Again, he broke off speaking.  And again on account of Simon Cameron.  The cat, recovering from the indignity of being brushed from in front of the opening door, had returned to his former post of watching, and now stood, tail erect and back arched, staring up at the prisoner out of huge round green eyes.  The sight of a stranger had its wonted lure for the Persian.

The lad’s impotently roving glance fell upon Simon Cameron.  And into his sullen face leaped stark terror.  At sight of it, Gavin Brice hit on a new idea for wringing speech from the captive.

He knew that the grossly ignorant wreckers and fisherfolk of the keys had never set eyes on such an object as this, nor had so much as heard of Persian cats’ existence.  The few cats they had seen were of course of the alley-variety, lean and of short and mangy coat.  Simon Cameron’s halo of wide-fluffing silver-gray fur gave him the appearance of being double his real size.  His plumed cheeks and tasseled ears and dished profile and, above all, the weirdly staring green eyes—­all combined to present a truly frightful appearance to a youth so unsophisticated as this and to any one as superstitious and as fearful of all unknown things as were the conchs in general.

“Standish,” said Brice, “just take my place for a minute as holder of this conch’s very ragged shirt collar.  So!  Now then:” 

He stepped back, and picked up Simon Cameron in his arms.  The cat did not resent the familiarity, Gavin still being enough of a stranger in the house to be of interest to the Persian.  But the round green eyes still remained fixed with unwinking intensity upon the newer and thus more interesting arrival.  Which is the way of a Persian cat.

Brice held Simon Cameron gingerly, almost respectfully, standing so the huge eyes were able to gaze unimpeded at the gaping and shaking boy.  Then, speaking very slowly, in a deep and reverent voice, he intoned: 

“Devil, look mighty close at that conch, yonder.  Watch him, so’s you’ll always remember him!  Put the voodoo on him, Devil.  Haunt him waking, haunt him sleeping.  Haunt him eating, haunt him drinking.  Haunt him standing and sitting, haunt him lying and kneeling.  Rot his bones and his flesh and—­”

A howl of panic terror from the youth interrupted the solemn incantation.  The prisoner slumped to his knees in Standish’s grasp, weeping and jabbering for mercy.  Brice saw the time was ripe for speech and that the captive’s stolid nerve was gone.  Turning on him, he said, sternly: 

“If you’ll speak up and answer us, truthfully, I’ll make this ha’nt take off the curse.  But if you lie, in one word, he’ll know it and he’ll tell me, and—­and then I’ll turn him loose on you.  It’s your one chance.  Want it?”

The youth fairly gabbled his eagerness to assent.

“Good!” said Brice, still holding Simon Cameron, lest the supposed devil spoil everything by rubbing against the prisoner’s legs and purring.  “First of all:—­how did you get in here?”