e you are again," said Wildeve contemptuously. "Double the
stakes." He laid two of Thomasin's guineas, and the reddleman his two
pounds. Venn won again. New stakes were laid on the stone, and the
gamblers proceeded as before.

Wildeve was a nervous and excitable man, and the game was beginning
to tell upon his temper. He writhed, fumed, shifted his seat; and
the beating of his heart was almost audible. Venn sat with lips
impassively closed and eyes reduced to a pair of unimportant twinkles;
he scarcely appeared to breathe. He might have been an Arab, or an
automaton; he would have been like a red sandstone statue but for the
motion of his arm with the dice-box.

The game fluctuated, now in favour of one, now in favour of the other,
without any great advantage on the side of either. Nearly twenty
minutes were passed thus. The light of the candle had by this time
attracted heathflies, moths, and other winged creatures of night,
which floated round the lantern, flew into the flame, or beat about
the faces of the two players.

But neither of the men paid much attention to these things, their eyes
being concentrated upon the little flat stone, which to them was an
arena vast and important as a battlefield. By this time a change had
come over the game; the reddleman won continually. At length sixty
guineas--Thomasin's fifty, and ten of Clym's--had passed into his
hands. Wildeve was reckless, frantic, exasperated.

"'Won back his coat,'" said Venn slily.

Another throw, and the money went the same way.

"'Won back his hat,'" continued Venn.

"Oh, oh!" said Wildeve.

"'Won back his watch, won back his money, and went out of the door
a rich man,'" added Venn sentence by sentence, as stake after stake
passed over to him.

"Five more!" shouted Wildeve, dashing down the money. "And three
casts be hanged--one shall decide."

The red automaton opposite lapsed into silence, nodded, and followed
his example. Wildeve rattled the box, and threw a pair of sixes and
five points. He clapped his hands; "I have done it this
time--hurrah!"

"There are two playing, and only one has thrown," said the reddleman,
quietly bringing down the box. The eyes of each were then so intently
converged upon the stone that one could fancy their beams were
visible, like rays in a fog.

Venn lifted the box, and behold a triplet of sixes was disclosed.

Wildeve was full of fury. While the reddleman was grasping the stakes
Wildeve seized the dic