He swallowed the
snubs of his superiors in that first quarrel, though he boiled with
resentment; but when he suddenly saw the two heads dark against the
dawn and framed in the two windows, he could not miss the chance,
not only of revenge, but of the removal of the two obstacles to his
promotion. He was a dead shot and counted on silencing both, though
proof against him would have been hard in any case. But, as a matter
of fact, he had a narrow escape, in the case of Nolan, who lived
just long enough to say, 'Wilson' and point. We thought he was
summoning help for his comrade, but he was really denouncing his
murderer. After that it was easy to throw down the ladder above him
(for a man up a ladder cannot see clearly what is below and behind)
and to throw himself on the ground as another victim of the
catastrophe.
"But there was mixed up with his murderous ambition a real belief,
not only in his own talents, but in his own theories. He did believe
in what he called a fresh eye, and he did want scope for fresh
methods. There was something in his view, but it failed where such
things commonly fail, because the fresh eye cannot see the unseen.
It is true about the ladder and the scarecrow, but not about the
life and the soul; and he made a bad mistake about what a man like
Michael would do when he heard a woman scream.
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