"One thing!" The Russian turned with a livid face. "One thing the chief
bade me tell you. If those men escape--you die."
"Oh," Hugo said. He stared through the window. "And supposing I were to
offer your chief a million--or nearly a million--for the privilege of
freeing them?"
Skorvsky's face returned to its look of transfiguration, the look that
had accompanied his noblest words of the night before. "You would do
that, comrade?" he whispered. "You would give us--give the cause--a
million? Never since the days of our Saviour has a man like you walked
on this--"
Hugo stood up suddenly. "Get out of here!" His voice was a cosmic
menace. "Get out of here, you dirty swine. Get out of here before I
break you to matchwood, before I rip out your guts and stuff them back
through your filthy, lying throat. Get out, oh, God, get out!"