, and even the lashes, had turned as white as the thin
strands of hair, and contrasted gruesomely against the yellow, mottled
skin, which stretched like clouded parchment over the bony death's head.
At last the old man put out his hand and took the cross, not
comprehending.

"No, I didn't give it to him," Driscoll explained bluntly. "I told you I
wouldn't."

Yet no spasm of chagrin distorted the weazen face.

"This chain here, it's--it's _gold_!" the old man cried.

Then he sputtered, choked. What had he betrayed? Would the strange donor
reclaim the gift, knowing it was gold? He leered craftily at Driscoll,
and with a hungry, gloating secrecy--his old slimy way of handling
money--he smuggled the holy symbol under his jacket. But from cunning
the leer changed to suspicion and quick alarm. He delved into his
pockets, one after another. He searched greedily, wildly, until the last
coin on him lay in his palm. Quaking in every feeble bone, he counted
his poor wealth again and again. There was very little left. He glared
at Driscoll. He glared at townsmen, officers, blanketed Inditos, all
swarming past to gaze on the three corpses. He cried "Thief!" first at
one unheeding passer-by, then at another.

"I had more than this!" he whined. "More--more than this! There was my
hacienda, my peons, my cotton, my mills, my canvas bags. There was my
blockade runner. She was Clyde-built, she was named _La Luz_, she
cost twenty thousand English gold pieces. Who has taken these things
from me? Who--where----Curse you, do _you_ know?"

Dissipating his hoards, sacrificing his last chattel, all that was now a
blank. But his hoards, his chattels, were all that were now worth while,
and the miser clamored for them, and them only. Vengeance, however, is
an ironical bargainer. Vengeance kept her pay, and "abhorred Styx, the
flood of deadly hate," had dried and left a stranded soul, parched by
avarice. Driscoll was moved by a pity half ashamed.

"Look here, Murgie," he threatened terribly, "Do you say _I_ stole
your----By the Great Horn Spoon, I'll----" He flung his hand to his
revolver.

The counter-irritant had instant effect. All moisture died out of the
rat eyes, leaving them two little horrible beads. The miser shrank,
groveled, in mortal terror of some physical hurt.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE CONTRARINESS OF JACQUELINE

"Much adoe there was, God wot;
He wold love, and she wold not."
_--Ballad of Phillida and Co