"I know of no prisoner."
I thought he would have broken into oaths, but instead he shrugged his
shoulders. He walked to the other side of the blanket, and I saw that
he limped painfully. Then he sat down opposite me, his great turtle
neck standing up between his humping shoulders. With all his size and
ugliness he was curiously well finished,--a personality. He was a man
to sway men and women. I felt it as I felt his likeness to his cousin,
a likeness that I could not put my finger on but that I knew was there.
Small wonder that she dreaded him. He was a replica in heavy lines of
the sterner traits in her own nature. He had something of her
curiously winning quality, too. Did she feel that? She had promised
to marry him. I lit my pipe and smoked, and waited for him to declare
himself.
He did it with his glance hard on me. "You are playing for time. Is
that worthy your very evident intelligence, monsieur, since you can
protract the game only the matter of a few hours at most? I have
Cadillac's warrant for the prisoner."
I smoked. I felt no haste for speech. What I had to say would make a
brutal, tearing wound, and I hugged my sense of power and gloated over
it like an Iroquois.
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