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CHAPTER LVI.
CONCERNING A NEW DANGER WHICH THREATENED CAP-
TAIN STANLEY LAKE.
The ambitious Captain walked out, sniffling, white.
and incensed. There was an air of immovable resolution
in the few words which Dorcas had spoken which rather
took him by surprise. The Captain was a terrorist. He
acted instinctively on the theory that any good that was
to be got from human beings was to be extracted from
their fears. He had so operated on Mark Wylder; and
so sought to coerce his sister Rachel. He had hopes, too,
of ultimately catching the good attorney napping, although
he was himself just now in jeopardy from that quarter.
James Dutton, too. Sooner or later he would get Master
Jim into a fix, and hold him also spell-bound in the same
sort of nightmare.
But Stanley Lake's plans were frustrated occasionally
by his temper, which, I am afraid, with all its external
varnish, was of the sort which is styled diabolical. Peo-
ple said also, what is true of most terrorists, that he was
himself quite capable of being frightened; and also, that
he lied with too fertile an audacity: and, like a man with
too many bills afloat, forgot his endorsements occasionally,
and did not recognise his own acceptances when presented
after an interval. Such were some of this dangerous fel-
low's weak points. But, on the whole, it was by no
means a safe thing to cross his path.
He pursued his way with a vague feeling of danger and
rage, having encountered an opposition of so much more