though in a fit of rage. "Why do you stay
about this accursed fever hole?" cried he; "what do you want here, with
your saintly face and your godly airs?"

"I stay here," said I, bitterly, "because I have nowhere else to go."

"And what do you want?" said he.

"That you know," said I, "as well as I myself."

"And do you think," said he, "that I will give it to you?"

"No," said I, "that I do not."

"Look 'ee, Jack Mackra," said he, very slowly, "you are the only man
hereabouts who knows anything of that red pebble" (here he raised his
pistol and aimed it directly at my bosom); "why shouldn't I shoot you
down like a dog, and be done with you forever? I've shot many a better
man than you for less than this."

I felt every nerve thrill as I beheld the pistol set against my breast,
and his cruel, wicked eyes behind the barrel; but I steeled myself to
stand steadily and to face it.

"You may shoot if you choose, Edward England," said I, "for I have
nothing more to live for. I have lost my honor and all except my life
through you, and you might as well take that as the rest."

He withdrew the pistol, and sat regarding me for a while with a most
baleful look, and for a time I do believe that my life hung in the
balance with the weight of a feather to move it either way. Suddenly he
thrust his hand into his bosom and drew forth the ball of yarn which I
had observed amongst other things in his pocket. He flung it at me with
all his might, with a great cry as though of rage and of anguish. "Take
it," he roared, "and may the devil go with you! And now away from here,
and be quick about it, or I will put a bullet through your head even
yet."

I knew as quick as lightning what it was that was wrapped in the ball of
yarn, and leaping forward I snatched it up and ran as fast as I was able
away from that place. I heard another roar, and at the same time the
shot of a pistol and the whiz of a bullet, and my hat went spinning off
before me as though twitched from off my head. I did not tarry to pick
it up, but ran on without stopping: but even yet, to this day, I cannot
tell whether Edward England missed me through purpose or through the
trembling of weakness; for he was a dead-shot, and I myself once saw him
snap the stem of a wineglass with a pistol bullet at an ordinary in
Jamaica. As for me, the whole thing had happened so quickly and so
unexpectedly that I had no time either for joy or exultation, but
continued to run on