O'Shea stepped nearer him, and, as if in pretence of wiping his face with his gloved hand, he sent him a hissing whisper that gave a sudden change of friendliness and confidence to his voice, "Don't be a fool! swear it."
"Are these men, or are they corpses?" asked Caius.
The stillness of the forms before him became an almost unendurable spectacle.
He had no sooner spoken than O'Shea appealed to the men, shouting words in the queer guttural French. And Caius saw the first man slowly raise his hand as if in an attitude of oath-taking, and the second man did likewise. O'Shea turned round and faced him, speaking hastily. The shadow of the cloud was sending dark shudderings of lighter and darker shades across the sand hollow, and these seemed almost like a visible body of the wind that with searching blast drifted loose sand upon them all. With the sweep of the shadow and the wind, Caius saw the movement of the lifted hand go down the line.
"I lay my loife upon it," said O'Shea, "that if ye'll say on yer honour as a man, and as a gintleman, that ye'll not look behoind ye, ye shall go scot-free. It's a simple thing enough; what harm's there in it?"
The boy had come near behind Caius. He said one soft word, "Promise!" or else Caius imagined he said it. Caius knew at least what the boy wished him to do.
The pony moved nearer, shivering with cold, and Caius realized that the condition of wet and cold in which they were need not be prolonged.
"I promise," he shouted angrily, "and I'll keep the promise, whatever infernal reason there may be for it; but if I'm attacked from behind——" He added threats loud and violent, for he was very angry.
Before he had finished speaking—the thought might have been brought by some movement in the shadow of the cloud, and by the sound of the wind, or by his heated brain—but the thought came to him that O'Shea, under his big fur-coat, had indulged in strange, harsh laughter.
Caius cared nothing. He had made his decision; he had given his word; he had no thought now but to take what of his traps he could carry and be gone on his journey.