And Ridsdale, too, represented his assumed character well enough. His cheeks were livid, his breath came gaspingly, the hand that carried the revolver shook perceptibly—altogether an excellent simulation of surprise, apprehensive doubts, if not of craven fear.
“One!”
The General had crept to the table, taken a cartridge, and was slipping it into the chamber.
“There!” he whispered. “Automatically you have done it too. I told you so. Wait! Lift your hand at your peril. My turn. Two!”
Ridsdale, copying the General’s slightest movement, was loading as the General loaded.
“Three! That’s it. Three left. When you take the last, step back. I’ll not raise my arm till you are back on the hearth. I swear it. Four!”
The music had ceased, but neither of them noticed. In a silence broken only by the sound of panting respirations, they loaded the fifth and sixth cartridges, and simultaneously sprang away from the table.
“Now!” The General had been the quicker. His arm was up. “Now answer me.” The ferocity in the hissing words was terrible to hear. “Are you the man?”
“I—I—— Upon my word, I—don’t understand such folly.”
“You blackguard! This is not acting.” The concentrated passion behind the words seemed to send forth waves that struck one’s beating heart with flame and ice. “Now answer me, or—so help me, God!—I’ll shoot you.”