John stood, cool and unmoved, looking around the room, and learning from the face of each servant that they were all beyond his authority. He folded his arms, and said nothing.
“You appear to have been mistaken in your man,” said the stranger, coolly. “These are not your servants; they’re mine. Shall I tell them to seize you?”
Potts glared at him with bloodshot eyes, but said nothing.
“Shall I tell them to pull up your sleeve and display the mark of Bowhani, Sir? Shall I tell who and what you are? Shall I begin from your birth and give them a full and complete history of your life?”
Potts looked around like a wild beast in the arena, seeking for some opening for escape, but finding nothing except hostile faces.
“Do what you like!” he cried, desperately, with an oath, and sank down into stolid despair.
“No; you don’t mean that,” said the other. “For I have some London policemen at the inn, and I might like best to hand you over to them on charges which you can easily imagine. You don’t wish me to do so, I think. You’d prefer being at large to being chained up in a cell, or sent to Botany Bay, I suppose? Still, if you prefer it, I will at once arrange an interview between yourself and these gentlemen.”
“What do you want?” anxiously asked Potts, who now thought that he might come to terms, and perhaps gain his escape from the clutches of his enemy.
“The title deeds of the Brandon estate,” said the stranger.
“Never!”