Ever at climaxes time seems suspended. Whether it was a second or a
minute he stood there so, they who watched could never tell. What they
did know was that at last he turned, stood facing them. All their lives
they had seen passion, seen it in every phase, seen it until it was
commonplace. It was in the very air of the frontier, to be expected,
life of the life; but as this man shifted they saw a kind of which they
had never dreamed. For How Landor was master of himself again, master,
as well--they knew it, every man and youth who saw,--of them. For
another indefinitely long deathly silent space he merely looked at them;
looked eye to eye, individual by individual, into every face within the
surrounding semi-circle. Once before another man, a drunken cowman, had
seen that identical look. Now not one but a score saw it, felt a
terrible ice-cold menace creep from his brain into their brains. Even
yet he did not speak, did not make a sound; nor did they. Explain it as
you will, he did this thing. Another thing he did as well; and that was
the end. Slowly, deliberately, he stepped to the platform and held out
his hand. Obediently the girl followed. She was not crying now. Her eyes
were red and a drop of blood came now and then to her lips; but she had
grown wonderfully quiet all at once, wonderfully calm--almost as much so
as the man. Deliberately as he had stepped down into the spectators'
midst, the Indian took the old telescope from the girl's hand and, she
following by his side, moved a step forward.
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