"I was only ten feet away from you last night under the elm!"
Suddenly Ferrol's hand slipped down to Shangois's throat. Ferrol's fingers tightened, pressed inwards.
"Now, see, I know what you mean. Some one has robbed Nicolas Lavilette of five thousand dollars. You dare to charge me with it, curse you. Let me see if there's any more lies on your tongue!"
With the violence of the pressure Shangois's tongue was forced out of his mouth.
Suddenly a paroxysm of coughing seized Ferrol, and he let go and staggered back against the window ledge. Shangois was transformed—an animal. No human being had ever seen him as he was at this moment. The fingers of his one hand opened and shut convulsively, his arms worked up and down, his face twitched, his teeth showed like a beast's as he glared at Ferrol. He looked as though he were about to spring upon the now helpless man. But up from the garden below there came the sound of a voice—Christine's—singing.
His face quieted, and his body came to its natural pose again, though his eyes retained an active malice. He turned to go.
"Remember what I tell you," said Ferrol: "if you publish that lie, you'll not live to hear it go about. I mean what I say." Blood showed upon his lips, and a tiny little stream flowed down the corner of his mouth. Whenever he felt that warm fluid on his tongue he was certain of his doom, and the horror of slowly dying oppressed him, angered him. It begot in him a desire to end it all. He had a hatred of suicide; but there were other ways. "I'll have your life, or you'll have mine. I'm not to be played with," he added.
The sentences were broken by coughing, and his handkerchief was wet and red.
"It is no concern of the world," answered Shangois, stretching up his throat, for he still felt the pressure of Ferrol's fingers—"only of the girl and her brother. The girl—I saved her once before from your friend Vanne Castine, and I will save her from you—but, yes! It is nothing to the world, to Bonaventure, that you are a robber; it is everything to her. You are all robbers—you English—cochons!"
He opened the door and went out. Ferrol was about to follow him, but he had a sudden fit of weakness, and he caught up a pillow, and, throwing it on the chest where Shangois had sat, stretched himself upon it. He lay still for quite a long time, and presently fell into a doze. In those days no event made a lasting impression on him. When it was over it ended, so far as concerned any disturbing remembrances of it. He was awakened (he could not have slept for more than fifteen minutes) by a tapping at his door, and his name spoken softly. He went to the door and opened it. It was Christine. He thought she seemed pale, also that she seemed nervous; but her eyes were full of light and fire, and there was no mistaking the look in her face: it was all for him. He set down her agitation to the adventure they were about to make together. He stepped back, as if inviting her to enter, but she shook her head.