beat on the table; then--

"Give me the bottle, Tom!"

"What bottle?"

"The laudanum;--there in the cupboard."

"I shall do no such thing. You are poisoning yourself."

"Let me then! I must, I tell you! I can live on nothing else. I shall go
mad if I do not have it. I should have been mad by now. Nothing else
keeps off these fits;--I feel one coming now. Curse you! give me the
bottle!"

"What fits?"

"How do I know? Agony and torture--ever since I got wet on that
mountain."

Tom knew enough to guess his meaning, and felt Elsley's pulse and
forehead.

"I tell you it turns every bone to red-hot iron!" almost screamed he.

"Neuralgia; rheumatic, I suppose," said Tom to himself. "Well, this is
not the thing to cure you: but you shall have it to keep you quiet." And
he measured him out a small dose.

"More, I tell you, more!" said Elsley, lifting up his head, and looking
at it.

"Not more while you are with me."

"With you! Who the devil sent you here?"

"John Briggs, John Briggs, if I did not mean you good, should I be here
now? Now do, like a reasonable man, tell me what you intend to do."

"What is that to you, or any man?" said Elsley, writhing with neuralgia.

"No concern of mine, of course: but your poor wife--you must see her."

"I can't, I won't!--that is, not yet! I tell you I cannot face the
thought of her, much less the sight of her, and her family,--that
Valencia! I'd rather the earth should open and swallow me! Don't talk to
me, I say!"

And hiding his face in his hands, he writhed with pain, while Thurnall
stood still patiently watching him, as a pointer dog does a partridge.
He had found his game, and did not intend to lose it.

"I am better now; quite well!" said he, as the laudanum began to work.
"Yes! I'll go--that will be it--go to ---- at once. He'll give me an
order for a magazine article; I'll earn ten pounds, and then off to
Italy."

"If you want ten pounds, my good fellow, you can have them without
racking your brains over an article." Elsley looked up proudly.

"I do not borrow, sir!"

"Well--I'll give you five for those pistols. They are of no use to you,
and I shall want a spare brace for the East."

"Ah! I forgot them. I spent my last money on them," said he with a
shudder; "but I won't sell them to you at a fancy price--no dealings
between gentleman and gentleman. I'll go to a shop, and get for them
what they are worth."

"Very good. I'll go with you, if you like.