Houseman, laughing wildly.

"Fiend! devil!" cried Aram, grasping his comrade by the throat, and
shaking him with a vehemence that Houseman, though a man of great
strength and sinew, impotently attempted to resist.

"Breathe but another word of such import; dare to menace me with the
vengeance of such a thing as thou, and, by the God above us, I will lay
thee dead at my feet!"

"Release my throat, or you will commit murder," gasped Houseman with
difficulty, and growing already black in the face.

Aram suddenly relinquished his gripe, and walked away with a hurried
step, muttering to himself. He then returned to the side of Houseman,
whose flesh still quivered either with rage or fear, and, his own self-
possession completely restored, stood gazing upon him with folded arms,
and his usual deep and passionless composure of countenance; and
Houseman, if he could not boldly confront, did not altogether shrink
from, his eye. So there and thus they stood, at a little distance from
each other, both silent, and yet with something unutterably fearful in
their silence.

"Houseman," said Aram at length, in a calm, yet a hollow voice, "it may
be that I was wrong; but there lives no man on earth, save you, who could
thus stir my blood,--nor you with ease. And know, when you menace me,
that it is not your menace that subdues or shakes my spirit; but that
which robs my veins of their even tenor is that you should deem your
menace could have such power, or that you,--that any man,--should
arrogate to himself the thought that he could, by the prospect of