Glennie
once made me recite a battle-piece of Mr. Dryden before my betters; and
how I could scarce get out the bloody threats for shyness and rising
tears. So it was with Maskew's words; for he had much ado to gather
breath to say them, and they came in a thin voice that had no sting of
wrath or passion in it.
Then Elzevir spoke to him, not roughly, but resolved; and yet with
melancholy, like a judge sentencing a prisoner:
'Talk not to me of gibbets, for thou wilt neither hang nor see men hanged
again. A month ago thou satst under my roof, watching the flame burn down
till the pin dropped and gave thee right to turn me out from my old home.
And now this morning thou shalt watch that flame again, for I will give
thee one inch more of candle, and when the pin drops, will put this thine
own pistol to thy head, and kill thee with as little thought as I would
kill a stoat or other vermin.'
Then he opened the lanthorn slide, took out from his neckcloth that same
pin with the onyx head which he had used in the Why Not? and fixed it in
the tallow a short inch from the top, setting the lanthorn down upon the
sward in front of Maskew.
As for me, I was dismayed beyond telling at these words, and made
giddy with the revulsion of feeling; for, whereas, but a few minutes
ago, I would have thought nothing too bad for Maskew, now I was turned
round to wish he might come off with his life, and to look with terror
upon Elzevir.
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