“Hallo!” he exclaimed very quietly, blinking up at her, “so it’s you, is it? Playing the spy as usual?”
He muttered an oath below his breath, and came close under the opening in the floor.
“Just throw down that rope,” he continued peremptorily.
“What rope?” asked Freda, trembling.
“Come, you know well enough. You haven’t got eyes in your head for nothing.” He paused, but Freda remained motionless. “Now then,” he added with a sudden access of anger and a stamp of his foot on the stone floor, “throw down the rope-ladder I came down by. Do you understand that?”
But Freda only attempted to get away. Excited by anger and drink, the man took from his belt a revolver, which he pointed up at her. This action, strangely enough, checked Freda’s impulse to retreat. She looked down at him straightforwardly and fearlessly, eye to eye.
“Do you think you can make me obey you by shooting me?” she asked simply.
“I think you are a d——d ungrateful little chit,” answered the man sullenly. But he lowered the weapon in his hand.
“Ungrateful!” faltered Freda, the great fear rising again in her heart. “Ungrateful!” she repeated. “Then you are—are you—my father?”
“Of course I am,” he answered sullenly. “Pretty filial instincts you seem to have!”