He flung the words like a challenge. His lower jaw was thrust forward. He looked like a savage animal menacing his keeper.
But Lucas lay without moving a muscle, lay still and quiet, without tension and without emotion of any description, simply watching, as a disinterested spectator might watch, the fiery rebellion that had kindled against him.
At length very deliberately he held out the revolver.
"Well," he drawled, "my life isn't worth much, it's true. And you are quite welcome to take your gun and end it here and now if you feel so disposed. For I warn you, Nap Errol, that you'll find me considerably more in your way than Sir Giles Carfax or any other man. I stand between you already, and while I live you won't shunt me."
Nap's lips showed their scoffing smile. "Unfortunately—or otherwise—you are out of the reckoning," he said.
"Am I? And how long have I been that?"
Nap was silent. He looked suddenly stubborn.
Lucas waited. There was even a hint of humour in his steady eyes.
"And that's where you begin to make a mistake," he said presently.
"You're a poor sort of blackguard at best, Boney, and that's why you
can't break away. Take this thing! I've no use for it. But maybe in
Arizona you'll find it advisable to carry arms. Come over here and read
Cradock's letter."
But Nap swung away with a gesture of fierce unrest. He fell to prowling to and fro, stopping short of the bed at each turn, refusing doggedly to face the quiet eyes of the man who lay there.