Fiction > Book editions > London, 1889 - Master of Ballantrae

THE JOURXEY IN THE WILDERXKSS. 295
out of line at a carrying- ])lace and plunge at a venture
in the woods : preferring the full risk of famine, savag-e
beasts, and savage men to their position in the midst of
traitors.
What, then, was to be done? Some were for klllins^
the Master on the spot ; but Harris assured them that
would be a crime without profit, since the secret of the
treasure must die along with him that buried it. Others
were for desisting- at once from the whole enterprise and
making for New York ; but the appetising name of
treasure, and the thought of the long- way they had
already travelled dissuaded the majority. I imagine
they, were dull fellows for the most part. Harris, in-
deed, had some acquirements. Mountain was no fool,
Hastie was an educated man ; but even these had mani-
festly failed in life, and the rest were the dreg's of
colonial rascality. The conclusion they reached, at least,
was more the offspring of greed and hope, than reason.
It was to temporise, to be wary and watch the Master,
to be silent and supply no further aliment to his sus-
picions, and to depend entirely (as well as I make out)
on the chance that their victim was as greedy, hopeful,
and irrational as themselves, and might, after all, betray
his life and treasure.
Twice in the course of the next day Secundra and
the Master must have appeared to themselves to have
escaped ; and twice they were circumvented. The
^Master, save that the second time he grew a little pale,