until the very moment came for showing my revolver, when it was twisted out of my grasp instead, and a ball sang under my arm as the brute fell back exhausted and the weapon clattered beside him. Before I could stoop for it there was a dead weight on my left arm, and Squire Rattray was over the table at a bound, with his arms jostling mine beneath Eva Denison’s senseless form.
“Leave her to me,” he cried fiercely. “You fool,” he added in a lower key, “do you think I’d let any harm come to her?”
Rattray. Now, then! Why do you think there was something worse?”
“You hinted as much in town: rightly or wrongly I gathered there was something you would never speak about to living man.”
I turned from him with a groan.
“Ah! but that had nothing to do with Santos.”
“Are you sure?” he cried.
“No,”