Fiction > Book editions > London, 1885 - Dynamiter

THE FAIR CUBAN. 161
pick buried in the soil. 'Do you seek to drive me mad?
Do you think I do not understand the danger that I
run ? '
' That is all I want,' said I : ' I only wish you to be
swift.' And then, my mind flitting to my father's death-
bed, I began to murmur, scarce above my breath, the
same vain repetition of words, ' Hurry, hurry, hurry.'
Presently, to my surprise, the treasure-seeker took
them up ; and while he still wielded the pick, but now
with staggering and uncertain blows, repeated to himself,
as it were the burthen of a song, ' Hurry, hurry, hurry ; '
and then again, ' There is no time to lose ; the marsh
has an ill name, ill name ; ' and then back to ' Hurry,
hurry, hurry,' with a dreadful, mechanical, hurried and
yet wearied utterance, as a sick man rolls upon his
pillow. The sweat had disappeared ; he was now dry,
but all that I could see of him, of the same dull brick
red. Presently his pick unearthed the bag of jewels ;
but he did not observe it, and continued hewing at the
soil.
' Master,' said I, 'there is the treasure.'
He seemed to waken from a dream. ' Where ? ' he
cried ; and then, seeing it before his eyes, ' Can this be
possible ? ' he added. ' I must be light-headed. Girl,' he
cried suddenly, with the same screaming tone of voice
that I had once before observed, ' what is wrong ? is this
swamp accursed ? '
' It is a grave,' I answered. ' You will not go out
alive ; and as for me, my life is in God's hands.'
He fell upon the ground like a man struck by a
blow, but whether from the effect of my words, or from
sudden seizure of the malady, I cannot tell. Pretty soon,
he raised his head. ' You have brought me here to die,'
he said ; ' at the risk of your own days, you have con-
demned me. Why 1 '
' To save my honour,' I replied. ' Bear me out that
I have warned you. Greed of these pebbles, and not I,
has been your undoer.'
He took out his revolver and handed it to me. ' Yoa
see,' he said, ' I could have killed you even yet. But I
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