTER TWENTY. "Check number two, Master Grit Lawless!" Van Bleit stood over his victim with a smile of satisfaction widening his features, the end of the long rope which he had used to such purpose coiled upon his arm. He took a shorter length from his pocket and tossed it to Denzil, who, in thorough appreciation of the trick, was still laughing immoderately over the discomfiture of the man who had believed himself upper dog. Lawless sat up and swore vigorously. "Fasten his wrists," Van Bleit commanded. He twirled the ends of his moustache complacently while he watched the execution of this order, and offered a few suggestions for the more efficacious tightening of the bonds. "Oh! you can squirm as much as you like," he said. "You are about as helpless as a trussed fowl." When Lawless' hands were securely bound behind him, Van Bleit loosened the noose that had tightened until it stopped the circulation, and drew the loop over the captive's head. Then he picked up the revolver that lay on the veld and sat down facing him. He was enjoying himself immensely. The security of his position as captor, Lawless' utter helplessness, and the certainty of no outside interference, completed a situation which, having no element of risk about it, appealed to him amazingly. He rested his right elbow on his knee, and levelled the revolver at Lawless' breast.