"You haven't got an extra gun anywhere, have you?"
"We'd be headin' east if I had"--grimly. "I'd have pared down the odds
this mornin'. That hombre with the hop-a-long didn't leave me a quill
toothpick. Was you thinkin' of startin' somethin'?"--hopefully.
"No, but I'd feel more comfortable if Miss Norman could carry a gun."
"Uh-huh. Say, she's all right. No hysterics. Ain't many of 'em that
wouldn't 'a' been snivellin' all day and night in her bunk. Been listenin'
to her readin'. Gee, you'd think we were floatin' round this codfish lake
just for the fun of it! She won't run to cover if a bust-up comes. None
whatever! And I bet she can cook, too. Them kind can always cook."
Conversation lapsed.
Below, Jane was passing through an unusual experience.
Said Cleigh at the start: "I'm going to show you the paintings--there are
fourteen in all. I will tell you the history of each. And above all,
please bear in mind the price of each picture."
"I'll remember."
But she thought the request an odd one, coming from the man as she knew
him.
Most of the treasures were in his own spacious cabin. There was a
Napoleonic corner--a Meissonier on one side and a Detaille on the other.
In a stationary cabinet there were a pair of stirrups, a riding crop, a
book on artillery tactics, a pair of slippers beaded with seed pearls, and
a buckle studded with sapphires.
"What are those?" she asked, attracted.
"They belonged to the Emperor and his first Empress."
"Napoleon?"
"The Corsican. Next to the masters, I've a passion for things genuinely
Napoleonic. The hussar is by Meissonier and the skirmish by Detaille."
"How much is this corner worth?"
"I can't say, except that I would not part with those objects for a
hundred thousand; and there are friends of mine who would pay half that
sum for them--behind my back. This is a Da Vinci."
Half an hour passed. Jane honestly tried to be thrilled by the splendour
of the names she heard, but her eye was always travelling back toward the
slippers and the buckle. The Empress Josephine! Romance and gallantry in
the old, old days!
"The painting in your cabin is by Holbein. It cost me sixteen thousand.
Now let us go out and look at the rug. That is the apple of my eye. It is
the second finest example of the animal rug in the world. A sheet of pure
gold, half an inch thick, covering the rug from end to end, would not
equal its worth."