"I've got you at last, Grant, have I!" he said, in a voice of cold and slow and deadly calmness. "Just now—seeing him go in and out of your house, and, striking in the dark, as I did—I killed a man whom I believed to be you. But there can be no mistake this time. I've got you now, and this time"—he took a firmer grip of the knife—"this time, I rather guess you're going to die."
CHAPTER XVIII.
I PLAY THE CRAVEN.
Then I played the craven. It is useless to say any more. It is idle to urge an excuse. I played the craven, and pleaded to the man at whom, a few minutes before, when he was unprepared, and after he had spared my life, I had struck a cowardly blow.
"Don't strike!" I gasped. "I'm not Grant—Grant is dead. I've seen his body. I'll tell you about it, if you'll not strike."
"This," he said—almost drawled—in slow, deliberate accents, "is very extraordinary and most interesting. I won't promise to spare your life. But I'll hear your tale. I'll promise nothing else, young man, whoever you are, till I've heard you out."
My momentary panic was over. Already I was beginning to feel ashamed of myself. Already the manhood which had deserted me was returning.
"Stop a moment," I said. "I won't have my life on false pretences. I lost my nerve just now and played the coward; but, please God, I'll play the man again. I'm not Grant, it is true, and Grant is dead; but I'm your enemy, and I meant and mean to hunt you down. So knife me now if you want to, but before you do so, I'd like to ask your pardon for striking you, after you'd spared my life, and when you were unprepared. It was a cad's blow—a coward's blow—and I am ashamed of it."
I stopped short, red-faced and choking. He gave an uneasy, abrupt laugh, and, rising, put back his knife.
"Get up!" he said; "I guess you mean playing the game fairly. As for the bit of a blow, we'll say no more about it. Perhaps I deserved it. It does not do to think an opponent's beaten and means throwing up the sponge too early in the game. For what happens after I've heard your story—whether I kill you, as kill you I assuredly can this moment and in this place—I promise nothing till I've heard you out. This much, however, I will say. You tell me you are my enemy, and that you meant and still mean hunting me down. Well, that's straight talk, and I'll say this much of straight talk to you in return. If you are my enemy only, I wouldn't and couldn't kill you for any reason under the sun. If you're the enemy of the cause I have at heart, I'd find you out and kill you though all Scotland Yard itself acted as your bodyguard and protector. That's the state of the market, young man. First of all, let me ask you whether that yarn you spun in the opium den about your having come there by chance as an author in search of copy was true?"