The mulatto laughed—a hideous, hyaena-like grin—showing the long, sharp, canine teeth which had gained him his repellent sobriquet.
“Swear to him?” he cried. “I’d swear to him in a million! I recognised him directly I set eyes on him in the crowd at ‘King.’ But the young lady spotted me sharp as a needle, and I had to hide. She does seem awful fond of him. Why, when I—”
“Drop that damned nonsense, Sharkey, and stick to the point?” exclaimed the Englishman, with a deep frown.
“Very sorry, Cap’n. Well, I was going to say, I knew him, and, what’s more, he knew me.”
“The devil he did!”
“Yes. He recognised me first when I met him on the road on Saturday, riding with the young lady; then afterwards I spoke to him, but he was that high and lofty! I told him my name, and watched him closely; then I called him by his name that he carried up there—just let it slip, like—and, would you believe it?—he never winced!”
“Didn’t he?”
“No, he didn’t. Says he: ‘Never saw you before in my life!’ as cool as you please. Ah, he’s a plucky devil is Lidwell; he always was!” said the mulatto, with a sigh of admiration.
“Why do you owe him a grudge?” asked the other, curiously.
“He knocked me down once, Cap’n—hit me here, bang on the nose.” And the speaker’s features assumed a look of deadly malice. “He shot me, too, and left me for dead. I could forgive him that, but not the whack on the nose.”