At first glance, the closet's interior revealed only a more or less orderly array of hanging raincoats and aprons and overalls. Then, all three of the onlooking humans focused their eyes upon a pair of splayed and grimy bare feet which protruded beneath a somewhat bulging raincoat of Milo's.
Brice thrust his arm in, between this coat and a gardening apron, and jerked forth a silently squirming youth, perhaps eighteen years old, swarthy and undersized.
"Well!" exclaimed Gavin, holding his writhing prize at arm's length, "Simon Cameron must have a depraved taste in playmates, if he tries to choose this one! A regular beach combing conch! Probably a clay-eater, at that."
He spoke the words with seeming carelessness, but really with deliberate intent. For the glum silence of a conch is a hard thing for any outsider to break down. He recalled what Claire had said of the Caesars' fierce distaste for the word "conch." Also, throughout the South, "clay-eater," has ever been a fighting word.
Brice had not gauged his insults in vain. Instantly, the captive's head twisted, like that of a pinioned pit terrier, in a frenzied effort to drive his teeth into the hand or arm of his captor. Failing this, he spluttered into rapid-fire speech.
"Ah'm not a conch!" he rasped, his voice sounding as rusty as an unused hinge. "Ah'm a Caesar, yo' dirty Yank! Tuhn me loose, yo'! Ah ain't hurt nuthin'."
"How did you get in here?" bellowed Milo, advancing threateningly on the youth, and swinging aloft one of his hamlike fists.
The intruder stiffened into silence and stolid rigidity.
Unflinchingly, he eyed the oncoming giant. Brice motioned
Standish back.
"No use," said he. "I know the breed. They've been kicked and beaten and hammered about, till a licking has no terrors for them. This sweet soul will stay in the silences, till—"
Again, he broke off speaking. And again on account of Simon Cameron. The cat, recovering from the indignity of being brushed from in front of the opening door, had returned to his former post of watching, and now stood, tail erect and back arched, staring up at the prisoner out of huge round green eyes. The sight of a stranger had its wonted lure for the Persian.