Page 481 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

pockets of his shooting-coat, and the deadly butts ready to
the hand of anyone bold enough to take them.
One day a man named Kavanagh, a captured absconder,
who had openly sworn in the dock the death of the magis-
trate, walked quickly up to him as he was passing through
the yard, and snatched a pistol from his belt. The yard caught
its breath, and the attendant warder, hearing the click of the
lock, instinctively turned his head away, so that he might
not be blinded by the flash. But Kavanagh did not fire. At
the instant when his hand was on the pistol, he looked up
and met the magnetic glance of Frere’s imperious eyes. An
effort, and the spell would have been broken. A twitch of
the finger, and his enemy would have fallen dead. There was
an instant when that twitch of the finger could have been
given, but Kavanagh let that instant pass. The dauntless eye
fascinated him. He played with the pistol nervously, while
all remained stupefied. Frere stood, without withdrawing
his hands from the pockets into which they were plunged.
‘That’s a fine pistol, Jack,’ he said at last.
Kavanagh, down whose white face the sweat was pour-
ing, burst into a hideous laugh of relieved terror, and thrust
the weapon, cocked as it was, back again into the magis-
trate’s belt.
Frere slowly drew one hand from his pocket, took the
cocked pistol and levelled it at his recent assailant. ‘That’s
the best chance you’ll ever get, Jack,’ said he.
Kavanagh fell on his knees. ‘For God’s sake, Captain
Frere!’ Frere looked down on the trembling wretch, and
then uncocked the pistol, with a laugh of ferocious con-

0 For the Term of His Natural Life