as a heavy cloud on the face of David as he took up the nugget
and passed it into the hand of the waiting servant; but his glance was
for Joseph, not Connor.

Joseph burst into speech for the first time, and the words tumbled out.

"I do not want it. I shall not keep it. See, David; I give it up to
him!" He made a gesture with both hands as though he would push away the
ape-head forever.

The master looked earnestly at Connor.

"You hear?"

The latter shrugged his shoulders, saying: "I've never taken back a
gift, and I can't begin now."

Connor's heart was beating rapidly, from the excitement of the strange
interview and the sense of his narrow escape from banishment. Because he
had made the gift to Joseph he had an inalienable right, it seemed, to
expect some return from Joseph's master--even permission to stay in the
valley, if he insisted.

There was another of those uncomfortable pauses, with the master looking
sternly into the night.

"Zacharias," he said.

The servant stepped beside him.

"Bring the whip--and the cup."

The eyes of Zacharias rolled once toward Joseph and then he was gone,
running; he returned almost instantly with a seven foot blacksnake,
oiled until it glistened. He put it in the hand of David, but only when
Joseph stepped back, shuddering, and then turned and kneeled before
David, the significance of that whip came home to Connor, sickening him.
The whites of Joseph's eyes rolled at him and Connor stepped between
Joseph and the whip.

"Do you mean this?" he gasped. "Do you mean to say that you are going to
flog that poor fellow because he took a gift from me?"

"From you it was a gift," answered the master, perfectly calm, "but to
him it was a price. And to me it is a great trouble."

"God!" murmured Connor.

"Do you call on him?" asked the brown man severely. "He is only here in
so far as I am the agent of his justice. Yet I trust it is not more His
will than it is the will of David. Also, the heart of Joseph is stubborn
and must be humbled. Tears are the sign of contrition, and the whip
shall not cease to fall until Joseph weeps."

His glance pushed Connor back; the gambler saw the lash whirled, and he
turned his back sharply before it fell. Even so, the impact of the lash
on flesh cut into Connor, for he had only to take back the gift to end
the flogging. He set his teeth. Could he give up his only hold on David
and the Eden Grays? By the whizzing of the lash he knew that