Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/141



HAT wonder the simple-minded Adam John found his eyes, his soul riveted by this gushing sack of gold! What wonder that when he had pushed those fugitive coins back into the heap he found it impossible to withdraw his fingers but stood crouched forward with hands half-buried in the yellow pile—clinging to the coins as something he could not let go—holding them down as if they were demons that might leap at and destroy him—eyes blinking in the beams refracted by the glittering pile that sparkled and quivered like something alive.

"There," laughed Henry exultantly; for he saw that the gold had won. "There is your twenty thousand dollars, Adam, for your little old island."

The Indian was still blinking at the glittering mass before him, his fingers clutching or quivering so that there came a slight agitation from the center of the pile that made the coins more scintillant still. The savage in him appeared to have succumbed completely to the lure of the gold.

But slowly as a man gathers his resources for a tremendous moral struggle there were signs of a gathering strength in the face of the Indian. His teeth bit into his lips; his brows were lowered; his eyes narrowed. Deliberately he began to straighten, deliberately to withdraw his hands. At length they were free—entirely free of the gold. Above the pile he rubbed the fingers