The sharpened face, that seemed to be leaping up to him, or leaping up at him, like some snake striking, now seemed to sink back and go indistinct. Only the eyes smouldered low down out of the vague yellow mass of the face. The fingers slackened, and Richard managed to withdraw his wrist. There was an eternity of grey silence. And for a long time Kangaroo’s yellow face seemed sunk half visible under a shadow, as a dusky cuttle-fish under a pool, deep down. Then slowly, slowly it came to the surface again, and Richard braced his nerves.
“You are a little man, a little man, to have come and killed me,” came the terrible, pathetic whisper. But Richard was afraid of the face, so he turned aside. He thought in his mind: “I haven’t killed him at all.”
“What shall you do next?” came the whisper. And slowly, like a dying snake rearing itself, the face reared itself from the bed to look at Somers, who sat with his face averted.
“I am going away. I am leaving Australia.”
“Next month.”
“Where are you going?”
“To San Francisco.”
“America! America!” came the hissing whisper. “They’ll kill you in America.” And the head sank back on the pillow.
There was a long silence.