But he heard nothing:--yet he saw. He saw a tall, lithe, catlike figure
straighten until it seemed fairly to tower. He saw this same figure look
at him fully, squarely; as though for the first time really conscious of
his presence. He saw two unflinching black eyes, flanked by high cheek
bones, out of a copper-brown face meet his own, meet them and hold them;
hold them immovably, hold them so he could not look away. He saw the
owner of those eyes move--he did not hear, there was no sound, not even
a pat from the moccasined feet, he merely saw--and move toward him. He
saw that being coming, coming, saw it detour to pass a prostrate body on
the floor; always silent, but always coming, always drawing nearer. He
saw this thing, he, Pete Sweeney, he, Long Pete, whose name alone was
terror. He knew what it meant, he knew what he should do, what he had
sworn to do; the muzzles of his two revolvers were already focussed, but
he made no move. His fingers lay as before on the triggers. Once in
unison they tightened; then loosened again. He did not act, this man. As
his maker was his judge, he could not. He was wide awake,
preternaturally wide awake; he tried to act, tried to send the message
that would make the muscles tense; but he could not. Those two eyes were
holding him and he could not. All this he knew; and all the while that
other was coming nearer and nearer. He began to have a horror of that
coming that he could not halt. The great unshaven jaw of him worked;
worked spasmodically, involuntarily. His skin, flaming hot before, of a
sudden felt cool. The sweat spurted, stood damp on the hairy hands.
Something he had never felt before, something he had observed in others,
others like those six in the background, began to grip him; something
that whitened his face, that made him feel of a sudden weak--weak as he
had never felt before. And still those eyes were upon him, still that
dark face came closer and closer. Once more his brain sent the message
to kill, once more he battled against the inevitable; and that message