"What's your hurry?" he remarked, with a certain insinuating emphasis.
I began to tremble.
"I am on my way back to camp, Captain Magnus. Please let me pass."
"It won't do no harm if you're a little late. There ain't no one there keepin' tab. Ain't you always a-strayin' off with the Honorable? I ain't so pretty, but—"
"You are impertinent. Let me pass."
"Oh, I'm impert'nent, am I? That means fresh, maybe. I'm a plain man and don't use frills on my langwidge. Well, when I meets a little skirt that takes my eyes there ain't no harm in lettin' her know it, is there? Maybe the Honorable could say it nicer—"
With a forward stride he laid a hand upon my arm. I shook him off and stepped back. Fear clutched my throat. I had left my revolver in my quarters. Oh, the dreadful denseness of these woods, the certainty that no wildest cry of mine could pierce them!
And then Crusoe, who had been waiting quietly behind me in the path, slipped in between us. Every hair on his neck was bristling. The lifted upper lip snarled unmistakably. He gave me a swift glance which said, Shall I spring?
Quite suddenly the gorilla blandishments of Captain Magnus came to an end.
"Say," he said harshly, "hold back that dog, will you? I don't want to kill the cur."