"Wait!" commanded Scammel, thrusting up a staying hand. "That convicts you, Jesse. You're a damned scoundrel on your own say-so. What difference does it make as to the main facts of your dirty bit of work whether you knew that or not? I am not unmindful of the duties of a guest; but, for all that, if I were Blythe I'd whale the everlasting hell out of you, here and now, and I reckon he will; and I, for one, am going to stick around to see fair play!"
"Same here" and "That goes for me, too," put in the two younger men.
Blythe stepped forward, and, drawing back his right arm, left the quickly-crimsoning imprint of his palm upon Jesse's waxy cheek. Jesse received the blow, merely meant to be introductory, with a shriek, and wriggled back and sought to huddle in a corner of the room.
"Why, damnation take it, Jesse," exclaimed Scammel, reddening with the shame of seeing a man he had been on terms with performing so cravenly, "you're going to put up your hands, aren't you? You're not going to be such a cur as to——Here, none of that, you know!" and he leaped at Jesse and wrenched from his grasp the heavy teakwood tabouret which the man, at bay and with no sense of fairness, had suddenly reached down and grabbed from beneath the jardiniere which it supported.
"Keep out, Scammel, please," quietly enjoined Blythe, and he stepped over to Jesse, pulled him to the center of the room by the lapel of his coat, and then brought his right fist crashing to the point of Jesse's jaw. Jesse, seeing the blow coming, squeaked like a rat; then he went down like a log and lay unconscious before the fireplace. Blythe and the three other men stood looking at him with wonderment mingled with disgust.
