"They's no harm intended him, on my honour, Sally," said Lawlor. "All he's got to do is give up his gun—and—and"—he finished weakly—"let his hands be tied."
"Is that all?" said Sally scornfully.
"Don't follow me, Sally," said Bard. "Stay out of this. Boys, you may have been paid high, but I don't think you've been paid high enough to risk taking a chance with me. If you put me out with the first shot that ends it, of course, but the chances are that I'll be alive when I hit the floor, and if I am, I'll have my gun working—and I won't miss. One or two of you are going to drop."
He surveyed them with a quick glance which seemed to linger on each face.
"I don't know who'll go first. But now I'm going to walk straight for that door, and I'm going out of it."
He moved slowly, deliberately toward the door, around the table. Still they did not shoot.
"Bard!" commanded the voice which had spoken from nowhere before. "Stop where you are. Are you fool enough to think that I'll let you go?"
"Are you William Drew?"
"I am, and you are——"
"The son of John Bard. Are you in this house?"