If he really looked so much like Ali Higg, as seemed to be the case, no one at that distance could have doubted his identity.

I hauled off two or three paces, so as not to betray the fact that I was to be Jael's executioner in a certain contingency, and the long sleeve of my cloak concealed the pistol.
As I am setting down the facts exactly as they happened I may as well record here that I laughed.

She thought I laughed at her in cold-blooded delight at the prospect of murder, and I think that tightened her resolution not to give me the least excuse.
But I was not feeling in the least cold-blooded.

I was laughing at myself, who might be forced to shoot a woman after all.
Perhaps Grim gave the job to me because he knew I would not shoot her in any case.

I don't know.