"I believe you, my boy," said Sam Black. "Did yer see that last blow o' his'n? how he did up Kala Bagh hisself with one lick of his sword-handle, arter the blade was broke! That's wot I calls fightin'!"
"Same here!" cried Tom. "Don't I remember how Kala Bagh said to me, when he fust axed me to jine his gang (that time he comed among us as a juggler, ye know), 'If thou fearest the colonel sahib,' he says to me, 'thou shalt see, when he and I meet in fight, that I am the stronger,' says he. Blow his Hindu impudence! he's found out by this time, I take it, whether Old Blue-Beard's stronger than 'im or not!"
Then the third man spoke for the first time, breaking at length, with a visible effort, the moody silence in which he had seemed to be sunk while his two comrades were talking.
"Look 'ere, Tom," said he, "why didn't you kill him when you had the chance?"
"Well, if it comes to that, Bob, why didn't you"? cried the other. "You've swore to do it, once and agin—I've heerd yer myself!"
Bob Burton made no answer for a moment, and his hard face worked convulsively. Then he looked up, and said fiercely, as if the words were wrung from him by a sudden spasm of pain—
"I couldn't!"
"No more couldn't I neither," said Tom Tuffen, visibly relieved by this frank admission on the part of his comrade. "I tell yer, boys, when he came chargin' in among us like that, and knockin' over them niggers like nine-pins, by Jingo, I almost forgot to hate him!"
"Aye, that's jist 'ow I felt too," put in Sam Black gruffly. "I had my gun all ready to let fly at him, but when I see'd him a-fightin' the whole lot of 'em like a hero—and lickin' 'em too—why, I felt as if, s'pose I was to pull trigger on him then, the very bullet 'ud turn round and hit me instead!"