unholy awe, and his face began to
bleach. He wasn't used to the situation.

"Did you get that thing in Marseille?" I asked.

"No, sir. I procured it from an acquaintance in Mahon this morning. And
acting upon his advice, I shall not hesitate to use it if you press
me."

The little man's manner as he struggled between dignity, greediness,
and common funk was so irresistibly funny that I roared.

"You need not fear my failing to be as good as my word," he snapped
out. "They don't hang people in Spain."

"You fool, of course they don't. They garrote. And as the inhabitants
of these islands, take them as a whole, are as mild and peaceable a lot
as one could find on the face of the globe, a bit of murder would
strike them as being in such bad taste that you'd wear the iron collar
as sure as you'd earned it. But that's not the point. You're not going
to shoot me----"

"Then you will go away."

"I shall do nothing of the kind. You are not going to shoot me, simply
because you can't. Man alive, I've been racketing about the evil places
of this world ever since I left Cambridge, and this isn't the first
time I've looked down the small end of a pistol. If you'd seen as much
shooting as I have, you'd just jump with astonishment at the awful big
percentage of men who get missed even by good shots, and at short rise.
And you! You, you small swab, I can see by the way you're holding it
that you've never had a revolver in your fist before this day, much
less fired one at a 'live mark. Put the thing back in your pocket, and
behave like a rational being."

"I shall do nothing of the kind," said Weems, sticking up his left arm,
and sighting the pistol over the elbow-joint.

By this time he had got into such a pitiable funk that I was afraid
lest out of sheer nervousness his finger might press home the trigger
any minute. The chances were big against his hitting me, but I knew
that the report would bring spectators, and those I most particularly
didn't want. Still, I could not see any means of getting the weapon
into my own hands without its going off. It was impossible to "rush"
him. The dozen yards which separated us was one solid tangle of
scrub-bushes interwoven with brambles. It would have taken at least
forty seconds to tear through them, and in that time he could most
assuredly snap off all six chambers, however big a duffer he might be.
This would bring up some of the country people without fail; and
besides, out of t