“That morning when General Ojedas’ forces entered Puerto Frio, and the government seized me, you were free. Then, I was released, and you arrested. You drew your conclusions. Oh, they were natural enough. But, before heaven, they were wrong!”
Saxon felt that, until he had learned the full story, he must remain the actor. Accordingly, he allowed himself a skeptical laugh. Rodman, stung by the implied disbelief, took up his argument again:
“You think I’m lying. It sounds too fishy! Of course, it was my enterprise. It was a revolution of my making. You were called in as the small lawyer calls in the great one. I concede all that. For me to have sacrificed you would have been infamous, but I didn’t do it. I had been little seen in Puerto Frio. I was not well known. I had arranged it all from the outside while you had been in the city. You were less responsible, but more suspected. You remember how carefully we planned—how we kept apart. You know that even you and I met only twice, and that I never even saw your man, Williams.”
Through the bitterness of conviction, a part of Saxon’s brain seemed to be looking on impersonally and marveling, almost with amusement, at the remarkable position in which he found himself. Here stood a man before him with a pistol pressed close to his chest, threatening execution, denouncing, cursing, yet all the while giving evidence of terror, almost pleading with his victim to believe his story! It was the armed man who was frightened, who dreaded the act he declared he was about to commit. And, as Saxon stood listening, it dawned upon him, in the despair of the moment, that it was a matter of small concern to himself whether or not the other fired. The story he had heard had already done the injury. The bullet would be less cruel.... Rodman went on:
“I bent every effort to saving you, but Williams had confessed. He was frightened. It was his first experience. He didn’t know of my connection with the thing. So help me God, that is the true version.”
The story sickened Saxon, coming to him as it did in a form he could no longer disbelieve. He raised his hands despairingly. At last, he heard the other’s voice again.
“When the scrap ended, and you were in power, I had gone. I was afraid to come back. I knew what you would think, and then, after you left the country, I couldn’t find where you had gone.”
“You may believe me or not,” the painter said apathetically, “but I have forgotten all that. I have no resentment, no wish for vengeance. I had not even suspected you. I give you my word on that.”
“Of course,” retorted Rodman excitedly, “you’d say that. You’re looking down a gun-barrel. You’re talking for your life. Of course, you’d lie.”
Then, the revolutionist did a foolish and unguarded thing. He came a step nearer, and pressed the muzzle closer against Saxon’s chest, his own eyes glaring into those of his captive. The movement threw Saxon’s hands out of his diminished field of sight. In an instant, the painter had caught the wrist of the slighter man in a grip that paralyzed the hand, and forced it aside. The pistol fell from the nerveless fingers, and dropped clattering to the flagstones. As it struck, Saxon swept it backward with his foot.