In Search of an Unknown Race — page 258: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

244 VAN, involuntary thrill as he became conscious that a faint breath of cool air had fanned his cheek. This was perhaps a passing zephyr from one of the long open windows, yet the night air without lay heavy and still. ‘‘What do you want?” finally asked Flores in a constrained voice. ‘Only what is my due—or at least as much of it as I can hope for after your spendthrift career that I have heard of from a dozen different quarters since arriving in town,” answered Van, shrugging his shoulders as he looked about the luxurious apartment. Well, there was no help for it. With a sullen, low- ering face, Flores unlocked an elaborately carved desk, and produced a small steel strong box. From this he took the missing money belt, in which a goodly num- ber of Van’s diamonds still remained, also some United States bonds, a thick roll of bills and a bank book representing a considerable sum. Flores could of course only make a very rough estimate of his expenditures, the amount of which in the short space of eight months, astonished even him- self. True, he had used something of his own means, but a few of Van’s largest diamonds were missing, and the value of these were made good as far as it was pos- sible to estimate it, by the money which Flores handed Over. By how many thousand dollars Van was the loser, neither he, or—to do him justice—Flores himself knew, but it was no inconsiderable amount. Yet even as it was, the former found himself in the possession of what for so young a man might be called a handsome fortune, while Flores himself had a large balance remaining. GOMIGchooks