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Updated: May 16, 2025
"I should think nothing could be simpler," Dirke rejoined, and he deliberately put his pistol in his pocket. They parted without more words, de Lys stumbling once as he made his way along the uneven sidewalk, Dirke keeping on across the barren upland, sure-footed and serene.
When Dirke passed through the office of the Mountain Lion and stepped out on the veranda, the night was far spent, but the deep June sky was still spangled with stars. He stood for an instant at the top of the steps, hardly aware of the delicious wash of the night air on his face, which yet he paused to enjoy. There was a foot-fall close at hand and a voice. "M. le croupier?" the voice queried.
Dirke had not been long in the camp, before his indefeasible air of integrity and respectability had attracted the attention of no less a personage than the proprietor of the roulette wheel, who invited him to run the wheel on a salary. It was now some three months since he had entered upon this vocation, and it had, on the whole, been a disappointment to him.
The wheel spun, the ring glittered on the red. The count leaned slightly forward. Dirke watched only the wheel. He had a wild notion that the result was life or death to him, yet why, he could not tell. Then the wheel slackened, the ball hesitated, paused, dropped. Black had won! M. de Lys turned on his heel and left the table. An hour later the room was empty and the lights were out.
His English was careful and correct, yet as Gallic as his face itself. Dirke examined the ring judicially, wondering, the while, that it did not burn his fingers. The moment in which he last held it thus was far more vivid to his consciousness than the present instant and the present scene. "Twenty-five dollars," he said, in his most official tone, as he returned the ring to its owner.
It would be more in character, he told himself, that is, more in the character he aspired to if he were to embrace the exceptional advantages Lame Gulch offered for doing something disreputable. Yet the stars shone down, undaunted and serene, upon the squalid camp, and into the bewildered soul of Dabney Dirke, so fantastically pledged to do violence to its own nature.
As Dirke arrived with his second, a saturnine Kentuckian, with a duelling record of his own, he glanced about the desolate spot thinking it well chosen. Only one feature of the scene struck him as incongruous.
Three turns of the wheel had taken place with no appearance of the white hand upon the board. "Busted," had been the laconic comment of a by-stander. Dirke glanced at the count and their eyes met. The gambler was fingering the "lucky ring." As he caught Dirke's eye he drew the ring from his finger. "What will you place against that?" he asked, handing it over to the boss.
Black, red, red, black; so the ball fell, but always in favor of the white hand with the flashing brilliants. The group about the table was becoming excited; Dirke knew very well that if the thing went on much longer the "bank" would have to close down. There was a moment's pause, while all waited to follow the stranger's lead.
Opening the letters of the directors of the expedition, which were directed to be opened in such a case, de Cordes was appointed admiral, and Benningen vice-admiral; Sebald de Weert being promoted to the command of the Faith, and Dirke Gernitsz China to that of the yacht. These alterations did not please the seamen, who were attached to their former commanders.
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