“Keep your hand on that Bible, Ezra! Take that oath. Say it! Eight, nine, t—”
“I’ll say it, Master Hal! I’ll say it!” gasped the old man. “Don’t kill me—_don’t_!”
“Say it, then: ‘May this poisoned kris strike through my heart!’”
“‘M-m-may this poisoned kris—strike through—my—heart!’ There now! Oh! Now I’ve said it. Let me go—let me go!”
“Go, and be damned to you! Get out o’ here, you spying _surka-batcha_—you son-of-a-pig!”
Hal dropped the Bible back on to the desk, swung Ezra ’round, and pitched him, staggering, into the dining-saloon. Ezra dragged himself away, quaking, ghastly, to his own room, there to lock himself in. Spent, terrified, he threw himself upon his bunk, and lay there, half dead.
Well satisfied, Hal reviewed the situation.
“I guess I’ve kept _him_ quiet for a while,” he muttered. “Long enough, anyhow. I won’t need much more time now.”
Back to the fireplace he turned, hung up the kris again on its hooks, glanced around to assure himself he had left no traces of his robbery. He closed the door of the safe, spun the knob, and in the desk-drawer replaced the slip of paper bearing the combination.
“I guess I’ve fixed things so they’ll hold a while now,” judged he. “God, what a place—what people! Spies, all spies! They’re all spying on me here. And Laura’s giving me the laugh, too. Maybe I won’t show them all a thing or two!”
He listened a moment, and, satisfied, opened the door into the front hall. To all appearances the coast was free. He snatched a cap, jammed it upon his head, and, hunching into an old raincoat, quietly left the house.
The Airedale would have followed him, but with the menace of an upraised fist he sent it back. Through the gate he went, and turned toward the right, in the direction of Hadlock’s Cove, where dwelt Jim Gordon, owner of the _Kittiwink_.
In his ears the wind, ever-rising, and the shouting of the quick-lashed surf along the rocks joined with the slash of the rain to make a chorus glad and mighty, to which his heart expanded. On and on he strode, exultant, filled with evil devisings of a mind half mad in the lusts of strength and passion. And as he went he held communion with himself:
“I’ll beat ’em to it—and devil take anything that stands in my way! To hell with them—to hell with everything that goes against me!”