“You looked so fit, so prosperous, and I could read you both, could see in flaming capitals your pity, your contempt,—­aye, and your disgust that a fellow-Englishman should be festering before your eyes.  I asked for leave to spend the night in your barn, and you said, ’All right.’  All right, when everything was so cruelly, so pitilessly the other way!  Then you came back, taking for granted that I must accept whatever you offered.  I wanted to refuse, but the words stuck in my throat.  I followed you to the bath-house.  Was I grateful?  Not a bit.  I decided that for your own amusement, and perhaps to staunch your English pride, which I had offended, you meant to lift a poor devil out of hell, so as to drop him again into deeper depths when the comedy was over——­”

“Good heavens!  You thought that?”

“My dear fellow, you write now, don’t you?  I’m giving you a bit of psychology—­showing you the point of view of the worm writhing beneath the boot of lordly Man.  But, always, I meant to turn, if I got the chance.  I washed myself; I shaved; I slipped into your nice clean clothes.  I’ll admit that the warm water removed some encrusted mud from my mind, but it sharpened rather then obscured my resolution to make the most of what looked like a last chance.  But when you uncorked that Leoville, shame spoiled it for me.”

“You drank only two glasses, I remember.”

“It brought everything back—­everything!  If I had had one more glass, I should have laid myself at your feet, whining and whimpering.  The cigar that I smoked afterwards was poppy and mandragora.  Through a cloud of smoke I saw all the pleasant years that were gone.  Again I weakened.  I had aroused your interest.  I could have sponged upon you indefinitely.  At that moment I saw the safe.  Your brother imprudently mentioned that a large sum of money lay inside it.  I made up my mind instantly to take the money, and did so that night.  The dog was licking my hand as I robbed you.  But next morning——­”

He paused, then he laughed lightly.  “Next morning——­”

“You appeared with the kit-bag!  That disconcerted me terribly.  It proved what I had not perceived—­that you two young Englishmen, tenderfeet both of you, had realised what you were doing, had seriously faced the responsibility of resurrecting the dead.  The letter to the cashier, the twenty-dollar bill I found in my coat-pocket—­these were as scorpions.  But I hadn’t the nerve to own up.  So I carried the money to the bank and deposited it to your account.”

“Then you bought a six-shooter.”

“Yes; I meant to try another world.  I had had enough of this one.  I couldn’t go back to my wallow.”

“What restrained you?”

“The difficulty of finding a hiding-place.  If my body were discovered, I knew that it would be awful for you.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s easy to find a hole, but it’s not easy to pull a hole in after one—­eh?  Still, I thought I should find some wild gulch on the Santa Barbara trail, amongst those God-forsaken foothills.  The buzzards would pull the hole in within forty-eight hours.”