"Well, gentlemen, I weary you with my long story, and I know that
my friend Mr. Jones is impatient to get me safely stowed in
chokey. I'll make it as short as I can. The villain Sholto went
off to India, but he never came back again. Captain Morstan
showed me his name among a list of passengers in one of the mail-
boats very shortly afterwards. His uncle had died, leaving him a
fortune, and he had left the army, yet he could stoop to treat
five men as he had treated us. Morstan went over to Agra shortly
afterwards, and found, as we expected, that the treasure was
indeed gone. The scoundrel had stolen it all, without carrying
out one of the conditions on which we had sold him the secret.
From that day I lived only for vengeance. I thought of it by day
and I nursed it by night. It became an overpowering, absorbing
passion with me. I cared nothing for the law,--nothing for the
gallows. To escape, to track down Sholto, to have my hand upon
his throat,--that was my one thought. Even the Agra treasure had
come to be a smaller thing in my mind than the slaying of Sholto.
"Well, I have set my mind on many things in this life, and never
one which I did not carry out. But it was weary years before my
time came.
Pages:
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195