"You poor fool!" he said; "leave it alone can't you? You want to
poison yourself I know. Well, you can do as you jolly well like
when you are out of this - not before."
Monty's eyes flashed evil fires, but his tone remained persuasive.
"Trent," he said, "be reasonable. Look at me! I ask you now
whether I am not better for that last drop. I tell you that it
is food and wine to me. I need it to brace me up for to-morrow.
Now listen! Name your own stake! Set it up against that single
glass! I am not a mean man, Trent. Shall we say one hundred and
fifty?"
Trent looked at him half scornfully, half deprecatingly.
"You are only wasting your breath, Monty," he said. "I couldn't
touch money won in such a way, and I want to get you out of this
alive. There's fever in the air all around us, and if either of
us got a touch of it that drop of brandy might stand between us
and death. Don't worry me like a spoilt child. Roll yourself up
and get to sleep! I'll keep watch."
"I will be reasonable," Monty whined. "I will go to sleep, my
friend, and worry you no more when I have had just one sip of that
brandy! It is the finest medicine in the world for me! It will
keep the fever off. You do not want money you say! Come, is
there anything in this world which I possess, or may possess,
which you will set against that three inches of brown liquid?"
Trent was on the point of an angry negative.
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