Dorward drew a few steps back. Then he shook his head. 

 “I guess not,” he said firmly. 

 Bellamy regarded his friend in blank and uncomprehending amazement. 

 “What do you mean?” he exclaimed. “You’re not going to keep it to yourself? You know what it means to me—to England?” 

 “Your old country can look after herself pretty well,” Dorward declared. “Anyhow, she’ll have to take her chance. I am not here as a philanthropist. I am an American journalist, and I’ll part to nobody with the biggest thing that’s ever come into any man’s bands.” 

 Bellamy, with a tremendous effort, maintained his self-control. 

 “What are you going to do with it?” he asked quickly. 

 “I tell you I’m off out of the country to-night,” Dorward declared. “I shall head for England. Pearce is there himself, and I tell you it will be just the greatest day of my life when I put this packet in his hand. We’ll make New York hum, I can promise you, and Europe too.” 

 Bellamy’s manner was perfectly quiet—too quiet to be altogether natural. His hand was straying towards his pocket. 

 “Dorward,” he said, speaking rapidly, and keeping his back to the door, “you don’t realize what you’re up against. This sort of thing is new to you. You haven’t a dog’s chance of leaving Vienna alive with that in your pocket. If you trust yourself in the Orient Express to-night, you’ll never be allowed to cross the frontier. By this time they know that the packet is missing; they know, too, that you are the only man who could have it, whether the Chancellor has told them the truth or not. Open it at once so that we get some good out of it. Then we’ll go round to the Embassy. We can slip out by the back way, perhaps. Remember I have spent my life in the service, and I tell you that there’s no other place in the city where your life is worth a snap of the fingers but at your Embassy or mine. Open the packet, man.” 

 “I think not,” Dorward answered firmly. “I am an American citizen. I have broken no laws and done no one any harm. If there’s any slaughtering about, I guess they’ll hesitate before they begin with Arthur Dorward.... Don’t be a fool, man!” 

 He took a quick step backward,—he was looking into the muzzle of Bellamy’s revolver. 

 

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