“You’ve got nerve, Toplinsky,” he said with grudging admiration, “but you are too healthy to be in a hurry to die, and I’m telling you that you are mighty near death at this moment. I have been thinking mean about you for the last hour and a half, and there is now going to be a reckoning between us.”
Toplinsky, whose strength was coming back, sat up.
“Ah, ha, slave, do you talk of an agreement with your master?”
“Say, Whiskers, if you think I’m a slave you’ve got another think coming. Right now you have a lot of men behind you but I’m holding the trump card. If you do not come to my terms, and agree quickly, this gun is going off. After that—well, you will not be interested in what happens next.”
The grimness in the young aviator’s voice spoke volumes. The vast crowd listened in silence.
“Yes,” he continued, “you are going to give an order that sticks. You are going to say that there will be no more whippings in this camp.”
“What else?” Toplinsky sneered.
“And no killings.”
Toplinsky made an effort to stand up.
“Sit down!” Billy thundered. “This agreement is going to reach a conclusion before you get up.”