“Bah!” said Colden, hotly, “I might have pistolled you here to-night”—and he placed his hand on the fire-arm in his belt—“but for the presence of the ladies!”
“Was it the ladies’ presence,” retorted Peyton, contemptuously, “or the fact that you’re a devilish bad shot?”
Neither man heard the door moved farther open, or saw Elizabeth step through the aperture to the inner side of the threshold, where she stopped and watched. Peyton’s back was towards her, and Colden’s rage at the last words was too intense to permit his eyes to rove from its object.
“Damn you!” cried the major. “I’d show you how bad a shot I am, but that I’d rather wait and see you on the gallows!”
“Will she come to see me there, I wonder?” said Peyton, half thoughtfully. “She ought to, for it’s her work sends me there, not yours! ’Twill not be your revenge when they string me up, my jolly friend!”
Taunted beyond all self-control, the Tory yelled:
“Not mine, eh? Then I’ll have mine now, you dog!”
With that, he strode forward and struck Harry a fierce blow across the face with the flat side of Harry’s own broken sword.
Harry merely blinked his eyes, and did not flinch. 265 He turned pale, then red, and in a moment, first clearing his voice of a slight huskiness, said, quietly: