"Yours!" Giles spoke with difficulty, the blood mounting to his temples and knotting its veins, his hands clenching and unclenching as if it was almost beyond him to hold them from throttling his father's guest. "Am I a man or a cur? Cur? Nay, no cur is so low as you would make me. Betray Plymouth? Turn on these people with whom I've suffered and wrought? I would give my hand to kick you out into yonder harbour and drown you there as you deserve. I have but to turn you over to our governor, and short ways will you get with the good beaver skins which have been given to you by these people you want me to trick, scant though they are of everything, and that owing to you who have never sent them anything but your lying promises. Nay, turn not so white! You may keep your courage, as you keep your worthless life. Neither will I betray you to them. But see to it that this last day of your stay here is indeed the last one! Only till sunset do I give you to get out of Plymouth. If you are within our boundaries at moonrise I will deliver you over, and urge your hanging. And be sure these starved immigrants will be in a mood to hang you higher than Haman, when they hear of what you have laid before me, against them who are in such straits."
Mr. Weston did not delay to test Giles's sincerity. There was no mistaking that he would do precisely as he promised, and Weston took his departure a good two hours before sundown.
Giles stood with his hands in his pockets beside his father as Weston departed.
"Giles, courtesy to a guest is a law that binds us all," suggested Stephen Hopkins.
"Mercy, rather," said Giles, tersely. He nodded to Mr. Weston without removing his hands. "A last salute, Mr. Weston," he said. "I expect never to meet you again, neither in this, nor any other world."
"Son, what do you know of this man that you dare insult him in departing?" said Mr. Hopkins.
"That never will Plymouth receive one penny of value for the beaver skins he hath taken, nor gratitude for the kindness shown him when he was destitute," said Giles, turning on his heel shortly and leaving his father to look after Weston, troubled by this confirmation of the doubt that he had always felt of this false friend of Plymouth colony.