But I suppose I answered too quickly to please him, and so he read my thoughts, or he had it in his mind from the first to read me a lesson, for the words were scarcely out of my mouth before he slid his hand into his breast with the ugliest smile I ever saw on a man's face; and he signed to me to get into the cupboard. "Get in," he said, between his closed teeth; and then when, terrified by the change in him and the order, I began to back from it, "Get in!" he said, in a voice that set me shaking; "or take the consequences. Do you hear me? I am no Ferguson to threaten and no more."
I dared resist no longer, and I crawled in, trembling and praying him not to shut me in--not to shut me in.
"Lie down!" he said, gloating on me with cruel eyes, and his hand still in his breast.
"On your back! On your back!" he continued. "And your hands by your sides. So! That is better. Now listen to me, Mr. Price, and think on what I say. When you want to be laid out for good as you are laid out now, when you are ready for your coffin and shroud--and the worms--then break your promise to me, for coffin and shroud and worms will be ready. Think of that--think of that and of me when the temptation comes. And hark you, you fancy," he went on, fixing his eyes on mine, "and you count on it, that I shall be taken with the others, or escaping shall be where you need not fear me. Don't deceive yourself. If a week hence I am in prison, take that for a sign, and please yourself. But if I am free, obey, obey--or God help you!"
I know not how to describe with any approach to fidelity the peculiar effect which words apparently so simple had on me, or the terror, out of all proportion to the means chosen--for he spoke without oath, violence, or passion--into which they threw me, and which was very far from passing with the sound. I had feared Ferguson, but I feared this man more, a hundred times more! And yet I can give no reason, adduce no explanation, save that he spoke quietly, and so seemed to mean all and something beyond what he said. The plans for deceiving him and breaking my word which I had entertained a moment before melted into thinnest air while I lay and sweated in my narrow berth, not daring to move eye or limb until he gave me leave.