After this he grew more calm.  Perhaps the knowledge that the store was secure now against any intruder helped to steady his nerves.  Then he started—­was the store secure?  He rose again and went to the window to put up the shutter.  He gazed out towards the Foss River Ranch, and, as he gazed, he saw some one riding fast towards the settlement.

The horseman came nearer; the sight fascinated the great man.  Now the traveler had reached the market place, and was coming on towards the store.  Suddenly the money-lender recognized in the horseman one of Horrocks’s troopers, mounted on a horse from John Allandale’s stable.  A wild hope leapt up in his heart.  Then, as the man drew nearer and Lablache saw the horrified expression of his face, hope went from him, and he feared the worst.

The clatter of hoofs ceased outside the office door.  Lablache stepped heavily forward and threw it open.  He stood framed in the doorway as the man gasped out his terrible news.

“He’s drowned, sir, drowned before our eyes.  We tried, but couldn’t save him.  He would go, sir; we tried to persuade him, but he would go.  No more than fifty yards from the bank, and then down he went.  He was out of sight in two minutes.  It was horrible, sir, and him never uttered a sound.  I’m going in to Stormy Cloud to report an’ get instructions.  Anything I can do, sir?”

So the worst was realized.  For the moment the money-lender could find no words.  His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.  His last hope—­the last barrier between him and the man whom he considered his arch enemy, Retief, seemed to have been shattered.  He thought not of the horror of the policeman’s drowning; he felt no sorrow at the reckless man’s ghastly end.  He merely thought of himself.  He saw only how the man’s death affected his personal interests.  At last he gurgled out some words.  He scarce knew what he said.

“There’s nothing to be done.  Yes—­no—­yes, you’d better go up to the Allandales,” he went on uncertainly.  “They’ll send a rescue party.”

The trooper dashed off and Lablache securely fastened the door.  Then he put the shutter over the window, and, notwithstanding that it was broad daylight still, he lit the lamp.

Once more he returned to his protesting chair, into which he almost fell.  To him this last catastrophe was as the last straw.  What was now to become of the settlement; what was to become of him?  Horrocks gone; the troopers withdrawn, or, at least, without a guiding hand, what might Retief not be free to do while the settlement awaited the coming of a fresh detachment of police.  He impotently cursed the raider.  The craven weakness, induced by his condition of nervous prostration, was almost pitiable.  All the selfishness which practically monopolized his entire nature displayed itself in his terror.  He cared nothing for others.  He believed that Retief was at war with him alone.  He believed that the raider sought only his wealth—­his wealth which his years of hard work and unscrupulous methods had laboriously piled up—­the wealth he loved and lived for—­the wealth which was to him as a god.  He thought of all he had already lost.  He counted it up in thousands, and his eyes grew wide with horror and despair as the figures mounted up, up, until they represented a great fortune.