"Here, strike," I cried.
"No 13," said the man, after a long pause.
A tall, broad, huge man loomed up out of a dark corner and stood between me and the light from the river. As he laid his hands on me, the clasp was like a clamp of iron, and his enormous strength made me as a child in his clutch.
With a trick that seemed to tell of much practice, he seized me suddenly by the right arm, holding it in a grip I thought no man on earth could possess, and bending me backwards held me so that either my throat or my heart were at the mercy of the long knife he held aloft.
I let no sound escape me and did not move a muscle. The next instant my left hand was seized and a finger pressed on my pulse. In this position I stayed for a full minute. I do not believe that my pulse quickened, save for the physical strain, by so much as one beat.
"It is enough," said the man who had before spoken; and I was released.
"You are no coward," he said, addressing me. "I withdraw that. You can have your life, on one condition."
"And that?"
"That you swear..."
"I will swear nothing," I interposed.