At this I plucked up courage and answered him—
"I came here to-night to stop your devilry in murdering fifty innocent men;" but he started up at the words and raved like a maniac.
"And who made you judge, you puppy?" he cried. "Who set you to watch me, or give your opinions on what I do or what I don't do? Who asked you whether you liked it or didn't like it, you sneaking little brat? I wonder I let you live to spit your dirty words in my face?"
His anger was fierce, terrible as a tornado. His teeth gnashed, his hands shook, he rolled in his chair like a great wounded beast; but when he saw that I was unmoved, he fell quiet again, and wiping his forehead, where the sweat had gathered thickly, he said in a low, coaxing voice—
"Don't compel me, lad, to do what I have meant not to do. You're here for good or ill, and if you wish to keep your life, put a control on your tongue. These men are nothing to you; they're lazy hogs that the world's well rid of—let 'em die, and save your own carcass. You've been here days now—the first man that ever lived among us without signing our papers. But you can't stay that way any longer. You know this business. You've a straight notion that my hand's agen Europe, and, for the matter of that, agen the world, too; those that share with me shall swing with me, and if I burn when it's done, by the devil himself they shall burn too. It isn't of my asking that you're amongst us, or that you took up the work of the hound Hall, who put the first nail in his coffin that night he came to my bed at Spezia. I saw him there, though he thought me sleeping; and that night I wrote death against his name, as I wrote it against yours when you entered my room in Paris. There's reasons why I've broken my word in your case, though you'll never know 'em; but there's no reason why you shouldn't swear to go through it with me and mine, man for man, life with life, be it rope's-end or bullet, to rot among the fish, or to share every mate among us what's got upon the sea. That's my question, and you'll answer it now, yes or no, plain word and no shuffle; meaning to you whether you go on as you've gone on in the past, or freeze amongst the others lying up there in the cavern; whether you swim in money, as my lot swim in it, or get bullets in you thick as hail from northward. That's my question, I say again, and there's my papers. Sign 'em now, or you lie a corpse before an hour on the clock."
He leant over his writing-table and put the paper into my hands, a rough sheet of parchment, which he wished me to read. But my eyes were dimmed with the restless excitement of the situation, with the dread terror of the alternative put to me; and I saw nothing but lines of writing which swam before me. The silence of the room was terrible to bear; and it was as though I struggled for life while already in the tomb. My thoughts went hurriedly to Europe, to my home, to my friends; above all I recalled the night when Martin Hall went to his death, and his shadow seemed by me, his face beseeching me, his hand holding mine back from the pen that it would have clutched. During this time the man Black leant towards me, and watched me, expectancy in his face, threatening in his pose. Yet he did not speak, and my eyes left the paper and I gave him look for look, and from his face my glance passed to his right hand which held the pistol; and in that instant I took heart for a step which was the last mad design of a driven man.
"Give me the pen!" I said suddenly, rising and bending over the table.
He put the pen into my hands, and leant back with a chuckle of satisfaction; but the movement cost him the game. I clutched his pistol with a lightning grasp, and covered him with it—
"If you raise a finger I'll shoot you like a dog," I cried.
Then the man, who was no craven, sat motionless in his chair; and I saw the beads of terror falling from his forehead, but he betrayed no emotion, and his face might have been cut from marble. I had the muzzle of the pistol upon him, and I continued with greater confidence—