"On strike . . . that's saying a lot. But Conrad and I would like a word or two of explanation?"
"Explanation? What about, you pudding-head? About the lady we're executing? About either of the two brats? It's no use taking that line, my man. I said to you, when I first mentioned the business, 'Will you go to work blindfold? There'll be a tough job and plenty of bloodshed. But there's big money at the end of it.'"
"It's for you to say and repeat the terms of our agreement. What are they?"
"Exactly, it's to remind you of them that I'm asking you to repeat them."
"I remember them exactly. I get the treasure; and out of the treasure I pay you two hundred thousand francs between the two of you."
"That's so and it's not quite so. We'll come back to that. Let's begin by talking of this famous treasure. Here have we been grinding away for weeks, wallowing in blood, living in a nightmare of every sort of crime . . . and not a thing in sight!"
"You're getting denser and denser, my poor Otto! You know there were certain things to be done first. They're all done, except one. In a few minutes, this will be finished too and the treasure will be ours!"
"Do you think I'd have done all that I have done, if I wasn't sure of the result . . . as sure as I am that I'm alive? Everything has happened in a certain given order. It was all predetermined. The last thing will come at the hour foretold and will open the gate for me."
"The gate of hell," sneered Otto, "as I heard Maguennoc call it."
"Call it by that name or another, it opens on the treasure which I shall have won."
"Very well," said Otto, impressed by Vorski's tone of conviction, "very well. I'm willing to believe you're right. But what's to tell us that we shall have our share?"
"You shall have your share for the simple reason that the possession of the treasure will provide me with such indescribable wealth that I'm not likely to risk having trouble with you two fellows for the sake of a couple of hundred thousand francs."
"Your word that all the clauses of our agreement shall be respected."
"This, that you've begun to trick us in the meanest way by breaking one of the clauses of the agreement."
"What's that? What are you talking about? Do you realize whom you're speaking to?"