"You hate me, eh?" he said cruelly. "I can't hand you over to the boys, eh?" He wrenched the arms with a twist at each question, and, at each twist, the boy uttered that weird cry that was scarcely human. "Well, if I can't," Will went on through his clenched teeth, wrenching his arms as he spoke, "it cuts both ways; you'll get your med'cine here instead, and you daren't speak of it--see, see, see!"
The boy's cries were louder and more prolonged. Terror had again taken its place in his eyes. Yet he seemed to have no power for resistance. He was held in a paralysis of unutterable fear. With each of Will's three final words the lad's arms were nearly wrenched from their sockets, and, as the victim's final cry broke louder than the rest, the door was flung open and the candle set flickering.
"Stop that!" cried a voice, directly behind Will, and the man turned to find the burly form of Peter Blunt filling the doorway.
But Will was beside himself with rage and hatred.
"Eh?" he demanded. "Who says to stop? He's the chicken-killer. I got him red-handed." He held up one of the boy's blood-stained hands.
"I don't care what he is. If you don't loose him instantly I'll throw you out of this shack." The big man's voice was calm, but his eyes were blazing.
Will released the boy, but only to turn fiercely upon the intruder.
"And who in thunder-are you to interfere?" he cried savagely.
Without a moment's hesitation Peter walked straight up to him. For a second he stood towering over him, eye to eye. Then he turned his back, and thrust out one great arm horizontally across the other's body, as though to warn him back while he spoke to Elia. There was nothing blustering in his attitude, nothing even forceful. There was a simplicity, a directness that was strangely compelling. And Will found himself obeying the silent command in spite of his fury.
"Get out, laddie," said Peter gently. "Get out, quick."
And in those moments while Will watched his prey hobbling to freedom, he remembered Eve and what it would mean if the story of his doings reached her.
As the boy vanished through the doorway Peter turned.
"Thanks, Will," he said, in his amiable way. "You'd far best let him go. When you hurt that boy you hurt Eve--ter'ble."