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 a viper, or offer your soul to the devil as a plaything? I tell you, you cannot even guess your peril. Let danger upon danger upon danger accumulate, but it is nothing to the catastrophe that threatens you here.”

Curiously nervous was his attitude as he delivered this warning; more curious still the mad, glaring look in his eyes. Why he did not spring or strike Vermont could not conceive. Every moment it seemed as though he would hurl himself forward and so put supremacy to the touch. Yet the mad humour of the situation was not less than his anger, and in a way he seemed to appreciate it. Also there may have been pity for this determined defender of the worthless.

“I can believe you perfectly innocent of all knowledge.” It was ominous how the long fingers expanded and contracted like the claws of a tiger. “When a woman makes up her mind to deceive, a man is a mere infant in her hands. We're no match for their cunning, Vermont; we are as a piece of flotsam caught in the whirl of the maelstrom. Once, among the mountains of India, a bearer of mine slipped and fell over a precipice. Hearing his shriek