There was a sweeping bluntness about the challenge that should have been irresistible. Wilder waited for the answer he demanded while reserving a trump card to play in case of refusal.
There was no change in the blindman’s attitude. There was no movement. His yellow face remained sphinx-like.
“Maybe I should not blame you,” he said, in his harsh fashion. “You make a good case. But—I am blind.
“Here,” he went on, in imitation of the other, with a slight gesture of his disengaged hand, “I will not tell you the things you ask. But I tell you some other. This valley is the great oil bed of these mountains, and the oil is being tapped. If you touch on this oil you will never leave the valley alive. Those who are working it have been doing so for many years. It is their established right, for no one has denied them in all the years. No one has come near. They find it and work it. It is equity. I have no place in this thing. I am—blind.”
Wilder’s eyes hardened. He glanced from the man to the woman. In the latter’s eyes was a look of renewed apprehension, almost of pleading, and he felt that she was waiting for the effect of her man’s words.
“Then you fear to tell me—who you are?” he asked quietly.
“Nothing? Yet you fear the coming of this man you call—Usak. You fear the sight of every stranger?”
Wilder’s gaze was on the anxious face of the woman. His words were for her benefit. But they had an unexpected effect. The blindman suddenly unbent.
“It is as I said,” he declared, his tone moderating but assuming a bitterness of real feeling. “I fear no one and nothing. I am blind. I am completely alone, but for my good wife. I live through her hands, her eyes, her will. What is the worst that may happen? Death? It is nothing—now. I am a dead man to the world—now. I am blind. Once it was not so. Once in this home, here in this valley, there were servants who worked at my command. There were many interests in my life. Now it is changed. The light has gone out, and with it have passed those who obeyed my will, those who depended for their well-being on my word. It is the way of such service. Rats never fail to quit the doomed ship,” he cried bitterly. “I have nothing to fear. Least of all—death.”