do? We must know w'ere you pick it up--that is
es-sential to us. And nobody knows but you. So now you understand why my
friends should make you all this trouble."

The red dot of a cigarette glowed to life between her lips, and by that
tormented spark we glimpsed a face that seemed to advance out of the
darkness and to retreat again as swiftly--the merest vision of an
exquisite and roseate loveliness.

She waited for an answer; but Robert Matcham made none.

"Perhaps," she said, with the gentlest concern, "perhaps I do not make
myself yet quite clear. You will r'mark thad we are going to know!
Somehow or another we are going to know. Thees is a too ancient claim of
ours--writ' on ancient parchmen'--and nobody can kip us from it now,
when we are so close. _Voila!_"

The stillness weighed again and I saw Robert Matcham's great chest heave
and fall.

"I, too, have a claim," he said, his full, deep tone rolling under the
roof like an organ pipe.

She drew herself up to stare toward him.

"How?" she breathed.

And it was given Robert Matcham then to have his say out.

"Either that or nothing!" he declared quite simply. "Either I have a
claim or there's no sense to life. Lady--look at me! Do you see a fool,
a weakling or an imbecile? None of these, I think....

"When a man has been knocked blind and silly by his luck; when he's been
hammered out of all hope and pride in himself--what can he do, lady?
Well, there's one of two things for him: he can lie down and curl up
like a worm, and confess he's only a lump of flesh, with no more
control over his destiny than a bit of flotsam on the sea. He can do
that--or else he can sink teeth and claw on the first hold and make it
have a meaning; stick to it, and die sticking!

"I've had enough. I call enough! I'm half a world out of my place. I've
lost everything I ever wanted; stood every mock and failure--a plaything
for events. And now there's got to be a meaning: I'm going to put a
meaning to it. If there's a treasure, as you say, it's mine; it must be
mine; it's got to be mine--and it's going to be mine or nobody's!... And
all hell can't make me speak!"

The fellow seemed to swell beside me; I heard the ropes creak about his
limbs; and heard, too, the sharp-drawn gasp of the woman in the shadow.

"No! And how do you think you can privent?"

"Well," said Robert Matcham--and his voice rang with high exultation at
last--"I can begin this way!"

His bonds snapped fr