"By God! I've got you. Git down on yore knees and beg, Mr. Spy. I'm going to blow yore head off in just thirty seconds."
Not in his most unbridled moments had Dickens painted a bully so appalling as this one. This man was a notorious "killer" and the lust of murder was just now on him. Young Beaudry's brain reeled. It was only by an effort that he pulled himself back from the unconsciousness into which he was swimming.
The eyes of Beaudry, held in dreadful fascination, clung to the lupine face behind the revolver. To save his life he could have looked nowhere else except into those cold, narrow pupils where he read death. Little beads of sweat stood on his forehead. The tongue in his mouth was dry. His brain seemed paralyzed. Again he seemed to be lifted from his feet by a wave of deadly terror.
Meldrum had been drinking heavily, but he was not drunk. He drew from his pocket a watch and laid it on the arm of the chair. Roy noticed that the rim of the revolver did not waver. It was pointed directly between his eyes.
"Git down on yore knees and beg, damn you. In less 'n a minute hell pops for you."
The savage, exultant voice of the former convict beat upon Roy like the blows of a hammer. He would have begged for his life,--begged abjectly, cravenly,--but his teeth chattered and his parched tongue was palsied. He would have sunk to his knees, but terror had robbed his muscles of the strength to move. He was tied to his chair by ropes stronger than chains of steel.
The watch ticked away the seconds. From the face of Meldrum the grin was snuffed out by a swift surge of wolfish anger.
"Are you deef and dumb?" he snarled. "It's Dan Meldrum talking--the man yore dad sent to the penitentiary. I'm going to kill you. Then I'll cut another notch on my gun. Understand?"
The brain of the young lawyer would not function. His will was paralyzed. Yet every sense was amazingly alert. He did not miss a tick of the watch. Every beat of his heart registered.
"You butted in and tried to spy like yore dad, did you?" the raucous voice continued. "Thought you could sell us out and git away with it. Here's where you learn different. Jack Beaudry was a man, anyhow, and we got him. You're nothing but a pink-ear, a whey-faced baby without guts to stand the gaff. Well, you've come to the end of yore trail. Beg, you skunk!"