For a moment Monty stood as though dazed. Then the excitement which
had shone in his face slowly subsided. He stood quite silent, muttering
softly to himself, his eyes fixed upon Trent.
“Her picture! My little girl's picture! Trent, you're joking, you're
mad!”
“Am I?” Trent answered nonchalantly. “Perhaps so! Anyhow those are my
terms! You can play or not as you like! I don't care.”
A red spot burned in Monty's cheeks, and a sudden passion shook him. He
threw himself upon Trent and would have struck him but that he was as
a child in the younger man's grasp. Trent held him at a distance easily
and without effort.
“There's nothing for you to make a fuss about,” he said gruffly. “I
answered a plain question, that's all. I don't want to play at all. I
should most likely lose, and you're much better without the brandy.”
Monty was foaming with passion and baffled desire. “You beast!” he
cried, “you low, ill-bred cur! How dared you look at her picture! How
dare you make me such an offer! Let me go, I say! Let me go!”
But Trent did not immediately relax his grasp. It was evidently not safe
to let him go. His fit of anger bordered upon hysterics. Presently he
grew calmer but more maudlin. Trent at last released him, and, thrusting
the bottle of brandy into his coat-pocket, returned to his game of
Patience. Monty lay on the ground watching him with red, shifty eyes.
“Trent,” he whimpered. But Trent did not answer him.
“Trent, you needn't have been so beastly rough. My arm is black and blue
and I am sore all over.”
But Trent remained silent. Monty crept a little nearer. He was beginning
to feel a very injured person.
“Trent,” he said, “I'm sorry we've had words. Perhaps I said more than I
ought to have done. I did not mean to call you names. I apologise.”
“Granted,” Trent said tersely, bending over his game.
“You see, Trent,” he went on, “you're not a family man, are you? If you
were, you would understand. I've been down in the mire for years, an
utter scoundrel, a poor, weak, broken-down creature. But I've always
kept that picture! It's my little girl! She doesn't know I'm alive,
never will know, but it's all I have to remind me of her, and I couldn't
part with it, could I?”
“You'd be a blackguard if you did,” Trent answered curtly.
Monty's face brightened.
“I was sure,” he declared, “that upon reflection you would think so.
I was sure of it. I have always found you very fair, Trent, and very
reasonable. Now shall we say two hundred?”
“You seem very anxious for a game,” Trent remarked. “Listen, I will
play you for any amount you like, my I O U against your I O U. Are you
agreeable?”
Monty shook his head. “I don't want your money, Trent,” he said. “You
know that I want that brandy. I will leave it to you to name the stake I
am to set up against it.”
“As regards that,” Trent answered shortly, “I've named the stake; I'll
not consider any other.”
Monty's face once more grew black with anger.
“You are a beast, Trent--a bully!” he exclaimed passionately; “I'll not
part with it!”
“I hope you won't,” Trent answered. “I've told you what I should think
of you if you did.”
Monty moved a little nearer to the opening of the hut. He drew the
photograph hesitatingly from his pocket, and looked at it by the
moonlight. His eyes filled with maudlin tears. He raised it to his lips
and kissed it.
“My little girl,” he whispered. “My little daughter.” Trent had re-lit
his pipe and started a fresh game of Patience. Monty, standing in the
opening, began to mutter to himself.
“I am sure to win--Trent is always unlucky at cards--such a little risk,
and the brandy--ah!”
He sucked in his lips for a moment with a slight gurgling sound. He
looked over his shoulder, and his face grew haggard with longing. His
eyes sought Trent's, but Trent was smoking stolidly and looking at the
cards spread out before him, as a chess-player at his pieces.
“Such a very small risk,” Monty whispered softly to himself. “I need the
brandy too. I cannot sleep without it! Trent!”
Trent made no answer. He did not wish to hear. Already he had repented.
He was not a man of keen susceptibility, but he was a trifle ashamed of
himself. At that moment he was tempted to draw the cork, and empty the
brandy out upon the ground.
“Trent! Do you hear, Trent?”
He could no longer ignore the hoarse, plaintive cry. He looked
unwillingly up. Monty was standing over him with white, twitching face
and bloodshot eyes.
“Deal the cards,” he muttered simply, and sat down.
Trent hesitated. Monty misunderstood him and slowly drew the photograph
from his pocket and laid it face downwards upon the table. Trent bit his
lip and frowned.
“Rather a foolish game this,” he said. “Let's call it off, eh? You shall
have--well, a thimbleful of the brandy and go to bed. I'll sit up, I'm
not tired.”
But Monty swore a very profane and a very ugly oath.
“I'll have the lot,” he muttered. “Every drop; every d--d drop! Ay, and
I'll keep the picture. You see, my friend, you see; deal the cards.”
Then Trent, who had more faults than most men, but who hated bad
language, looked at the back of the photograph, and, shuddering,
hesitated no longer. He shuffled the cards and handed them to Monty.
“Your deal,” he said laconically. “Same as before I suppose?”
Monty nodded, for his tongue was hot and his mouth dry, and speech was
not an easy thing. But he dealt the cards, one by one with jealous care,
and when he had finished he snatched upon his own, and looked at each
with sickly disappointment.
“How many?” Trent asked, holding out the pack. Monty hesitated, half
made up his mind to throw away three cards, then put one upon the table.
Finally, with a little whine, he laid three down with trembling fingers
and snatched at the three which Trent handed him. His face lit up, a
scarlet flush burned in his cheek. It was evident that the draw had
improved his hand.
Trent took his own cards up, looked at them nonchalantly, and helped
himself to one card. Monty could restrain himself no longer. He threw
his hand upon the ground.
“Three's,” he cried in fierce triumph, “three of a kind--nines!”
Trent laid his own cards calmly down.
“A full hand,” he said, “kings up.”
Monty gave a little gasp and then a moan. His eyes were fixed with a
fascinating glare upon those five cards which Trent had so calmly laid
down. Trent took up the photograph, thrust it carefully into his pocket
without looking at it, and rose to his feet.
“Look here, Monty,” he said, “you shall have the brandy; you've no right
to it, and you're best without it by long chalks. But there, you shall
have your own way.”
Monty rose to his feet and balanced himself against the post.
“Never mind--about the brandy,” he faltered. “Give me back the
photograph.”
Trent shrugged his shoulders. “Why?” he asked coolly. “Full hand beats
three, don't it? It was my win and my stake.”
“Then--then take that!” But the blow never touched Trent. He thrust out
his hand and held his assailant away at arm's length.
Monty burst into tears.
“You don't want it,” he moaned; “what's my little girl to you? You never
saw her, and you never will see her in your life.”
“She is nothing to me of course,” Trent answered. “A moment or so ago
her picture was worth less to you than a quarter of a bottle of brandy.”
“I was mad,” Monty moaned. “She was my own little daughter, God help
her!”
“I never heard you speak of her before,” Trent remarked.
There was a moment's silence. Then Monty crept out between the posts
into the soft darkness, and his voice seemed to come from a great
distance.
“I have never told you about her,” he said, “because she is not the sort
of woman who is spoken of at all to such men as you. I am no more worthy
to be her father than you are to touch the hem of her skirt. There was
a time, Trent, many, many years ago, when I was proud to think that she
was my daughter, my own flesh and blood. When I began to go down--it
was different. Down and down and lower still! Then she ceased to be my
daughter! After all it is best. I am not fit to carry her picture. You
keep it. Trent--you keep it--and give me the brandy.”
He staggered up on to his feet and crept back into the hut. His hands
were outstretched, claw-like and bony, his eyes were fierce as a wild
cat's. But Trent stood between him and the brandy bottle.
“Look here,” he said, “you shall have the picture back--curse you! But
listen. If I were you and had wife, or daughter, or sweetheart like this
“--he touched the photograph almost reverently--“why, I'd go through
fire and water but I'd keep myself decent; ain't you a silly old fool,
now? We've made our piles, you can go back and take her a fortune, give
her jewels and pretty dresses, and all the fal-de-lals that women love.
You'll never do it if you muddle yourself up with that stuff. Pull
yourself together, old 'un. Chuck the drink till we've seen this thing
through at any rate!”
“You don't know my little girl,” Monty muttered. “How should you? She'd
care little for money or gewgaws, but she'd break her heart to see her
old father--come to this--broken down--worthless--a hopeless, miserable
wretch. It's too late. Trent, I'll have just a glass I think. It will do
me good. I have been fretting, Trent, you see how pale I am.”
He staggered towards the bottle. Trent watched him, interfering no
longer. With a little chuckle of content he seized upon it and, too
fearful of interference from Trent to wait for a glass, raised it to his
lips. There was a gurgling in his throat--a little spasm as he choked,
and released his lips for a moment. Then the bottle slid from his
nerveless fingers to the floor, and the liquor oozed away in a little
brown stream; even Trent dropped his pack of cards and sprang up
startled. For bending down under the sloping roof was a European, to all
appearance an Englishman, in linen clothes and white hat. It was the man
for whom they had waited.