“Yah!” gibed Orace. “Yer a lotter thunderin’ ’eroes, you are! Undo me ’ands, and cummaht on the deck, any sixeryer, an’ I’ll showyer wotter rough-’ouse feels like!”
Beads of perspiration broke out on the man’s face as he slowly raised the revolver.
“Sorlright, sir,” Orace ground out. “Don’ think I care a damn fer wot ennyer these bleedin’ barstids do. . . . Shoot, yer maggot! Wotcha skeered of? ’Fraid I’ll bite yer? . . . Git on wiv it, an’ be blarsted to yer!”
“Wait!”
The Saint’s mildest voice scarcely masked the whiplash crack of his command, and the man lowered his gun. Bittle turned to him.
“Have you, after all, something to say before the sentence is carried out?” he inquired ironically. “Perhaps you would like to go down on your knees and beg me to spare you? Your prayers will not move me, but the spectacle of Mr. Templar grovelling at my feet would entertain me vastly. . . .”
“Not this journey,” said the Saint.
Already he had worked the cigarette-case from his pocket and cut through the cords which had bound his hands, though it had been a long and difficult feat. Now he had slid forward in the chair and tucked his legs well back, and he was patiently sawing away at the ropes which pinioned his ankles.
“You see,” said the Saint, in the same leisured tone, “we are all, as you recently observed, liable to make our mistakes, and you have made three very big ones. You must understand, my seraph, that your own loathing for melodrama is only equalled by my love for it, and I think I can say that I staged this little conversazione simply for my own diversion. It seemed to me that this adventure ought to finish off in a worthily dramatic manner, and if all goes well you’ll have to bear the agony of watching enough melodrama concentrated into the next few minutes to fill a book. Things, from approximately now onwards, will go with a kick strong enough to set the Lyceum gasping. How does that appeal to you, beloved?”
“I’ll tell you when I hear,” said Bittle brusquely, but the Saint declined to be hurried.