The hairy man laughed—and it was a laugh to curdle the blood.
CHAPTER IV.
THE POISONED RING.
“Stow that yelp,” commanded Ricker; “it sets one’s teeth on edge. What are you playing the clown for, anyhow?”
Hamar threw back his hood, and with the black mane draping his temples and mingling with the mat on his face, eye and tooth glittering in the shaded glow of the swinging lamp overhead, he was the living picture of a fabled fury.
In words that ran in a stream of gutturals, deep in his throat, he told the story of the adventure that had prolonged his street scouting-mission, and here liberally translated.
“I sold him the ring—the very red man that struck me in the face—it was a rare work; he knew me not, my head down and covered. His dirty roubles—see?” (Hamar opened a clenched hand, in the palm of which were several silver coins.) “He has it on his finger. I told him it would bring him good luck—bring him to the worms I meant. Ha, ha. Go you,” addressing the boys; “no fear now.”
Ricker stood dumfounded at the completion of this outburst. Then he faced the young aviators, who had been held spellbound by the weird performance—meaning the actions, for the words were mere gibberish to them.
“Do you know what he has done?” exclaimed the silversmith—“why, he has put the death ring on the Cossack!”
Going behind the counter, Ricker took from under the glass case a tiny chamois bag and shook it over the polished surface. The bag was empty.
“This man, I tell you,” the silversmith cried, aiming an index finger at Hamar, who had relapsed into sullen indifference, “is a fanatic, not a patriot, and serves not for any government, but against all governments. That blow in the face went to his very soul, and here’s the result. What he has taken and used to wreak personal vengeance is known as a possession of mine, a curio, and often displayed to the curious, for the ring had this peculiarity—it is poisoned. The heat of the finger starts a poison to work that lies in the setting—whoever decorates his hand with it is dead in two weeks!”