By this time I felt that I could hold my peace no longer. Certainly I was party to whatever agreement should be reached. "You lie!" I cried to Gleazen, "the owner said nothing of the kind!"
"How about it, Seth, how about it?" Gleazen demanded, disdainfully ignoring me. "Speak out your orders, speak 'em out or—" the man's voice dropped until it rumbled in his throat "—or—you know what."
Poor Seth Upham had thought himself so strong and able and shrewd! So he had been in little Topham. But neither the quick wit nor the native courage necessary to cope with desperate, resolute men was left to him now.
"I—I—" he stammered. "Take one or two of them, Captain North, just one or two,—do that for me, I beg you,—and let the rest go."
"What!" exclaimed Gideon North.
"One or two?" Gleazen thundered, "one or two? Only one or two?"
Instantly both men had turned upon my uncle. Both men, their eyes narrowed, their jaws out-thrust, faced him in hot anger. There was a moment of dreadful silence; then, to my utter amazement, my uncle actually got down on his knees in front of Neil Gleazen, down on his marrow bones on the bare boards, and wailed, "In the name of Heaven, Neil, don't tell! Don't tell!"
In the name of Heaven, Neil, don't tell! Don't tell!