Mr. Tawnish closed and fobbed his snuff-box.
"I think not, sir," says he, very quietly.
"Mr. Tawnish," says Jack, "I have waited over a month to fight this gentleman."
"Sir John," says Tawnish, bowing, "your pardon, but I have waited even longer--"
"Whatever quarrel you may have with me, sir," Raikes broke in, "shall wait my time and pleasure."
"I think not," says Mr. Tawnish again, his smile more engaging and his blue eyes more dreamy than ever; "on the contrary, I have a reason here which I venture to hope will make you change your mind."
"A reason?" says Raikes, starting as he met the other's look. "What reason?"
"That!" says Mr. Tawnish, and tossed something to Sir Harry's feet.
Now as it lay there upon the sand, I saw that it was a small gold locket. For maybe a full minute there was a dead silence, while Raikes stared down at the locket, and Mr. Tawnish took a pinch of snuff.
"Who gave you this?" says Raikes suddenly, and in a strange voice.
Mr. Tawnish flicked-to the enamelled lid of his snuff-box very delicately with one white finger.
"I took it," says he, blandly, "from a poor devil who sat shivering in his shirt."
"You!" says Raikes, in so low a tone as to be almost a whisper--"you?"
"I," returned Mr. Tawnish, with a bow.
"Liar!" says Raikes, in the same dangerously suppressed murmur.
"As to that," says Mr. Tawnish, shrugging his shoulders, "I will leave you to judge for yourself, sir."
With the words, he slipped off his wig and turned his back to us for a moment. When he fronted us again, there stood our highwayman, his restless eyes gleaming evilly through the slits of his half-mask, the mocking smile upon his lips, the same grotesque figure beyond all doubt, despite his silks and laces.
"So, my masters," says he, in the same rough, half-jovial tone there was no mistaking, "I says to you, maybe we should meet again, I says, and I've kept my word--such being my natur'--d'ye take me?"
There broke from Sir Harry's lips an inarticulate snarl of fury as he leaped forward, but I managed to get between them, and Bentley had wrested the sword from his grasp in an instant.
"Damnation!" cries he, quivering with passion, "give us the swords."
"Sir," says Mr. Tawnish, bowing to the Captain, "you see, I was right, after all--the gentleman seems positively eager to oblige me."
And, having readjusted his wig, he proceeded in his leisurely fashion to remove his coat and high-heeled shoes, and to tuck up his long ruffles.
And now, all being ready, the thin, narrow blades rang together. Raikes was too expert a swordsman to let his passion master him a second time, and as the two faced each other there was not a pin to choose betwixt 'em: nay, if anything, Sir Harry would almost seem the better man, what with his superior height and length of limb. There was, too, a certain gleam in his eye, and a confident smile on his lips that I remembered to have seen there the day he killed poor Richards.