“Beaucaire drew two kayards,” whispered an excited voice near me.

“Hell! so did Kirby.” replied another.  “They’re both of ’em old hands.”

The sharp exhaust of a distant steam pipe below punctuated the silence, and several glanced about apprehensively.  As this noise ceased Beaucaire lost all control over his nerves.

“Come on, play your hand,” he demanded, “or I’ll throw my cards in your face.”

The insinuating sneer on Kirby’s lips changed into the semblance of a smile.  Slowly, deliberately, never once glancing down at the face of his cards, he turned them up one by one with his white fingers, his challenging eyes on the Judge; but the others saw what was revealed—–­a ten spot, a knave, a queen, a king, and an ace.

“Good God! a straight flush!” someone yelled excitedly.  “Damned if I ever saw one before!”

For an instant Beaucaire never moved, never uttered a sound.  He seemed to doubt the evidence of his own eyes, and to have lost the power of speech.  Then from nerveless hands his own cards fell face downward, still unrevealed, upon the table.  The next moment he was on his feet, the chair in which he had been seated flung crashing behind him on the deck.

“You thief!” he roared, “You dirty, low-down thief; I held four aces—­where did you get the fifth one?”

Kirby did not so much as move, nor betray even by change of expression his sense of the situation.  Perhaps he anticipated just such an explosion, and was fully prepared to meet it.  One hand still rested easily on the table, the other remaining hidden.

“So you claim to have held four aces,” he said coldly.  “Where are they?”

McAfee swept the discarded hand face upward, and the crowd bending forward to look saw four aces, and a king.

“That was the Judge’s hand,” he declared soberly.  “I saw it myself before he called you, and told him to stay.”

Kirby laughed, an ugly laugh showing his white teeth.

“The hell, you did?  Thought you knew a good poker hand, I reckon.  Well, you see I knew a better one, and it strikes me I am the one to ask questions,” he sneered.  “Look here, you men; I held one ace from the shuffle.  Now what I want to know is, where Beaucaire ever got his four?  Pleasant little trick of you two—­only this time it failed to work.”

Beaucaire uttered one mad oath, and I endeavored to grasp him, but missed my clutch.  The force of his lurching body as he sprang forward upturned the table, the stakes jingling to the deck, but Kirby reached his feet in time to avoid the shock.  His hand which had been hidden shot out suddenly, the fingers grasping a revolver, but he did not fire.  Before the Judge had gone half the distance, he stopped, reeled suddenly, clutching at his throat, and plunged sideways.  His body struck the upturned table, and McAfee and I grasped him, lowering the stricken man gently to the floor.