edged
into the pit before him, mad with a very frenzy of greed.

"Stop!" cried the Master, sternly. "No nonsense, now!"

"What?" retorted Bohannan, angrily. His bruised, cut face reddened
ominously.

"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