“Not at all, not at all,” said Jeff, cheerily. “You are going to do just what I propose. You’d rather take the chance of having your neck broken legally than the certainty that I’ll break it now.”
“With that thing? Humph! You couldn’t hurt me much with that. I think I could get up and away before you could hit me with it. And Mac would certainly shoot you before you could hit me a second time.”
“Once will be a-plenty.” Bransford laughed. “You go first, I beseech you, my dear Alphonse! O no, Judge—you don’t think anything of the kind. If you did you’d try it. Your legs—limbs, I mean of course—are too far under the table. And I’ve been practising for speed with this machine every day. What Mac does to me afterward won’t help you any. You’ll be done dead, damned and delivered. If he could shoot me now without shooting through you, it would be a different proposition. Your mistake was in ever letting me line you up. ‘Tit, tat, toe—Three in a row!’ Well, what are you going to do about it?”
“Oh, man, ye chargit me streectly to keep this wild cat-a-mountain at his distance,” interrupted Mac in mournful reproach, “and then pop ye down cheek by jowl wi’ the deil’s buckie your ainsel’. I’d as lief seat me to sup wi’ the black devil and his muckle pitchfork!”
As often happens in such cases, the man who was in no immediate danger was more agitated than the one imperiled; who, after a moment’s reflection, looked up at Bransford with a smile in his eyes.
“And how am I to know you will not denounce me if I let you go after this unfortunate Tillotson is hanged?” he demanded. “Or, for that matter, how are you to know that I will not kill you as soon as I am beyond the reach of your extremely novel weapon—which, I grant you, might be effective at such close quarters and in such capable hands—or that I will not have you killed at any time hereafter? This,” said the Judge, picking his words leisurely and contemplating his fine fingers with unreserved approval, “is the crux of the very interesting situation. Rigid moralists, scrutinizing the varied actions of my life, might find passages not altogether blameless. But I have always held and maintained that a man should keep faith where it is expressly pledged. This is the bedrock upon which is based all relations of man with man, and to no class is it so needful as to those who are at variance with society. If a man will not hold by his plighted word, even to his hurt, he has lost all contact with reality and is become henceforth no actuality, but a vain and empty simulacrum, not to be dealt with, useless either for good or evil. Here, for instance, are we, two intelligent men, confronting mutual instant annihilation; which might be avoided could each be perfectly sure the other would keep his word! It is quite amusing!”
“I will take your word if you will take mine,” said Jeff. “You should know who runs the greater risk. But I have a stipulation to make.”
The Judge arched his brows. “A stipulation? Another? My volatile and resourceful friend, do not ask too much. It is by no means certain that your extraordinary missile—or was it to be a war-club?—might not fail of the desired effect. You have already stipulated for your life, and I think,” said the Judge dryly, “that if you have any other demand to make, it had best be a modest one.”
“I do not choose,” said Jeff steadily, “that my wife shall suffer needless anxiety—unneeded if you set me free at last. Still less do I choose, if I meet with foul play at your hands, or if I should be killed attempting an escape, to have her haunted by any doubt of me. I shall write to her that I am in Old Mexico, in some part known to be dangerous, tempted by high pay. You will send it to be mailed down there. Then, if I do not come back, she will think of me as honorably dead, and be at peace.”
It came into the Judge’s active mind that such a letter—dated and signed from some far-off Mexican town—might, in some contingencies, be useful to him; his bold, blue eyes, which had faced an imminent death firmly enough, dropped now to hide the treacherous thought. And upon this thought, and its influence upon sending the letter, Jeff had counted from the first.