They both looked at the gray man.
Miller's gesture was all humility, all dejection.
"Don't exasperate him, Captain Aylmer," he pleaded. "He has weapons; he has, indeed!"
Landon laughed malevolently.
"By God, I have!" he cried. "Your thick body and your ox's nerves? You can pit them against me, if you like! What about your finer feelings, as I suppose you'd call them? What about your honor? And—what about—hers?"
He shot the question out fiercely, insistently, pointing at Claire.
A sudden dryness coated Aylmer's lips.
"What do you mean?" he demanded. He rose, too, towering over Landon from the full height of his stature and that, indeed, seemed to have added inches to itself since the other spoke.
But Landon, drunk with venom, did not flinch.
"Look at her!" he cried, still pointing. "Look at her! And if you defy me, you shall have something more to look at before long! I'll deal with her; I'll let these men have their will of her; I'll drag her through filth enough—I'll—"