Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/123

 "But I'm not free yet. That schemer still has me tied down to him, as you say. We haven't got that paper out of his hands."

The woman nodded her head slowly, without any outward emotion.

"He could still discredit me with the captain of this tub, if that happened to be part of his game! He'd show us both to be a pair of liars the moment we tried to corner him!"

"And once at Puerto Locombia, if his plans have worked out as he wants them to, he can have us dragged ashore! And if Guariqui falls he can have us held as enemies of the new government!"

"This is a nice mess!" calmly meditated the long-limbed man standing before her, facing her, for the moment, with abstracted and unseeing eyes. He even seemed to have forgotten the presence of the woman.

She rose from her chair and stood before him.

"We have to get back that foolish paper," she said. "Before everything else we must get back your receipt."

The quiet determination of her voice startled him a little. He stood regarding her with a new light in his eyes. All his training had been repressional; his life had taught him to resist every threatened surrender to the emotional. Yet, as he saw her there, so isolated from her