And he would make him pay.
"Yes, it is ended now," he said, repeating Peter's words of a few moments before. "And I'm rather glad. The swamp was hot and filled with mosquitoes."
Something clinked as he fumbled at his belt and the sound sent a chill of horror through Mona. He held out the manacle irons so that she could see them.
"I've got to do it," he said, a mocking apology in his voice. "Distasteful, but necessary." He faced Peter. "Your father knew we were close behind him, and it won't do him any good to play dead. He's slippery, and I'm going to put these on him. I guess——" He swung his heavy head toward Mona again. "I guess Father Albanel and old Simon can't help him very much from now on. It was nice of you to think of it, though, Mona. You were always so tender-hearted—when it came to Peter!"
He was still the old bully and his voice trembled with the suppression of his triumph. This was his master stroke. It was not capture of the man whom the law would condemn to hang that thrilled him most; it was the twisted beauty in Mona's face, the shock and terror in her eyes, and the helplessness and despair he saw in Peter's. He did not hurry, did not call for an instant upon the dignity of the law, but twisted the knife of his vengeance slowly.
When Mona's eyes turned from him to Peter her heart stood still. He was gray. There was no blood in his lips. He was looking down upon the still, upturned face of his father, and his hands were clenched. When he raised his head she saw that his eyes were no longer Peter's eyes. He advanced slowly toward Aleck Curry, and the manacles rattled as Aleck dropped them to his belt and shifted a hand to his pistol holster.
Peter did not hear the click of steel or sense the menace of the shifting hand. One thought pounded maddeningly in his brain; his father had come back to him, he was home, and in the first hour of his return this beast had come into their lives again to break down every hope and prayer they had built up during the years. In Aleck Curry he saw not only that merciless law which had run his father like a rat from hole to hole, but a monster of vicious hate, a lustful, bullying boy grown into a still more vicious giant—and Peter's desire was to kill him.
Mona saw the deadly intent in his slow advance even as Aleck Curry saw it. She saw more—the hand on the pistol, the tightening fingers, the dangerous gleam that flashed in Aleck's eyes—and Peter with only his naked hands! A cry of warning came to her lips—of a terror which robbed her of the power to move. The cry ended in a scream, for as Peter leaped in, Aleck raised the pistol and fired. A terrible sickness came over her, a sickness which for an instant swept away her strength.
Peter felt the hot breath of the pistol in his face and the explosion was so near it fell like a blow against his eardrums. It was not a shot intended only to frighten him, for death had missed him by less than the width of his hand. Aleck released the trigger of his automatic and crooked his finger again, but even quicker than that movement was Peter, who flung himself with all his weight under his enemy's arm as the second shot was fired. He did not strike, but with both hands clutched Aleck's wrist, and at the same time tripped his foe so that they went to the earth together, with Aleck on his back.
In this instant there came upon Peter a crushing realization of the almost deadly odds against him. Into every nerve of his body flashed the truth—that he was fighting a man who wanted to kill him, who in reality had the right to kill him, and whom the law would not only vindicate but would commend for killing him. He was an outlaw, fighting against the almighty omniscience of that law, and what the world would regard as justice. And his survival now, like that of his father, depended upon beating it. He must break his enemy's wrist. Get the gun. Kill or be killed.