Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/356

354 hardly considered the meaning of the paper. It was his natural instinct which led him to protect anything which could compromise anyone.

"It's in my black wallet—back pocket of my breeches."

Ducane did not know what he had done, for he had utterly forgotten Tempest's connection with Grange's Andree. But the feeling that he had given important information to these two men sustained him until he almost forgot his suffering. And he quite forgot that he was preparing for speedy death.

Before Tempest could move Dick had pounced on the wet garment where it hung over a box. He remembered those old riding-breeches in the days when he had first known Jennifer. They were torn and dirty now; but he fumbled with shaking fingers for the buttoned back pocket, drew out the silver-initialled clasped case that had once been so familiar to him, and thrust it into the breast of his tunic. Then Tempest was standing over him.

"Where is the paper?" he said again; and before that voice the ready lie halted on Dick's lips.

He picked the breeches up and shook them.

"Not here," he said. "Ducane must have put the wallet in his shirt or his artiki or something. Or it may have dropped on the ground. We'd never find it to-night in all this litter. And it's too confoundedly dark to see anything, anyway. Wait till morning, Tempest. It can't get lost by then."

He was talking without knowing what he said. Nothing seemed very real to him at that moment but the knowledge that he did not want to hear Tempest speak again. That curious, crushed tone sounding through the blackness of the tent was so hideously unlike Tempest. From the mattress Ducane called fretfully. The opiate which Tempest had given him was beginning to take effect, and the fear of instant death was no longer whipping him into frenzy.

"I'd be better now if I could get some rest," he said. "If you two would only shut up and let me sleep maybe I'll live after all."

"That's an inducement," said Dick, treading over the bundles and boxes to him. "Leave that wallet till the