“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 

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