“If an open pit lay just across this street, between you and the Walnut Tree, what would you do?” asked the hoarse voice.
“That would depend on how necessary it was that I should pass it, would it not?”
“Life this way—death that way,” said Rubi shortly.
“And what way honour?”
“Pshaw! ‘All that a man hath will he give for his life.’”
“Truth: yet even life, sometimes, will a man give for glory, patriotism, or love. There is a life beyond this, friend Rubi; and for that, no price were too high to pay.”
“Men may weigh gold, but not clouds,” answered Rubi in a rather scornful tone.
“Yet how much gold would purchase the life-giving water that comes from the clouds?” was Gerhardt’s ready response.
“At how much do you value your life?” asked Rubi without answering the question.
“Truly, friend, I know not how to respond to that. Do you count my life to be in danger, that you ask me?”