Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/94

 "Good evening, sir!"

"Ah-ah-ah!" the pirate choked, freezing where he sat, his paddle pattering in and out of the water, his hands shaken by the cold that turned his spine to ice.

The flash made a circle of radiance in a fog that accumulated over the river, and in this circle the shrunken little figure of a river rat made a gigantic silhouette of a preposterous, insect-like figure.

"Where would you rather I'd shoot you?" Murdong asked, pleasantly. "In the head, or through your heart?" "Oh, Gawd! Don't kill me!" the man found voice to wail, and a bank answered by echo.

"No? A gentleman hates to have his sleep disturbed by being stolen!" Murdong exclaimed. "You murdered my sleep, and the punishment is death, you know that!"

"I nevah meant no harm! This cunnar—I was sairt of hit! I got a lil gal—my wife's dead—down to Vicksburg. I'm dropping down to see her. Old Mississip's so big I was scared of the canoe. I hadn't no money to buy a skiff—an' so—an' so"

"So you paddled me down here to cut my throat and steal my skiff!"

Fore Gawd, I didn't know a man was into hit!