Tournelli started with flashing eyes, and turned swiftly round.

But the Quartermaster's hand had closed on his wrist.
"That's my knife, Tournelli." The knife dropped from the Italian's fingers.
"Better see WHAT he wants.

It may not be THAT," said the young officer, coolly but kindly.
Tournelli turned impatiently towards the stranger.

We alone had witnessed this incident, and were watching him breathlessly.

Yet what bade fair a moment ago to be a tragedy, seemed now to halt grotesquely.
For Tournelli, throwing open his linen jacket with a melodramatic gesture, tapped his breast, and with flashing eyes and suppressed accents said, "Sare; you wantah me?
Look--I am herre!" The speculator leaned back in his chair in good-humored astonishment.
The lady's black eyes, without looking at Tournelli, glanced backward round the room, and slipped along our table, with half-defiant unconcern; and then she uttered a short hysterical laugh.
"Ah! ze lady--madame--ze signora--eh--she wantah me ?" continued Tournelli, leaning on the table with compressed fingers, and glaring at her.