Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/178

. "He even confesses it is true. It surprises him that I should know so much. But there are other things I know. I know that he was the instigator of the Orinoco Colonisation frauds. I know he was once a Cuban blockade-runner, and once an agent of Don Carlos, the Spanish pretender. I know that he was a gun smuggler into the Balkans at the same time that he was being made a pasha by his friend, the Sultan of Turkey."

She paused for breath and pointed mockingly at her enemy's short, thick fingers as they slowly clenched and unclenched.

"Look at his hands and you will see! He went to Lhassa in the pay of a Russian secret agent. And they caught him and crucified him on one of their convent walls—they nailed him there through the hands. You can see the marks! He can't lie those away, for he hung there twelve hours until a tribesman set him free and spirited him across the frontier. And this is the great soldier who gave you money"

Ganley once more broke in on her as she stopped to pant for breath.

"These are a pack o' lies!" he cried, and his voice was rasping and forced, as though it required a great effort for him to utter the words, "These are all damned lies!"