"He can be kept here. There’s plenty of room in the cellars."
"If you do go, we shan’t want more than enough room to bury him. You can take my word for that," was the retort with a brutal laugh.
"I won’t have any violence here, Gassen."
"Then you’d better stop and prevent it. I shall keep my word. But you know that pretty well by this time, I fancy."
The man addressed shifted uneasily and his chair scraped on the floor.
"You’ll do what I say, Gassen," he replied with an effort to put authority into his voice.
"Then you’ll have to say what I say. That’s all. I haven’t come here to-night for fun. Do you suppose there will be no violence, as you call it, if they succeed in persuading the Englishman to come to the rescue of the old dotard? Tell me that."
Gassen swore contemptuously. "Well, it doesn’t matter. You haven’t seen him and I have; and you can take it from me that he isn’t the man to take what’s in store for him here without putting up a fight for his life."
This unexpected tribute to my fighting instincts was flattering perhaps; but I knew what lay behind it; and it came out the next instant.
"I may as well tell you what I mean to do. If they do get him here, I shall shoot him straight away without wasting any time in talk."
"You’re too reckless. You’ll get us all into trouble."
"Reckless?" he repeated with a curt laugh. "I’m not reckless enough to give him a chance at me."
It was a novel experience to listen to the plans for one’s own murder; and I found it sufficiently depressing. I knew that the fellow was quite capable of making his words good; and that when we two did meet, it would be a question of which of us was the handier with his weapon.
That the others were against the violence he threatened with such sinister bluntness, would not help me in the least. He would not let their reluctance stand in the way of his purpose. He had persuaded himself that I was the traitor who had baulked their plans; and was fully set upon taking my life in revenge.
My plight was indeed about as desperate as it could be; and what to do constituted the toughest problem I had ever had to face.
There were three courses. One was to sneak out of the place and fetch the police, taking the risk of what might happen to Althea’s father when they came or in the interval before I could get them there. Another was to wait where I was, trusting to my luck to prevent my being discovered. In this event I should have to run the risk of allowing the other men who had gone for me to return and to the hope that the milder counsels of the elder man would prevail in regard to the Baron. The third was the bolder course of facing the three men there and then before the party was enlarged.