For a moment she was silent. And then, as if a force beyond her control forced her to speak, she answered him.
"I did not believe in the possibility of there being a thing as vile as yourself," she said. "I did not think God allowed such as you to live!"
The satyr-like grin broadened across his haggard cheeks. He leered down at them.
"I revel in it!" he answered. "By the Lord! Till you've tried absolutely unrestrained wickedness, till you've thrown off every sort of control, till you're one with the devil and proud of it, you don't know what enjoyment is!" His eyes glowed; he smote his fist ecstatically on the stones. "It's great!" he cried. "Great!"
A gray figure came suddenly into view behind him. Miller's face showed white against the shadow of the dusk which was heralding its coming by the deepening azure of the sea and sky. And his glance seemed to hold a significance which the prisoners were meant to read, but for which they had no clue.
Landon heard him and wheeled.
He surveyed him slowly and then he laughed.
"I'm beyond you now, teacher!" he derided. "I used to admire you—the callousness, the relentlessness—which you could put into a job! But I'm way up above you. Decency had to be part of your stock-in-trade."
He laughed again, his harsh, cackling merriment, and there was a note in it which struck a new chord of fear in Claire's heart. It was inhuman, unintelligent, this laughter. It fell poignantly, horribly on the ear.
"To-morrow—mañana!" chuckled Landon. "I'm coming back with all my friends. We'll give hours of daylight to the job and, by God! we'll make a good one! Think it over; give it your attention through the night! My terms, every word of them or—well, try and guess the persuasions I'll use. Meditate on them; paint them up in your imaginations and then you'll fall short! And as for restraints, remember that in my particular case there isn't such a thing, not one!"