o! your conscience is tender, is it? It has a raw spot that won't
bear handling, has it? We'll see to that. But to business,' said he, his
face becoming white with rage; his black eyes blazing, and his voice
losing its smoothness and quivering as he spoke.

'I've come here to fulfil my agreement; you were to get that child for me
to-day; I've come for her; where is she?'

Jones looked at him with an expression of impatience mingled with
contempt, but made him no answer.

'Tim Craig was to have gone to that house; he was to have carried her off;
he was to have her here, _here_, HERE!' said he, in the same fierce tone.
'Why hasn't he done it?'

'Because he's dead,' said Jones savagely.

'I'm glad of it! I'm glad of it!' exclaimed Rust. 'He deserved it. The
coward! _Let_ him die.'

'Tim Craig was no coward,' replied Jones, in a tone which, had Rust been
less excited, would have warned him to desist.

'Ha!' exclaimed Rust, scanning him from head to foot, as if surprised at
his daring to contradict him, 'Would you gainsay me?'

Jones returned his look without flinching, his teeth firmly set and
grating together. At last he said:

'I _do_ gainsay you; and I _do_ say, whoever calls Tim Craig a coward
lies!'

'_This_, and from _you_!' exclaimed Rust, shaking his thin finger in his
very face; '_this_ from you; _you_, a house-breaker, a thief, and last
night the murderer of your comrade. Ho! ho! it makes me laugh! Fool! How
many lives have you? One word of mine could hang you.'

'_You'll_ never hang _me_,' replied Jones, in the same low, savage tone.
'I wish you had, before that cursed job of yours made me put a bullet in
poor Tim. I wish you had; but it is too late. You wont _now_.'

Words cannot describe the fury of Michael Rust at seeing himself thus
bearded by one whom he had been used to see truckle to him, whom he
considered the mere tool of Craig, and whom he had never thought it worth
while even to consult in their previous interviews.

'Wont I? _wont_ I? Look to yourself,' muttered he, shaking his finger at
him with a slow, cautioning gesture, 'Look to yourself.'

'You're right, I _will_; I say I _will_,' exclaimed Jones, leaping up and
confronting him. 'I say I _will_; and now I do!' He grasped him by the
throat and shook him as if he had been a child.

'I might as well kill him at once,' muttered he, without heeding the
struggles of Rust. 'It's _him_ or _me_; yes, yes, I'll do it.'

Coming to this fa