As his blue eyes roved round on the interior of the room, Villum moved toward the cots at the farther end.
“I vouldt yoost as lief been hung for sdealing a big sheeb as a liddle lamb; so I go me der whole hog,” he was muttering. “Uff I am foundt, der ticktograft vill be proke, unt no more can be saidt.”
With a last look around, Villum dropped to the floor, and, with squirming jerks, stowed his rotund body under one of the cots.
Something else under there squirmed. Villum’s hands were thrust into the face of a man.
“Awk!” Villum exploded, unable, in his surprise, to suppress the sound; and he clawed backward like a turtle, trying to get out.
But the dog fight had been ended, and Dickey and his friends were streaming into the front room. Villum did not realize that he might have joined them there in that time of confusion without attracting undue attention, until it was too late to try it. He was temporarily paralyzed by his discovery of the man under the cot. Before he recovered, some of the fellows were entering the back room, and were sitting down in the chairs by the table.
“I am sure in a fixings,” thought Villum, perspiring with the terror of the thought.
The man under the cot had moved over as close to the wall as he could get, but Villum still felt the touch of him; his imagination supplying details, he pictured a knife in the man’s hands; and, coming on top of that, like a flash, was the thought:
“Idt iss der Hindu murterer, I pet you!”
That made Villum’s flesh creep, and nearly popped him from under the cot. He moved over, shivering. But he did not leave his shelter. He would have fared badly if he had; so in the end he preferred to stick to the frying pan rather than to flop out into the fire.