“Do you think I care for myself?” he answered. “Why, lad, if I were alone, I would be on my way by this and as free as a bird in the air.”
I considered for a moment.
“Why have you stuck to me at all, master scrivener?” I asked slyly. “Is there a purpose to it?”
He examined me suspiciously out of the corner of his eye. He rolled his forehead upwards and set his mouth to whistle a tune. I realized that he was going to evade my question as he did before.
“Scrivener,” I began deliberately, “why don’t you lay aside the mask? You know you are leading me as you would a dog upon a string. Can’t you be frank enough to tell me why?”
At these words he leaped in the air. He let out one long breath of surprise and threw his arms towards the sky.
“Listen to him, will you!” he cried as though he were speaking with some one invisible. “Harken to his nonsense! Has there ever been——”
He stopped as suddenly as he began. His arms dropped to his side. He put his finger over his mouth to caution me to silence and gazed intently far over my shoulder. Then he backed away towards the trunk of the nearest tree.
“Pist!” he exclaimed under his breath. “Don’t move!”
I had no time to judge whether it was one of his pranks or not, whether it was an attempt to turn a conversation that was distasteful to him. A click at my feet threw a cloud of dust in my face and sprinkled me with a shower of small stones. I looked and there standing before me was an arrow a yard long with its point buried deep in the earth.