“You forget your life hangs by a thread.”
“There are four threads and four lives,” I retorted; and again he winced and bit his lip, and was silenced.
“If we go you must go with us,” he said after a pause.
“Not alive, nor alone;” and I pointed this with a look he could read.
“You will release our comrades?”
I could have laughed aloud as I heard this. It was the proof that I had beaten him. But I answered as sternly as I could speak.
“It is not for you to dictate to me. Put mademoiselle and the rest back in the house here; then take your men away with you. When I am satisfied no treachery is intended, the three prisoners shall be released.”
“By the living God of Heaven you shall answer for all this,” he cried in a frenzy of rage. But impotent anger of this sort was nothing to me. I had him on the hip, and he knew it; and if he chose to vent some of his wrath in words, let him.
He stood many moments in desperate doubt, seeking for some other way out of the maze; but he found none, and he turned at length to consult his fellows. The conference was angry and excited, but no talk or excitement could alter the fact that to harm me meant the death of their three comrades.
Muttered oaths were as thick as corn on the cob; fierce threats were levelled at me, accompanied by glances of bitter hate. Once the counsel of violence seemed likely to prevail, and the looks and gestures grew so menacing that I intervened.