“Too damned cheap!” Tommy cried.  “What if I am auctioneer?  That does not prevent me from bidding.  I’ll make it thirteen hundred.”

“Fourteen hundred,” from Porportuk.

“I’ll buy you in to be my—­my sister,” Tommy whispered to El-Soo, then called aloud, “Fifteen hundred!”

At two thousand one of the Eldorado kings took a hand, and Tommy dropped out.

A third time Porportuk swung the club of his wealth, making a clean raise of five hundred dollars.  But the Eldorado king’s pride was touched.  No man could club him.  And he swung back another five hundred.

El-Soo stood at three thousand.  Porportuk made it thirty-five hundred, and gasped when the Eldorado king raised it a thousand dollars.  Porportuk again raised it five hundred, and again gasped when the king raised a thousand more.

Porportuk became angry.  His pride was touched; his strength was challenged, and with him strength took the form of wealth.  He would not be ashamed for weakness before the world.  El-Soo became incidental.  The savings and scrimpings from the cold nights of all his years were ripe to be squandered.  El-Soo stood at six thousand.  He made it seven thousand.  And then, in thousand-dollar bids, as fast as they could be uttered, her price went up.  At fourteen thousand the two men stopped for breath.

Then the unexpected happened.  A still heavier club was swung.  In the pause that ensued, the gambler, who had scented a speculation and formed a syndicate with several of his fellows, bid sixteen thousand dollars.

“Seventeen thousand,” Porportuk said weakly.

“Eighteen thousand,” said the king.

Porportuk gathered his strength.  “Twenty thousand.”

The syndicate dropped out.  The Eldorado king raised a thousand, and Porportuk raised back; and as they bid, Akoon turned from one to the other, half menacingly, half curiously, as though to see what manner of man it was that he would have to kill.  When the king prepared to make his next bid, Akoon having pressed closer, the king first loosed the revolver at his hip, then said: 

“Twenty-three thousand.”

“Twenty-four thousand,” said Porportuk.  He grinned viciously, for the certitude of his bidding had at last shaken the king.  The latter moved over close to El-Soo.  He studied her carefully for a long while.

“And five hundred,” he said at last.

“Twenty-five thousand,” came Porportuk’s raise.

The king looked for a long space, and shook his head.  He looked again, and said reluctantly, “And five hundred.”

“Twenty-six thousand,” Porportuk snapped.

The king shook his head and refused to meet Tommy’s pleading eye.  In the meantime Akoon had edged close to Porportuk.  El-Soo’s quick eye noted this, and, while Tommy wrestled with the Eldorado king for another bid, she bent, and spoke in a low voice in the ear of a slave.  And while Tommy’s “Going—­going—­going—­” dominated the air, the slave went up to Akoon and spoke in a low voice in his ear.  Akoon made no sign that he had heard, though El-Soo watched him anxiously.