"Well, what are you going to do about it?" shrieked Perkins. "Are you going to sit there and lecture all day?"
"I am going to do nothing whatever," answered the scientist coldly. "If you had any brains you would see that you are in no danger. Miss Spencer will undoubtedly kill you if you attack her—not otherwise. That is an Anglo-Saxon weakness."
"Did you see me take the pistols?" queried Dorothy.
"Certainly. I'm not blind. You have one of them in your right coat pocket now."
"Then why didn't you, or don't you, try to take it away from me?" she asked in wonder.
"If I had objected to your having them, you would never have got them. If I didn't want you to have a gun now, I would take it away from you. You know that, don't you?" and his black eyes stared into her violet ones with such calm certainty of his ability that she felt her heart sink.
"Yes," she admitted finally, "I believe you could—that is, unless I were angry enough to shoot you."
"That wouldn't help you. I can shoot faster and straighter than you can, and would shoot it out of your hand. However, I have no objection to your having the gun, since it is no part of my plan to offer you any further indignity of any kind. Even if you had the necessary coldness of nerve or cruelty of disposition—of which I have one, Perkins the other, and you neither—you wouldn't shoot me now, because you can't get back to the earth without me. After we get back I will take the guns away from both of you if I think it desirable. In the meantime, play with them all you please."
"Has Perkins any more knives or guns or things in his room?" demanded Dorothy.
"How should I know?" indifferently; then, as both girls started for Perkins' room he ordered brusquely: