Jones returned his look without flinching, his teeth firmly set and grating together. At last he said:
‘I do gainsay you; and I do say, whoever calls Tim Craig a coward lies!’
‘This, and from you!’ exclaimed Rust, shaking his thin finger in his very face; ‘this from you; you, a house-breaker, a thief, and last night the murderer of your comrade. Ho! ho! it makes me laugh! Fool! How many lives have you? One word of mine could hang you.’
‘You’ll never hang me,’ replied Jones, in the same low, savage tone. ‘I wish you had, before that cursed job of yours made me put a bullet in poor Tim. I wish you had; but it is too late. You wont now.’
Words cannot describe the fury of Michael Rust at seeing himself thus bearded by one whom he had been used to see truckle to him, whom he considered the mere tool of Craig, and whom he had never thought it worth while even to consult in their previous interviews.
‘Wont I? wont I? Look to yourself,’ muttered he, shaking his finger at him with a slow, cautioning gesture, ‘Look to yourself.’
‘You’re right, I will; I say I will,’ exclaimed Jones, leaping up and confronting him. ‘I say I will; and now I do!’ He grasped him by the throat and shook him as if he had been a child.
‘I might as well kill him at once,’ muttered he, without heeding the struggles of Rust. ‘It’s him or me; yes, yes, I’ll do it.’
Coming to this fatal conclusion, he flung Rust back on the floor and leaped upon him. At this moment, however, the door of the closet was thrown open, and Grosket, whom he had entirely forgotten, sprang suddenly out:
‘Come, come, this wont do!’ said he; ‘no murder!’