that of winning for his own personal benefit. Moreover, he was now no longer gambling for his wife’s money, but for Yeobright’s; though of this fact Christian, in his apprehensiveness, did not inform him till afterwards.
It was nearly eleven o’clock, when, with almost a shriek, Christian placed Yeobright’s last gleaming guinea upon the stone. In thirty seconds it had gone the way of its companions.
Christian turned and flung himself on the ferns in a convulsion of remorse, “O, what shall I do with my wretched self?” he groaned. “What shall I do? Will any good Heaven hae mercy upon my wicked soul?”
“Do? Live on just the same.”
“I won’t live on just the same! I’ll die! I say you are a — a ——”
“A man sharper than my neighbour.”
“Yes, a man sharper than my neighbour; a regular sharper!”
“Poor chips-in-porridge, you are very unmannerly.”
“I don’t know about that! And I say you be unmannerly! You’ve got money that isn’t your own. Half the guineas are poor Mr. Clym’s.”
“How’s that?”
“Because I had to gie fifty of ’em to him. Mrs. Yeobright said so.”
“Oh? . . . Well, ‘twould have been more graceful of her to have given them to his wife Eustacia. But they are in my hands now.”
Christian pulled on his boots, and with heavy breathings, which could be heard to some distance, dragged his limbs together, arose, and tottered away out of sight. Wildeve set about shutting the lantern to return to the house, for he deemed it too late to go to Mistover to meet his wife, who was to be driven home in the captain’s four-wheel. While he was closing the little horn door a figure rose from behind a neighbouring bush and came forward into the lantern light. It was the reddleman approaching.
Chapter 8
A New Force Disturbs the Current
Wildeve stared. Venn looked coolly towards Wildeve, and, without a word being spoken, he deliberately sat himself down where Christian had been seated, thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out a sovereign, and laid it on the stone.
“You have been watching us from behind that bush?” said Wildeve.
The reddleman nodded. “Down with your stake,” he said. “Or haven’t you pluck enough to go on?”
Now, gambling is a species of amusement which is much more easily begun with full pockets than left off with the same; and though Wildeve in a cooler temper might have prudently declined this invitation, the excitement of his recent success carried him completely away. He placed one of the guineas on a slab beside the reddleman’s sovereign. “Mine is a guinea,” he said.
“A guinea that’s not your own,” said Venn sarcastically.
“It is my own,” answered Wildeve haughtily. “It is my wife’s, and what is hers is mine.”
“Very well; let’s make a beginning.” He shook the box, and threw eight, ten, and nine; the three casts amounted to twenty-seven.
This encouraged Wildeve. He took the box; and his three casts amounted to forty-five.
Down went another of the reddleman’s sovereigns against his first one which Wildeve laid. This time Wildeve threw fifty-one points, but no pair. The reddleman looked grim, threw a raffle of aces, and pocketed the stakes.
“Here you are again,” said Wildeve contemptuously. “Double the stakes.” He laid two of Thomasin’s guineas, and the reddleman his two pounds. Venn won again. New stakes were laid on the stone, and the gamblers proceeded as before.
Wildeve was a nervous and excitable man, and the game was beginning to tell upon his temper. He writhed, fumed, shifted his seat, and the beating of his heart was almost audible. Venn sat with lips impassively closed and eyes reduced to a pair of unimportant twinkles; he scarcely appeared to breathe. He might have been an Arab, or an automaton; he would have been like a red sandstone statue but for the motion of his arm with the dice-box.
The game fluctuated, now in favour of one, now in favour of the other, without any great advantage on the side of either. Nearly twenty minutes were passed thus. The light of the candle had by this time attracted heath-flies, moths, and other winged creatures of night, which floated round the lantern, flew into the flame, or beat about the faces of the two players.
But neither of the men paid much attention to these things, their eyes being concentrated upon the little flat stone, which to them was an arena vast and important as a battlefield. By this time a change had come over the game; the reddleman won continually. At length sixty guineas — Thomasin’s fifty, and ten of Clym’s — had passed into his hands. Wildeve was reckless, frantic, exasperated.
“‘Won back his coat,’” said Venn slily.
Another throw, and the money went the same way.
“‘Won back his hat,’” continued Venn.
“Oh, oh!” said Wildeve.
“‘Won back his watch, won back his money, and went out of the door a rich man,’” added Venn sentence by sentence, as stake after stake passed over to him.
“Five more!” shouted Wildeve, dashing down the money. “And three casts be hanged — one shall decide.”
The red automaton opposite lapsed into silence, nodded, and followed his example. Wildeve rattled the box, and threw a pair of sixes and five points. He clapped his hands; “I have done it this time — hurrah!”
“There are two playing, and only one has thrown,” said the reddleman, quietly bringing down the box. The eyes of each were then so intently converged upon the stone that one could fancy their beams were visible, like rays in a fog.
Venn lifted the box, and behold a triplet of sixes was disclosed.
Wildeve was full of fury. While the reddleman was grasping the stakes Wildeve seized the dice and hurled them, box and all, into the darkness, uttering a fearful imprecation. Then he arose and began stamping up and down like a madman.
“It is all over, then?” said Venn.
“No, no!” cried Wildeve. “I mean to have another chance yet. I must!”
“But, my good man, what have you done with the dice?”
“I threw them away — it was a momentary irritation. What a fool I am! Here — come and help me to look for them — we must find them again.”
Wildeve snatched up the lantern and began anxiously prowling among the furze and fern.
“You are not likely to find them there,” said Venn, following. “What did you do such a crazy thing as that for? Here’s the box. The dice can’t be far off.”
Wildeve
