"Hullo!" said Guy, and got to his feet.
They stood face to face, alike yet unlike, men of the same breed, bearing the same ineradicable stamp, yet poles asunder.
The silence between them was as the appalling pause between the lightning and the thunder-clap. All the savagery of which the human heart is capable was pent within its brief bounds. Then Burke spoke through lips that were white and strangely twisted:
"Have you anything at all to say for yourself?"
Guy threw a single glance around. "Not here," he said. "And not now. I'll meet you. Where shall I meet you?"
"Why not here—and now?" Burke's hands were at his sides, hard clenched, as if it took all his strength to keep them there. His eyes never stirred from Guy's face. They had the fixed and cruel look of a hawk about to pounce upon its prey and rend it to atoms.
But there was no fear about Guy, neither fear nor shame. Whatever his sins had been, he had never flinched from the consequences.
He answered without an instant's faltering: "Because we shall be interrupted. We don't want a pack of women howling round. Also, there are no weapons. You haven't even a sjambok." His eyes gleamed suddenly. "And there isn't space enough to use it if you had."
"I don't need even a sjambok," Burke said, "to kill a rat like you."
"No. And I shan't die so hard as a rat either. All the same," Guy spoke with quiet determination, "you can't do it here. Damn it, man! Are you afraid I shall run away?"