Page:Arthur Stringer - The Shadow.djvu/171

 asked for was time. Let them wait, he kept telling himself; let them wait until he got back with Binhart! Then they would all eat crow, every last man of them!

For Blake did not intend to give up the trail. To do so would have been beyond him. His mental fangs were already fixed in Binhart. To withdraw them was not in his power. He could no more surrender his quarry than the python's head, having once closed on the rabbit, could release its meal. With Blake, every instinct sloped inward, just as every python-fang sloped backward. The actual reason for the chase was no longer clear to his own vision. It was something no longer to be reckoned with. The only thing that counted was the fact that he had decided to "get" Binhart, that he was the pursuer and Binhart was the fugitive. It had long since resolved itself into a personal issue between him and his enemy.