"Gentlemen, I will ask you to withdraw a while. It may be that a way can be found out of this business which may lead to my waiving or indefinitely postponing my right. If Colonel Livenza is willing, I will speak with him privately."
A hurried whispered conference between him and his seconds followed, and then we two were left alone.
CHAPTER XIV
A COWARD'S STORY
After a very short pause Livenza's very shame at his own panic began to give him a sort of firmness of bravado. The worst about him had been made clear; he had shown that he was afraid and was willing to purchase his life; and it was a matter in which he must make the best terms he could. The pressure of imminent death once removed, he could breathe again. In the future he was to be my creature, and he recognised it. That was how I read the sullen, scowling look he gave me as he drew himself up slowly and crossed his arms.
"You can sit down if you wish," I said, curtly, in the tone of a master, to make him feel my authority and to recall to him his former craven appeal.
"I have no wish: I can stand."
"You know your life is forfeit," and I glanced at the pistol in my hand, "and that I have the right to send the bullet crashing into your brain, if I please?"
He winced, and the light of fear glanced again in his eyes. I couldn't have shot him in cold blood, of course, and the thrust was a cruel one. But I knew that he could have shot me under the circumstances, and that he would read my disposition by his own. He was a brute, and must be treated as a brute.
"If you mean to shoot me, do it," he cried.