Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/314

 exultation surged through him because he knew that he was not afraid.

There was no fear in him. It was as though the warm sun beating on his body gave him courage.

Standing behind the safeguard of his closed eyes his real soul seemed to slip away, to run down the circular staircase into the hall and pass happily into the garden, down the road to the sea.

His soul was free and Crispin's was imprisoned.

He heard Crispin's voice: "Will you admit now that I have you in my hand? If I touch you here how you will bleed—bleed to death if I do not prevent it. Do you remember Shylock and his pound of flesh? 'Oh! upright Judge!' But there is no judge here to stay me!"

The knife touched him. He felt it as though it had been a wasp's sting—a small cut it must be—and suddenly there was the cool trickle of blood down his skin. Then his right shoulder—a prick! Now a cut again on his arm. Stings—nothing more. But the end had really come then at last? His hands beneath the bonds moved suddenly of their own impulse. It was not natural not to strive to be free, to fight for his life.

He opened his eyes. He was bleeding from five or six little cuts. Crispin was standing away from him. He saw that Dunbar, crimson in the face, was struggling frantically with his cords and was shouting. Jabez, too, was calling out. The room,