been _foul play_. I think, Sir, you've got him into some foreign
mad-house, or place of confinement, and I won't stop till it's sifted to
the bottom. It is my duty, Sir.'

Captain Lake's slender hand sprang on the attorney's collar, coat and
waistcoat together, and his knuckles, hard and sharp, were screwed
against Mr. Larkin's jaw-bone, as he shook him, and his face was like a
drift of snow, with two yellow fires glaring in it.

It was ferine and spectral, and so tremendously violent, that the long
attorney, expecting nothing of the sort, was thrown out of his balance
against the chimneypiece.

'You d--d old miscreant! I'll pitch you out of the window.'

'I--I say, let go. You're mad, Sir,' said the attorney, disengaging
himself with a sudden and violent effort, and standing, with the back of
a tall chair grasped in both hands, and the seat interposed between
himself and Captain Lake. He was twisting his neck uncomfortably in his
shirt collar, and for some seconds was more agitated, in a different way,
than his patron was.

The fact was, that Mr. Larkin had a little mistaken his man. He had never
happened before to see him in one of his violent moods, and fancied that
his apathetic manner indicated a person more easily bullied. There was
something, too, in the tone and look of Captain Lake which went a good
way to confound and perplex his suspicions, and he half fancied that the
masterstroke he had hazarded was a rank and irreparable blunder.
Something of this, I am sure, appeared in his countenance, and Captain
Lake looked awfully savage, and each gentleman stared the other full in