Then from under his cape of Christ-like compassion, the cunning and cruel eyes of the madman peeped.
"But I mustn't tell you too much—anything you could use against me," he said with a leer, "until I know whether you are for the oppressor or the oppressed. Tell me you are on our side, Rissler, and none shall raise finger to harm or to injure you.
"But"—and now his voice was terrible to hear, the blue blaze in his eyes terrible to see—"let me have cause to suspect you of assisting the enemy, the people's enemy, God's enemy, and I'd throttle the life out of you, tear the heart out of you, this night, this moment, in this place. Which is it to be?"
CHAPTER XIX.
THE DUMPLING'S SECRET.
The man, as I have said before, was mad—stark, staring mad, and with a madman one must go warily. Had I too profusely protested my sympathy, too readily declared myself an adherent, his cunning would, I am persuaded, have led him to doubt my sincerity, in which case his promise to strangle the life, or to tear the heart out of me, would, I believe, have been fulfilled.
Under the circumstances I thought it best not to appear too eager.
"You can't frighten me with your threats," I said, quietly. "I did lose my nerve some time ago. But I've got it back again now, and while I'm willing to hear all you have to say about a cause with which I'm not only ready but anxious to throw in my lot, I'm not going to be bounced or threatened into doing so. The co-operation of a man who, in making so momentous a choice, is capable of being threatened or talked into standing in with you, who jumps, in fact, to your whistling, isn't worth having. There are more momentous matters than my life hanging to this, and before I say definitely I'm with you—as is my wish—there are one or two more questions I must ask."
With no one will an appeal to sanity find more favour than with the insane. "Do let us be reasonable" is the best of all arguments to use to those whose reason is affected. Evidently the man before me was favourably impressed by what I had said.
"You are quite right," he replied cordially. "We want the co-operation of no one who is not persuaded in his own mind of the righteousness of our cause. From what I've seen of you, Mr. Rissler, you are just the sort of man with whom I should like to be associated in my work. Your getting out of that opium den with a whole skin when, believing you to be Grant, I'd given the strictest orders that you shouldn't leave the place alive, proves you to be a man ready of resource and quick of brain, just such a man whose co-operation would ensure the final success of the cause. It will be a red-letter day for us if we could induce you to throw in your lot with us. Ask your questions, then, and I'll give you a straight reply."