He spoke the words with seeming carelessness, but really with deliberate intent. For the glum silence of a conch is a hard thing for any outsider to break down. He recalled what Claire had said of the Caesars' fierce distaste for the word "conch." Also, throughout the South, "clay-eater," has ever been a fighting word. Brice had not gauged his insults in vain. Instantly, the captive's head twisted, like that of a pinioned pit terrier, in a frenzied effort to drive his teeth into the hand or arm of his captor. Failing this, he spluttered into rapid-fire speech. "Ah'm not a conch!" he rasped, his voice sounding as rusty as an unused hinge. "Ah'm a Caesar, yo' dirty Yank! Tuhn me loose, yo'! Ah ain't hurt nuthin'." "How did you get in here?" bellowed Milo, advancing threateningly on the youth, and swinging aloft one of his hamlike fists. The intruder stiffened into silence and stolid rigidity. Unflinchingly, he eyed the oncoming giant. Brice motioned Standish back. "No use," said he. "I know the breed. They've been kicked and beaten and hammered about, till a licking has no terrors for them. This sweet soul will stay in the silences, till--" 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.