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Updated: August 28, 2024
However, it was judged that quite enough was done already; and though Haigh seemed inclined to argue, further freaks were put a stop to by another incident turning up. The pace had slackened. Taltavull shrieked for the driver to quicken, and the driver used the butt of his whip-stock with true Southern mercilessness. "Why, that poor brute of a near mule has a stone in its shoe," Haigh called out.
Slowly I saw him raise his weapon, and as if fascinated I could not move to interrupt him. With a leathery grin of cruelty he had brought it to bear, and in another moment there would have been murder done. But at that instant a flash of something brown shot by, and Taltavull and his mount were bowled over amongst the palmettos. A cavalry reinforcement had arrived.
He might have played with you and been forgiven. You are but tools; you do not even belong to the inner brotherhood. But he has trifled with me; he has dared to make sport of me Taltavull whose edicts have caused thrones to totter, whose hand will soon sweep all thrones away. That can never be forgiven. He cannot live and expiate that insult."
During one of these bumps in the uneven street the door flew open, and the camera fell out on the cobble stones with a thud and a sound of splintering glass. "And I thought that man a Juggins," said Haigh, "and imagined I was blarneying and greening him ad libitum, whilst all the time he was bamboozling me me me, gentlemen. But, Señor Taltavull, are you perfectly certain the fellow is blind?
I could have run them down if I had wished, but had no hankering for a row in the public streets, and so stayed with my shipmate. And Taltavull we kept with us whether he liked it or not. I do not think, though, that he was very keen to race on alone. "They cannot get out of the island, señores," said he, "as no steamer leaves to-day, and they must understand by this that they cannot escape us.
He passed me like a flash, his face glowering like a fiend's, and he reached the shingle just as the dinghy had got two boat-lengths away. The passengers were encouraging the two sailors at the oars to every exertion; but Taltavull pulled up as his mule's feet splashed in the water, and whipping out a blue revolver covered the two rowers and sharply bade them stop.
It was not very brilliant, but I thought it worth sharing, and so spoke, "Look here, Monsieur Taltavull: if we chuck some of the ballast overboard, the mules will have less to drag, and we shall go faster. The only thing is, have we enough money with us to afford it?" "Explain, explain! I cannot understand your barbarous sentences."
The day flushed hotly as it wore on, and still the breeze kept light. We slid through the water slowly, leaving scarce a trace of wake behind us. Haigh smoked and drank vermouth; Taltavull busied himself below with dealing, on paper, with tremendous sums of money; I bathed at intervals, diving from the bowsprit end, and climbing aboard again by the lee runner.
"Anarchistic, to say the least of it," observed Haigh. "We are simply acting on the principle of the 'greatest good for the greatest number," said Taltavull. "Pether is one; you are two, and I flatter myself that I and my Cause make an important third; the interests of the one must go under in favour of the interests of the three."
"Which being interpreted," said I, "is, that if A has a watch, and B, C, and D are poor men with pistols, the watch of necessity changes hands. It may be natural enough from your point of view, but it's devilish like highway robbery from mine." Taltavull shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. "I shall never convert you, amigo," said he. "I tell you what it is," said Haigh.
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