“Is it agreed?”
They answered not, “yes,” nor “no.”
“It—is—agreed!” said Jean Petit, slowly.
His voice was the voice of command, of authority, of organisation.
The slave had become a master. The subject was at last a king. The man loomed up in the cold bulk of Power!
It was a case of survival, if not of the fittest, at least of the strongest.
With a deep-drawn sigh of satisfaction the leader drew his knife—which his hand had never left—from its sheath, and stooping forward split out four splinters of uneven length from the timbers of the boat.
He closed his left hand upon them, clutching the hilt of the naked knife in his right.
The ends of the splinters alone were visible.
“Come forward!” he ordered.