The Slumbering Savage

"Back!" he barked, and advanced one foot, falling into a guard. "This is no concern of yours, Venner, nor yours, Tomlin. Back, I say!"

Tomlin stared into his furious face and laughed greedily. His keen eyes had seen a vague, shadowy something in the cavern, that filled him with the same passion which consumed Pearse.

"So you are the lucky one, eh, Pearse?" he chuckled, and his hand went to his own rapier. He stepped back a pace, and, never taking his eyes from Pearse, cried: "Venner, it's you and me against the devil and Pearse! A pretty plot to fool us, indeed; but Pearse was too eager. Peep into that hole, man, and see!"

Venner glared from one to the other, not yet inflamed as they were. But what he saw in their faces convinced him that great stakes were up to be played for, and he edged forward bent upon seeing for himself.

"Back!" screamed Pearse, presenting his rapier at Venner's breast. Venner persisted, and the steel pricked him. Then, as Tomlin's weapon rasped out, Venner's blood leaped to fighting-heat with his slight wound, and in the next instant the three-sided duel was hotly in progress.

Three-sided it became after the first exchanges. For Pearse, the most skilled in fence, applied himself to Venner as his most dangerous foe, and with the cunning of the serpent Craik Tomlin saw and seized his own opportunity. Let Pearse and Venner kill each other, or let that end be accomplished with his outside help, and there was the solution that Dolores had demanded them to work out; one of them left, to be master of the wealth of Croesus; to be the mate of a magnificent creature, who could be goddess or she-devil at will.