“No. There is a limit to my compliance. I dare not do this.”
“What is it you are afraid of?”
“I can’t tell you that. My lips are sealed.”
“Oh come, you weren’t afraid to betray your associates when you thought to get me into a mess. Why be afraid now, to get yourself out of one?”
He was pacing in my direction now and I made a half turn from him as if to glance at his desk.
“I would do it if I could, Heaven knows. You’ve got me in a corner, but——” And at that instant he sprang forward to grab me by the throat. I was fully prepared, and instead of getting his hands on me he threw them up and staggered back from my levelled revolver.
“Don’t try that again,” I said between my teeth. “And now do what I have told you—and do it at once.”
He abandoned his intention to try force, and sat down again at the desk, but he would not write the letters.
“I dare not. I dare not. You must do what you will. I dare not,” he repeated, over and over again in answer to my threats.
This persistent refusal perplexed me. That he was in fear of his life I knew, for I had convinced him I meant to set his enemy on his track. But there was obviously something or some one of whom he was even more afraid than of me. I could think of only one man—Barosa. But why of him? And why only in regard to breaking his engagement to Miralda?