But he had no time for thought, for even while these were passing through his mind Obed was advancing toward him, until finally he stood before him, confronting him with a dark frown. There was something in his face which showed Gualtier that he was recognized.
"You!" cried Obed; "you! I thought so, and it is so, by the Lord! I never forget a face. You scoundrel! what do you want? What are you doing here? What are you following me for? Are you on that business again? Didn't I give you warning in New York?"
There was something so menacing in his look, and in his wrathful frown, that Gualtier started back a pace, and put his hand to his breast-pocket to seize his revolver.
"No you don't!" exclaimed Obed, and quick as lightning he seized Gualtier's hand, while he held his clenched fist in his face.
"I'm up to all those tricks," he continued, "and you can't come it over me, you scoundrel! Here--off with all that trash."
And knocking off Gualtier's hat, as he held his hand in a grasp from which the unhappy prisoner could not release himself, he tore off his wig and his mustache.
Gualtier was not exactly a coward, for he had done things which required great boldness and presence of mind, and Obed himself had said this much in his criticisms upon Black Bill's story; but at the present moment there was something in the tremendous figure of Obed, and also in the fear which he had that all was discovered, which made him cower into nothingness before his antagonist. Yet he said not a word.
"And now," said Obed, grimly, "perhaps you'll have the kindness to inform me what you are doing here--you, of all men in the world--dodging about in disguise, and tracking my footsteps. What the devil do you mean by sneaking after me again? You saw me once, and that ought to have been enough. What do you want? Is it something more about General Pomeroy? And what do you mean by trying to draw a pistol on me on my own premises? Tell me the truth, you mean, sallow-faced rascal, or I'll shake the bones out of your body!"
In an ordinary case of sudden seizure Gualtier might have contrived to get out of the difficulty by his cunning and presence of mind. But this was by no means an ordinary case. This giant who thus seemed to come down upon him us suddenly as though he had dropped from the skies, and who thundered forth these fierce, imperative questions in his ear, did not allow him much space in which to collect his thoughts, or time to put them into execution. There began to come over him a terror of this man, whom he fancied to be intimately acquainted with his whole career. "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all," and Gualtier, who was generally not a coward, felt very much like one on this occasion. Morally, as well as physically, he felt himself crushed by his opponent. It was, therefore, with utter helplessness, and the loss of all his usual strength of mind and self-control, that he stammered forth his answer:
"I--I came here--to--to get some information."