“Will you swear not to betray me?” cried he to me. “Else, one touch——”
As he spoke, he brought the gun to his shoulder, the muzzle pointed full at my breast.
I felt no fear. I am sure my pulse did not give a throb the more for this menace. So deadly weak and helpless as I lay, it was unnecessary to shoot me. The slightest blow from the butt of the rifle would have driven the last faint spark of life out of my exhausted body. I looked calmly, indifferently even, into the muzzle of the piece.
“If you can answer it to your God, to your and my Judge and Creator, do your will.”
My words, which from faintness I could scarcely render audible, had, nevertheless, a sudden and startling effect upon the man. He trembled from head to foot, let the butt of his gun fall heavily to the ground, and gazed at me with open mouth and staring eyes.
“This one, too, comes with his God!” muttered he. “God! and your and my Creator—and—Judge.”
He seemed hardly able to articulate these words, which were uttered by gasps and efforts, as though something had choked him.
“His and my—Judge”—groaned he again. “Can there be a God, a Creator and Judge?”
As he stood thus muttering to himself, his eyes suddenly became fixed, and his features horribly distorted.
“Do it not!” cried he, in a shrill tone of horror, that rang through my head. “It will bring no blessin’ with it. I am a dead man! God be merciful to me! My poor wife! my poor children!”