“I shall die while doing my duty at any rate. As for you—why, the most loathsome savage here is not so loathsome as you.”
“Ha—ha! That’s all gas. Well, it doesn’t suit me that your life shall be taken, Wagram—at least not until I choose. So I’ll give you my promise. Like yourself, I’m not a liar, whatever I may be.”
He harangued the assembled fiends, and in the result the wretched man, still livid with the fears of death, was allowed to slip away, while the crowd sullenly dispersed—Wagram, of course, being totally unaware that he was promising them another victim, whom they might despatch and feast upon at their leisure, when there should be nobody present to interrupt. Thus his promise was kept—in the letter.
“I thought I’d just let you see where I come in,” he said as they walked away together. “Man, you think you have done something blasted heroic, don’t you?—but let me tell you that a word from me would have seen you strapped down to one of those blocks too. You don’t suppose you could have kept them off with that knife for many minutes, do you?”
Wagram did not answer. His disgust and repulsion for the other had reached such a pitch that he did not deem it advisable to speak, for fear of betraying it.
“You’d better hug your own quarters for a day or two after this,” went on the latter. “None too safe to be prowling around. You understand?”
“Yes; I understand.”
Hope, raised once more, had fallen to the ground. For some reason or other this white savage had seen fit to detain him prisoner—probably with the object of extracting more in the way of ransom. Indeed, now it dawned upon him that in forcing him to behold all the more horrible side of the life of these barbarians the other was working to bring his mind up to such a pitch that he would be glad to purchase emancipation at any price, however great.