IN THE SHADOW
but not enough to supply the wise, cool courage to be found only with a deal of mind.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," he answered softly, "but it don't make no sort of diffe'unce. We have come for this man; we mean to have him."
The high color was swept from Giles's face; a cold rage, a cold-blood rage, an inheritance direct from Berserker forefathers, welled up within him. He began to scent blood and it drove his wits from him. He was very young.
Ah, Leyden, Leyden; the wise, experienced, skilled player upon the emotions of men! How simple it might all have been—these single-unit brain cells would have lost their impulses in the wave of your fuller thought! You might have made them weep, laugh, rave, carry the man, whom they had come to slay, triumphant on their shoulders … recruit from their ranks a bodyguard! The pity of it!
"Come and get him then, you cursed cowards!" snarled Giles. He leaped backward, reached behind the door, whipped out a repeating rifle.
The ironic folly of it! The futility of blind courage!
The leader alone was stirred with something akin to sympathy. He was not a strong man; he was weak enough to be generous. He turned to the others.
"Boys," he said, "the dog-gone niggeh ain't wuth it! Let's go 'long."
There was a moment's silence, then a clamor; men slipped from their saddles, rifles in hand. Two aimed across their saddles at Giles; others ran, bent-kneed, to flank the house. Giles raised his piece. Virginia with a swift movement struck it from his hands and sent it
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