But this contemptuous treatment, so far from having the effect intended, seemed to rouse the other’s fury.
“Think not to impose on me by empty threats and vain-glorious boasting,” he retorted. “I summon you to yield and come with me. If not, and we have to kill you in striving to enforce obedience, the consequences be upon your own heads.”
“And I say that I have warned you,” returned Monella quietly. He stooped and picked up a stone, then threw it to within three or four feet of the cord that lay between them.
“If,” he said, “you but cross that cord so far as that stone, you die.”
Instantly the other took up the challenge. He stepped back for his sword, then walked boldly forward, Monella meanwhile falling back in line with his companions; but the instant the other crossed the cord, Monella’s rifle rang out, and the fatuous soldier fell prone upon the sward.
Then a tall fellow burst from the ranks and, brandishing his spear, rushed towards the fatal cord; he was followed by an adventurous comrade; but, e’en as they stepped across the line, they both bit the dust. Then all the others turned and fled; all save the second officer, who stood his ground, neither advancing nor retreating. He remained leaning on his sword, and looked, by turns, first at his flying men, then at the dead bodies that lay around him, finally at Monella and his companions.
Monella advanced and thus addressed him,
“How is it you stand thus in hesitation, friend? Are you in two minds, whether to fight or to fly?”
The second officer was a fine-looking young fellow with features that were not unpleasing. With a steady glance he looked Monella in the face and answered,
“I am no coward to run away, and no fool to rush to meet a thunderbolt. Whoever you are, it is plain that we are powerless against you. But indeed,” he went on, with something almost like a sigh, “when I heard your words I felt no stomach to fight against you, if so be that they are true.”