Guy Boothby

“ We had not been there half a minute before the black cat made his appearance, and recognising me as an old friend rubbed his head against my leg.
“You see even the cat is anxious to conciliate you,” said Nikola with a queer little smile. “I don't suppose there are five other men in the world with whom he would be as friendly on so short an acquaintance. ”

“ Being unable to pay me he made me a present of all he had to leave, a peculiar little stick, covered with carved Chinese characters, about which he told me an extraordinary story, and which has since nearly proved my undoing. For some inscrutable reason this man Nikola wanted to obtain possession of this stick, and because I refused to let him have it has subjected me to such continuous persecution these few years past as to nearly drive me into a lunatic asylum. Every method that a man could possibly adopt or a demoniacal brain invent to compel me to surrender the curio he tried. ”

“ I said, more impressed by his earnestness than I cared to own. “Is he not good for the money then?”
“Oh, as for the money, I don't doubt that he could pay it a dozen times over if he wanted to,” the worthy merchant replied. “In point of fact, between ourselves, he has the power to draw upon me up to the extent of £50,000.”
“He's a rich man, then? But where on earth does his money come from?” ”

“ Fortunately, however, Sir Richard Hatteras and his friend managed to make their escape from custody, followed the scoundrels to Sydney, and warned me of the plot that was hatching against me as soon as possible. The result was disastrous. Foiled in his endeavours to revenge himself on me by marrying my daughter to an impostor, Nikola had the audacity to abduct my girl from a ball at Government House and to convey her on a yacht to an island in the South Pacific, whence a month later we rescued her. ”

“ In the second place I had been a traveller in strange lands from my youth up, and was therefore the more accustomed to hard living. What I mean will be the more readily understood when I say that I had run away from home at the age of fifteen to go to sea; had spent three years in the roughest life before the mast any man could dream of or desire ”

“ I am in different case however. Whatever I do I consider right. What you might do, in nine cases out of ten, I should consider wrong. Wetherell might have saved himself all trouble by selling me the stick which China Pete gave him, and about which he wrote to McAndrew, who read the letter to you this morning!”
“How do you know he did?”
“How do I know anything?” inquired Nikola. ”