"Some men ruins women," he rushed on, "an' some ruins other men. He done thet ter me—an' whenever I boggled or balked he cracked his whip anew—an' I wasn't nuthin' but his pore white nigger thet obeyed him. I ached ter kill him an' I didn't even dast ter contrary him. His name's Bas Rowlett!"
The recital broke off and the speaker stood trembling from head to foot. Then the hearer who had listened paled to the roots of his shaggy hair and his gargoyle face became a mask of tragic fury.
At first Hump Doane did not trust himself to speak and when he did, there was a moment in which the other feared him almost more than he feared Bas Rowlett.
For the words of the hunchback came like a roar of thunder and he seemed on the verge of leaping at his visitor's throat.
"Afore God, ye self-confessed, murderin' liar," he bellowed, "don't seek ter accuse Bas Rowlett ter me in no sich perjury! He's my kinsman an' my friend—an' I knows ye lies. Ef ye ever lets words like them cross yore lips ergin in my hearin' I'll t'ar ther tongue outen yore mouth with these two hands of mine!"
For a space they stood there in silence, the old man glaring, the younger slowly coming back from his mania of emotion as from a trance.
Perhaps had Sim sought to insist on his story he would never have been allowed to finish it, but in that little interval of pause Hump Doane's passion also passed, as passions too violent to endure must pass.
After the first unsuspected shock, it was borne in on him that there are confessions which may not be doubted, and that of them this was one. His mind began to reaccommodate itself, and after a little he said in a voice of deadly coldness:
"Howsoever, now thet ye've started, go on. I'll hear ye out."
"I'm tellin' ye gospel truth, an' sometimes ther truth hurts," insisted Sim. "Bas war jealous of Dorothy Harper—an' I didn't dast ter deny him. He paid me a patch of river-bottom land fer ther job, albeit I failed."