“You want to get even with the young fellow who knocked you out a while ago?” he asked, at last arousing himself, but speaking in that same low monotone, as if addressing the picture. Dade, who had not taken his eyes off the strange man, started at the sound of his voice.
“Be careful, or you will be heard!”
Santenel sat more erect, shrugged his shoulders, passed a hand half-dreamily over his darkened and stained face.
“I’ve studied something of acoustics,” he answered. “You couldn’t have heard that yourself if your ears hadn’t been on edge.”
“I hate him!” snarled Dade, speaking of Starbright. “I shall never rest until I’ve wiped out the insult of those blows to-night.”
“You can’t do it by going at him face to face and fist to fist. He would simply knock you out again. You must try another way. Only fools and pugilists resort to slugging-matches to settle real or fancied wrongs. A man who is a mere bulldog fighter is only a bungler and blunderer. There are other ways, surer ways, safer ways.”
Dade had crushed the towel in his tremulous hand and was still staring at Santenel, as if the reserved and unseen power of this terrible man enchained him.
“There are two things!” Santenel droned on, dropping his shoulders and sinking lower in his chair, as he again seemed to talk to the fire. “I want to strike Charles Conrad Merriwell, and you want to even your score with Dick Starbright. Both can be done at the same time.”
Dade leaned forward, his face working with hate against Starbright.
“How?” he whispered. “Only tell me how?”