Emmie called to Dyke--“Tony, don’t. Tony, don’t”; but at first he did not seem to hear her.
“Tony, stop,” she called again. “You are making me feel faint. I shall lose the mule.”
And he ceased to use the knife, and used his boot instead. The man crouched on all fours, lowered himself over the brink, hung by his hands, disappeared. Dyke stood there watching him, laughing at him, as he scrambled, fell, and rolled. About a hundred feet down he seemed to stick fast; or fear prevented him from launching himself further. Dyke went to the mule, came back with the revolver. “Go on, you clumsy fool. Go on, or I’ll shoot.” The man looked upward, but disobeyed the order. “Go on, I tell you. Very well”; and Dyke fired--not at the man but near him. Immediately he went on again, fell, rolled, scrambled, and at last was gone.
Then Dyke and Emmie dined. It was a never-to-be-forgotten meal. They ate sparingly, feeling their internal cramps and pains melted by the warmth of a divinely gentle fire, and yet almost dreading that what gave back their lives might take them away again if they were not careful. Above all else, the wine seemed to restore their forces and set the blood flowing in their veins.
Dyke, dangling his legs over the abyss, talked gaily but philosophically.
“I oughtn’t to have let him go with his life. No, I really ought to have killed him, Emmie. But, then, I knew you wouldn’t like--And I never like to myself, either--if it can be avoided. Of course, I spotted at once that so poor a specimen as that couldn’t work alone--that he was just an understrapper.” And Dyke explained and apologized for the slight untruths that he had felt compelled to tell in regard to the money. “You can’t call that lying, Emmie. I never lie. I hate lies. That was mere poker talk. If he had known I had it, and I hadn’t been nippy enough to down him first, he’d have sent a bullet through me and you too. I thought it all out while he was riding up to us--in fact, the moment I guessed he was one of the gang. If I was to spare his life, I must conceal the money, or he’d tell the others. He hasn’t anything to tell them now.” Dyke chuckled as he said this. “And it’ll take him some time to get home.”
