“Because you’re a coward,” replied Jeph, with a quiet chuckle; “you know that you wouldn’t like to be hanged, ha! ha! and you know that Bax would be down on you if you touched my old carcase.”
Long Orrick uttered a savage oath, and said, “I’m brave enough, anyhow, to let you taste the cold steel to-night—or desperate enough if ye prefer it.”
He seized Jeph by the throat as he spoke, and pressed the blade of the knife against his breast. The old man did not shrink, neither did he struggle. He knew that he was in the hands of one whose type is but too common in this world, a bully and a coward, and, knowing this, felt that he was safe.
It seemed, however, as if the very elements scorned the man who could thus raise his hand against unprotected age, for the wind shrieked louder than usual in its fury, and a blinding flash of lightning, accompanied by a deep crash of thunder, added to the horror of the scene.
Just then an exclamation was heard at the door of the hovel. Long Orrick released his hold hastily, and turning round, observed a round ruddy visage scowling at him, and the glittering barrel of a pistol levelled at his head.
“Ha! ha!” he laughed hoarsely, endeavouring to pass it off as a jest, “so you’ve caught us jokin’, Coleman,—actin’ a bit—and took it for arnest, eh?”
“Well, if it is actin’, it’s oncommon ugly actin’, I tell ye; a deal too nat’ral for my tastes, so I’d advise ye to drop it here, an’ carry yer talents to a theaytre, where you’ll be paid according to your desarts, Long Orrick.”
“Ah! the night air don’t agree with ye, Coleman, so I’ll bid ye good-bye,” said the other, rising and quitting the hut.
“Wot’s he bin’ a doin’ of, old man?” inquired Coleman, who was a huge, ruddy, good-humoured coast-guardsman, with the aspect of a lion and the heart of a lamb; whose garments were of the roughest and largest kind, and who was, to adopt a time-honoured phrase, armed to the teeth,—that is to say, provided with a brace of pistols, a cutlass, and a port-fire, which last could, on being struck against a rock, burst into flame, and illuminate the region for many yards around him.
“Oh, he’s bin’ actin’,” replied the old man, with a quiet chuckle, as he resumed his work on the boat; “he’s bin’ actin’, that’s all.”