"Gazed at the Captain till he scarce knew where he was."
"If you think to defraud me by such pretences,"—as she spoke she rose, and her head towered over the dumb-foundered Strogue's, and Cator's also,—"it would have been better for you, if you had remained at the foot of my hospitable ladder. As to the chances of Sûr Imar's interference, you shall have the evidence of Prince Hafer. His signature also you shall have. I will produce him to you." With swift yet dignified steps, she left the long gloomy room, and we stared at one another.
"Better cut and run, if they have left the ladder there," Strogue whispered, for several men now occupied the doorway; "it is all up, if Hafer sees us. I made sure from what they told us that he was miles away. What's the good of four of us?"
"They can shoot us all the easier, if we run," I said; "let us have it out here, if it must be; this thundering walnut table makes a grand breastwork. After all, they may not want to fight us."
"We can settle at least half-a-dozen of them;" Cator's eyes shone with legal pugnacity, "four Englishmen can lick a score of Ossets."
"Not if they are like that man," said the fourth of us, Tommy Williams, pointing to the door, which was not a door (as the old joke has it), neither could it be a jar, but looked more like a bed-curtain. The lintel was appointed for men of good stature, and I had passed beneath it without much bend; but the young man, who made his entry now, was above any moderate stature of mankind, as he promised in breadth to out-do them. In a flash of thought, Sûr Imar stood before me, as I first beheld him. "Has that woman killed him, and is this his spectre?" I asked myself, as I fell back, and stared.
Dark as the room was, another moment showed me the excited wandering of my wits. This was not Sûr Imar's face, but one of similar comeliness, without his resolution behind it. A gentle, pleasant, large, and kindly countenance as his was, but with very sad placidity, and no strong will to enforce its lines. The face of a man who can be trusted to do you no wrong, and never to stop any other man from doing it. Like that of the friends we value most, when our little world goes smoothly.
He came to the table, behind which we had posted ourselves for a desperate stand, and there he bowed very gracefully to us, and then looked round for his admirable mother, as if he were quite at a loss without her. Strogue, in his polite way, asked in English, "Who the devil are you, sir?" The young giant looked at him, and shook his head, like a stranger to our fine language. "No fear; he won't fight," the Captain cried to comfort us; and we all took our hands from the triggers in our pockets.