Page:Stevenson and Quiller-Couch - St Ives .djvu/145

 was as brief as it was hot and sudden. The potations which had swelled and bloated his carcase had already weakened the springs of energy. One more huge effort, that came near to overpower me, and in which the pistol happily exploded, and I felt his grasp slacken and weakness come on his joints; his legs succumbed under his weight, and he grovelled on his knees on the stone floor. "Spare me!" he gasped.

I had not only been abominably frightened; I was shocked besides: my delicacy was in arms, like a lady to whom violence should have been offered by a similar monster. I plucked myself from his horrid contact, I snatched the pistol—even discharged, it was a formidable weapon—and menaced him with the butt. "Spare you!" I cried: "you beast!"

His voice died in his fat inwards, but his lips still vehemently framed the same words of supplication. My anger began to pass off, but not all my repugnance; the picture he made revolted me, and I was impatient to be spared the further view of it.

"Here," said I, "stop this performance: it sickens me. I am not going to kill you, do you hear? I have need of you."

A look of relief, that I could almost have called beautiful, dawned on his countenance. "Anything—anything yon wish," said he.

Anything is a big word, and his use of it brought me for a moment to a stand. "Why, what do you mean?" I asked. "Do you mean that you will blow the gaff on the whole business?"

He answered me Yes with eager asseverations.

"I know Monsieur de Saint-Yves is in it; it was through his papers we traced you," I said. "Do you consent to make a clean breast of the others?"