"I understand. You don't intend to do it!" she cried. "You have made up your mind that I am to be brushed aside, and treated like a viper which one finds in one's path. You intend to dare me to do my worst. Beware, sir!"
Her hand fell away from Old Broadbrim's arm, and she stepped back.
"I could betray you," ventured the detective. "They want to find you and for them to discover you in the sheepsheds would be the beginning of your end."
"Go out there and betray me!" cried Stareyes. "Go out and tell the pair in this bush Eden that I am Stareyes, and that the old sheds shelter me. I am here, but I am not defenseless."
She drew from her bosom a long-bladed knife with a black ebony hilt which she gripped, and raised suddenly over her head.
"Stareyes did not come here unarmed. She is ready for the enemy. She has taken an oath that the man who spurned her, and even heaped insults upon her mother, shall die the death. All your cunning cannot save him from Stareyes' blade. We are in the play, and a human life is the stake. Go out and betray me if you care to, but remember that the lips of Stareyes can utter truths which may seal the doom of the American detective!"
It was a critical situation for the Quaker.
Stareyes was determined, and her bosom rose and fell like the ocean tide while the threat passed her lips.
Her hands seemed to lose blood, and her eyes emitted sparks of light akin to fire.
Old Broadbrim looked down into her face, and stepped back.