“I mean exactly what I say, Percival. I will shoot the instant you put a foot through that door.”
“I don't believe you would,” said Percival, “but, just the same, I'm not going to chance it. If I ever conclude to commit suicide, I'll go off somewhere and blow my brains out with my own gun. At present, I have no thought of committing suicide, so I'll stay right where I am. I didn't come here to kill you, Mr. Landover. I have no gun with me. I simply came to tell you that the last boat is leaving, and we are waiting for you.”
For many seconds the two men looked straight into each other's eyes.
“Are you coming?” demanded the young man levelly.
“Certainly not!”
Percival's shoulders sagged. His face wore an expression of complete surrender.
“Well,—if you won't, I suppose you won't,” he muttered.
A triumphant sneer greeted this abject back-down on the part of the would-be dictator.
“I thought so,” exclaimed Landover. “You're yellow. You can bully these poor, ignorant—”
He never finished the sentence. Percival cleared the eight or nine feet of intervening space with the lunge of a panther. His solid, compact body struck Landover with the force of a battering ram. Before the larger and heavier man could fire a shot, his wrist was caught in a grip of steel. As he staggered back under the impact, Percival's right fore-arm was jammed up under his chin. In the fraction of a second, Landover, unable to withstand this sudden, savage onslaught, toppled over backwards and, with his assailant clinging to him like a wildcat, found himself pinned down to the spacious, inset washstand.