"I didn't care; it didn't matter. One of us had to die to-night; he
should have known that when I refused to accompany him back to ... I
was hungry for his bullet more than for his life; I gave him every
chance. But it had to be as it was. That was Fate. Now...." He paused
and after a little went on in a more controlled voice. "Quaintly
enough, if there's anything in the theory of heredity, David, my hands
have been stained with no man's blood before to-night. Yet my forebears
were a murderous lot.... Until this hour I never realised how swift and
uncontrollable could be the impulse to slay...."

His voice trailed off into silence and he sat staring into the
flickering flames that played about the driftwood. Now and again his
lips moved noiselessly.

With a wrench Amber pulled himself together. He had been mentally a
witness to the murder--had seen the Bengali, obese, monstrous, flabby,
his unclean carcass a gross casing for a dark spirit of iniquity and
treachery, writhing and whining in the throes of death.... "Rutton," he
demanded suddenly, without premeditation, "what are you going to do?"

"Do?" Rutton looked up, his eyes perplexed.

"Why, what is there to do? Get away as best I can, I presume--seek
another hole to hide in."

"But how about the law?"

"The law? Why need it ever be known--what has happened to-night? I can
count on your silence--I have no need to ask. Doggott would die rather