ss, you are lower than the cringing curs.
Are you afraid, O great and worthy one, to stand forth and confess your
wrong as any man would do?"

She stopped breathless. He looked at her with eyes hot and sullen.

"Now I should like to wring your neck for that!" he said. At the swift
ruthless savagery in his tone the girl shrank back. Nicanor saw and
laughed. "Since I may not, I'll take payment otherhow. As for the old
man, let him squeal as best likes him. If they break him on the wheel, I
shall go and tell them how to do it; if they boil him in oil, I shall go
and stir the gravy. Your opinion of the cringing cur should not go
unjustified."

The screaming died suddenly into moaning. Eldris covered her face with
her hands.

"Oh, but that is worse, if worse can be! Why does he not tell them he
knows nothing, has done nothing? Surely they would let him go! Is he
trying, perhaps, to shield you?" Her voice, under all its fear and pity,
was mocking.

"Not he! He would be glad to see me in his place," Nicanor retorted. He
laughed a little. "Strange, is it not, that he doth not tell?--since
thumb-screws and argolins soon find a man's limit."

She faced him, gathering all her courage.

"Now do I believe you know more of this than you will say!" she cried.

"Perhaps!" he said boldly. "It is not well to tell all one knows."

"Not even to save a fellow-creature's life! Oh, what are you--brute or
man? Man with the speech of angels--brute with the heart of hell!"

"Perhaps!" said Nicanor again. "Why should I tell you what I am?"

"Do you know, yourself?" she questioned.

His eyes hardened.

"Who can know himself?" he parried, with a shrug of his heavy shoulders.
"This much I know--that I am brute and man, slave and king. At times I
am lower than man, who can be lower than any crawling beast; at times I
am more than god, with all the world beneath me. Why? How should I
tell?"

"You, who sing of birds and butterflies, of flowers in Summer, of
sunshine and sweet love and the brightness of life!" she said bitterly
and with reproach. "Indeed, you are two men, and I know not either.
One, all men must hate and fear; the other--ah, the other is of the
silver tongue. Why should this be? I can tell no more than you--I can
but pray that that black beast may be tamed and stilled."

"I say I do not know!" Nicanor said sullenly. "And speak we of something
else. I am _one_ man, Nicanor, slave and teller of tales. That is all
with w