“What are you then?”
“I have told you. I am an American; I have got mixed up in this thing and want to get out of it.”
“You killed M. Vastic?”
“Do you think I was such a fool as to want to kill him? I had no feud with him, nor have I with you. It was a question whether he shot me—thinking I was the Emperor—or whether I got in first. And I had the drop on him.”
“Our comrades do not die unavenged,” he said with a grim significance anything but pleasant to notice. I chewed the reply a while in uneasy silence.
“I may take that as a declaration of war between us. You mean you will try to have my life for his. Not a pleasant lookout—for either of us.” The pause and the last words touched him on the raw.
“What do you mean by that?”
“We Americans make ugly enemies when we’re put to it. I know every man of you by sight, and have a rare memory for a face—when I want to remember it.”
“God of the dead and living, have a care, monsieur,” he cried.
“Ivan knows them too, and is a staunch friend of mine,” I returned very quietly and meaningly; and when he made no reply, I added: “You’ve had a sample of American methods to-night, and if it comes to any of this vendetta business, I’ll put up a good hand. You may gamble on that.”