But quick as he was, Rupert was quicker still, and as Deede Dawson
leaped he lifted his pistol and fired, though his aim was not at
the man, but at the revolver lying on the top of the roll of carpet
where Deede Dawson had placed it.
The bullet, for Rupert was a man who seldom missed, struck the
weapon fair and whirled it, shattered and useless, to the floor.
Deede Dawson, whose hand had been already outstretched to seize it,
drew back with a snarl that was more like the cry of a trapped wolf
than any sound produced from human lips.
Still, Rupert did not speak. With the smoking pistol in his hand
he watched silently and steadily his helpless enemy who, for his
part, was silent, too, and very still, for he felt that doom was
close upon him.
Yet he showed not the least sign of fear, but only a fierce and
sullen defiance.
"Shoot away, why don't you shoot?" he sneered. "Mind you don't miss.
I trusted you when I put my revolver down and I was a fool, but I
thought you would play fair."
Without a word Rupert tossed his pistol through the attic window.
They heard the tinkling fall of the glass, they heard more faintly
the sound of the revolver striking the outhouse roof twenty feet
below and rebounding thence to the paved kitchen yard beneath, and
then all was quiet again.
"I only need my hands for you," said Rupert softly, as softly as a
mother coos to her drowsy babe.
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