“You are an old fox, Captain McGregor! But I am aware of your tricks and cannot be taken in by them. Therefore, once more, six hundred rupees!”
Every poker-player knows that, so far from being considered dishonourable, it is a chief sign of skill in the game, where each man plays for his own hand, for one to deceive the rest as to the value of the cards he holds. The name of “bluff,” which has been given to this game, is itself sufficient to show that everyone has to try his best to puzzle his adversaries.
But this time Irwin appeared to have met his match in McGregor. For the Captain replied calmly: “Six hundred and fifty. But I advise you not to see me, Irwin.”
“Seven hundred.”
“Seven hundred and fifty.”
“Thousand!” shouted Irwin with resounding voice, and leant back in his chair smiling, as if certain of victory.
“You had better consider what you are about,” said McGregor. “I have given you warning.”
“A convenient way to haul in seven hundred and fifty rupees. I repeat: A thousand rupees.”
“One thousand and fifty!”
“Two thousand!”
All the gentlemen present in the tent had risen and stood round the two players, who, their cards concealed in their hands, watched each other with sharp glances. Hermann Heideck, who had stepped behind Irwin, noticed on the right hand of the Captain a magnificent diamond ring. But he also perceived, by the way the bright sparkle of the stone quivered, how the gambler’s fingers trembled.
Captain McGregor turned to his companions. “I take the gentlemen to witness that I have advised my comrade Irwin not to see me at six hundred.”
“To the devil with your advice!” Irwin interrupted almost furiously. “Am I a boy? Will you see me at two thousand, McGregor, or will you not?”
“Very well, since you insist upon it—three thousand.”
“Five thousand.”
“Five thousand five hundred.”
“Ten thousand.”
One of the higher officers, Major Robertson, laid his hand lightly upon the shoulder of the rash gambler.
“That is too much, Irwin. I do not care to interfere in these things, and since you do not belong to my regiment, I can only speak to you as a comrade, not as a superior. But I am afraid you will be in difficulties if you lose.”
Angrily the Captain fired up—
“What do you mean by that, sir? If your words are intended to express a doubt as to my solvency—”
“Well! well—I did not mean to offend you. After all, you must know best yourself what you are justified in doing.”
Irwin repeated with a defiant air—
“Ten thousand! I am waiting for your answer, McGregor.”
The adversary remained as calm as before.
“Ten thousand five hundred.”
“Twenty thousand!”
“Are you drunk, Irwin?” whispered the young Lieutenant Temple into the Captain’s ear, from the other side. But he only glanced round with a furious look.
“Not more than you. Leave me alone, if you please.”
“Twenty-one thousand,” came the calm response from the other side of the table.
A short, awkward pause followed. Captain Irwin nervously gnawed his small dark moustache. Then he raised his slim figure and called out—
“Fifty thousand!”
Once more the Major considered it his duty to endeavour to stop the game.
“I object,” he said. “It has been always a rule that the pool cannot be raised by more than a thousand rupees at a time. This limit has long since been passed.”
A rude, hoarse laugh escaped Irwin’s lips.
“It appears you want to save me, Major. But I am not in need of any saviour. If I lose I pay, and I don’t understand why the gentlemen are so concerned on my behalf.”
The Major, who at last saw that all his good endeavours were misplaced, shrugged his shoulders. Lieutenant Temple, however, thought he had a good idea, and with an apparently unintentional, though violent, movement pushed against the light camp-table, and sent ashtrays, bottles, glasses, and cards flying on the ground. But he did not gain anything by this, for the two players held their cards firmly in their hands, and did not allow this contretemps to disturb their sangfroid for a single moment.
“Fifty-one,” said McGregor.
“Sixty.”
“Sixty-one.”
“Seventy.”
“Seventy-one.”
“Eighty.”
“Eighty-one.”
“A lakh!” cried Irwin, who was now pale from excitement.
“Really?” asked McGregor calmly, “that is a fine bid. A lakh—that is, reckoned at the present rate of exchange, 6,500 pounds sterling. You will be a wealthy man, Irwin, if you win. Now, then, I see you.”
With trembling fingers, but with a triumphant look, the Captain laid down his cards.
“Straight flush,” he said hoarsely.
“Yes, a strong hand,” replied the other, smiling. “But which is your highest card?”
“The king, as you see for yourself.”
“That’s a pity, for I have also, as it happens, a straight flush, but mine is up to the ace.”
Slowly, one after the other, he laid down his cards—ace of hearts, king of hearts, queen of hearts, knave of hearts, ten of hearts. One single exclamation of surprise came from the lips of the bystanders. None of them had ever seen the coincidence of such an extraordinary sequence.
Captain Irwin sat motionless for a moment, fixing his unsteady eyes straight upon his adversary’s cards. Then he suddenly sprang up with a wild laugh, and left the tent with jingling steps.
“This loss spells ruin for Irwin,” said the Major gravely. “He is not in a position to pay such a sum.”
“With his wife’s assistance he could,” chimed in another; “but it would eat up pretty well the rest of her fortune.”
“I call you, gentlemen, to witness that it is not my fault,” said McGregor, who thought he perceived a certain degree of reproach in the faces of the bystanders; but all agreed with him.
Lieutenant Temple, who alone of all those present kept up a certain superficial friendship with Irwin, remarked, “Somebody must go after him to see that he does not do something foolish in his first excitement.”
He turned as if to leave the room, but a call from McGregor stopped him.
“It will be no use, Temple, unless you are able to calm him in some way or other. In my opinion there is only one thing to do. He must be persuaded that the whole affair is only a joke, and that the cards had been shuffled beforehand.”
The Lieutenant went back to the table.
“The suggestion of this way of putting it does you honour, Captain; only I have my doubts if any of us would have the courage to go to him with this manifest lie.”
The silence of the others appeared to confirm this doubt, when the decisive voice of the German guest interrupted with—
“Will you entrust me, gentlemen, with this mission? I know Captain Irwin only slightly, it is true, and should have no reason to interfere with his private concerns; but I hear that it is his wife’s property which has been at stake here, and as I consider Mrs. Irwin a very honourable lady I would gladly do my best to save her from such a heavy pecuniary loss.”
McGregor held out his hand.
“You would place me under a great obligation, Mr. Heideck, if you could succeed in this matter, but I warn you that there is no time to lose.”
Heideck quickly left the tent, but when he had come out into the delicious moonlight night the first thing that met his eye was Captain Irwin, some twenty yards distant, standing by his horse. The servant held the animal by the bridle, and Captain Irwin was about to mount. On coming nearer he saw the servant move off and perceived that Irwin held a revolver in his hand. With a quick motion he seized the officer’s wrist.