“Stand before me there.”
Meeus stood. He held on to the table with his left hand and with his right he made pawing movements in the air.
The big man seated at the table did not notice. He sat for a few seconds with both hands clasped together, one making a cup for the other, just as a man might sit about to make a speech and carefully considering his opening words.
Then he spoke.
“Did you kill those people by the Silent Pools?”
Meeus made no reply, but drew a step back and put out his hand, as if fending the question off, as if asking for a moment in which to explain. He had so many things to say, so many reasons to give, but he could say nothing, for his tongue was paralyzed and his lips were dry.
“Did you kill those people by the Silent Pools?”
The awful man at the table was beginning to work himself up. He had risen at the second question, and at the third time of asking he seized Meeus by the shoulders. “Did you kill those people——?”
“Punishment,” stuttered Meeus.
A cry like the cry of a woman and a crash that shook the plaster from the ceiling, followed the fatal word. Adams had swung the man aloft and dashed him against the wall with such force, that the wattling gave and the plaster fell in flakes.