you? You want to poison
yourself I know. Well, you can do as you jolly well like when you are
out of this--not before."

Monty's eyes flashed evil fires, but his tone remained persuasive.
"Trent," he said, "be reasonable. Look at me! I ask you now whether I
am not better for that last drop. I tell you that it is food and wine
to me. I need it to brace me up for to-morrow. Now listen! Name your own
stake! Set it up against that single glass! I am not a mean man, Trent.
Shall we say one hundred and fifty?"

Trent looked at him half scornfully, half deprecatingly.

"You are only wasting your breath, Monty," he said. "I couldn't touch
money won in such a way, and I want to get you out of this alive.
There's fever in the air all around us, and if either of us got a touch
of it that drop of brandy might stand between us and death. Don't worry
me like a spoilt child. Roll yourself up and get to sleep! I'll keep
watch."

"I will be reasonable," Monty whined. "I will go to sleep, my friend,
and worry you no more when I have had just one sip of that brandy! It is
the finest medicine in the world for me! It will keep the fever off. You
do not want money you say! Come, is there anything in this world which I
possess, or may possess, which you will set against that three inches of
brown liquid?"

Trent was on the point of an angry negative. Suddenly he
stopped--hesitated--and said nothing Monty's face lit up with sudden
hope.

"Come," he cried, "there is something I see! You're the right sort,
Trent. Don't be afraid to speak out. It's yours, man, if you win it.
Speak up!"

"I will stake that brandy," Trent answered, "against the picture you let
fall from your pocket an hour ago."

CHAPTER III

For a moment Monty stood as though dazed. Then the excitement which
had shone in his face slowly subsided. He stood quite silent, muttering
softly to himself, his eyes fixed upon Trent.

"Her picture! My little girl's picture! Trent, you're joking, you're
mad!"

"Am I?" Trent answered nonchalantly. "Perhaps so! Anyhow those are my
terms! You can play or not as you like! I don't care."

A red spot burned in Monty's cheeks, and a sudden passion shook him. He
threw himself upon Trent and would have struck him but that he was as
a child in the younger man's grasp. Trent held him at a distance easily
and without effort.

"There's nothing for you to make a fuss about," he said gruffly. "I
answered a plain question, that's a