"Poor fiddlesticks!" sneered Steppe. "Hurry, cry-baby. I'm not
going to wait here all night. What are you afraid of? You shouldn't
have seen the damned thing, if you were going to snivel about it.
You should have 'Tried the luck'!"
He chuckled as at a joke as he saw the swollen eyes of his victim
wander to the bookshelf.
"The luck!" said Ronnie. He was speaking to himself, as he moved to
the bookcase.
Beryl saw him take down a worn volume and lay it on the table. He
seemed like a man walking in his sleep. Mechanically he took up a
miniature sword from a pin tray and held it for a moment in his hand.
"Try the luck!" scoffed Steppe. "Shall I go to the play, shan't I go
to the play--dear Lord!"
For the space of a second their eyes met and Beryl, watching, saw the
big man start. Then the sword was thrust between the pages and the
book opened.
Ronnie looked gloomily at the close-set type--frowned. Then he read
slowly, sonorously:
"I will take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke;
yet neither shall thou mourn nor weep; neither shall thy tears fall
down."
The clock on the mantelpiece struck nine.
A silence, painful and intense, so profound that Beryl's quick
breathings were audible.
"I will take away the desires of thine eyes with a stroke--"
"Don't read it again!" cried Steppe harshly. "I'm going--listening
to this fool--come on, Beryl."
Turning at the door she saw him still standing at the table. His
face was in shadow, his hands white and shapely, outspread upon the
leather-covered top; the open book between them.
"He's drunk," said Steppe and she made no reply. Jan Steppe was very
preoccupied all that evening, but not so completely oblivious of
realities that he did not bargain with the doctor for certain shares
in the Klein River Mine. Just before he had left his house Steppe
had received a code cable from Johannesburg.