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At the cluck the managing editor drew back hastily, as if Cleggett had actually presented a firearm; Cleggett's manner was so rapt and fatal that it carried conviction. Then Cleggett laughed, cocked his hat on the other side of his head and went out into the corridor whistling. Whistling, and, since faults as well as virtues must be told, swaggering just a little.
Loge stopped playing with the spoon and looked searchingly into Cleggett's face. Then he said: "I will. Turn her over to me the way she was the day you bought her, and I'll give you $5,000." Cleggett fumbled with his fingers in a waistcoat pocket, drew out the torn piece of counterfeit money which he had taken from the dead hand, and flung it on the table.
He had entered the west door and walked across the room without looking at them, withholding his gaze purposely. When he looked towards the bar, after seating himself, the waiter, with his back towards Cleggett's corner, was talking in a low tone to the bartender. But they had both seen him; Cleggett perceived they both knew him.
He no longer wasted his breath on repartee; no doubt he was surprised to find Cleggett's strength so nearly equal to his own, as Cleggett had been astonished to find in Loge so much finesse. But with a second slight wound Loge began to give ground. With Cleggett a bout with the foils had always been a duel.
A bullet ripped its way through the bulwark, perforated the zinc bucket, struck the gun which Lady Agatha was loading and knocked it from her hands. "Go to the cabin yourself!" she shouted in Cleggett's ear. "As for me, I like it!" "I tell you," shouted Cleggett, "I won't have you here I won't have you killed!" He rose to his feet, and attempted to draw her out of danger.
They cut his shirt and undershirt from him. Kuroki brought water and the medicine chest and surgical outfit with which Cleggett had provided the Jasper B. They examined his wounds, Lady Agatha, with a fine seriousness and a deft touch which claimed Cleggett's admiration, washing them herself and proceeding to stop the flow of blood.
"I think it best, Agatha," said Cleggett. "I shall have it brought down." But even as he turned upon his heel to go on deck and give the order, Dr. Farnsworth and the Rev. Simeon Calthrop ran excitedly down the cabin companionway. "The box of Reginald Maltravers," cried the Doctor, who was in Cleggett's confidence, "is gone!" "Gone!"
"You aren't going to be horrid about it, are you?" she said. "Because, you know, I never said I knew anything about ships." She picked up the little dog and stood it on the table, making the animal extend its paws as if pleading. "Help me to beg Mr. Cleggett's pardon," she said, "he's going to be cross with us about his old boat."
Without a word Cleggett put out the light in the cabin. His men grasped their weapons and followed him to the deck. A flash of lightning showed him, through the driving rain, the enemy rushing towards the Jasper B., pistol in hand. They were scarcely sixty yards away, and were firing as they came. Loge, a revolver in one hand, and Cleggett's own sword cane in the other, was leading the rush.
Two or three of them stood, leaning keenly forward; several of the others had dropped to one knee; the rifle discharge had checked the rush, and they also were waiting for the lightning. Cleggett and his men threw a second volley at this wavering silhouette of astonishment. A cartridge jammed in the mechanism of Cleggett's gun. With an oath he flung the weapon to the deck.
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