Haw-Haw answered quickly: "I wouldn't go--I wouldn't miss it for
nothin'. Ain't I come all this way to see it--I mean to help? Would I
fall down on you now, Mac? No, I wouldn't!"

And twisting those bony fingers together he burst once more into that
rattling, unhuman laughter which all the Three B's knew so well and
dreaded as the dying dread the sight of the circling buzzard above.

"Stop laughin'!" cried Mac Strann with sudden anger. "Damn you, stop
laughin'!"

The other peered upon Mac Strann with incredulous delight, his broad
mouth gaping to that thirsted grin of enjoyment.

"You ain't gettin' nervous, Mac?" he queried, and thrust his face closer
to make sure. "You ain't bothered, Mac? You ain't doubtin' how this'll
turn out?" There was no answer and so he replied to himself: "I know
what done it to you. I seen it myself. It was that yaller light in his
eyes, Mac. My God, it come up there out of nothin' and it wasn't a light
that ought to come in no man's eyes. It was like I'd woke up at night
with a cold weight on my chest and found two snakes' eyes glitterin'
close to my face. Makes me shivery, like, jest to think of it now. D'you
notice that, Mac?"

"I'm tired of talkin'," said Mac Strann hoarsely, "damned tired!"

And so saying he swung his great head slowly around and glared at
Haw-Haw. The latter shrank away with an undulatory motion in his saddle.
And when the head of Mac Strann turned away again the broad mouth began
gibbering: "It's gettin' him like it done me. He's scared, scared,
scared--even Mac Strann!"

He broke off, for Mac Strann had jerked up his head and said in a
strangely muffled voice: "What was that?"

The bullet head of Haw-Haw Langley leaned to one side, and his
glittering eyes rolled up while he listened.

"Nothin'!" he said, "I don't hear nothin'!"

"Listen again!" cried Mac Strann in that same cautious voice, as of one
whispering in the night in the house of the enemy. "It's like a voice in
the wind. It comes down the wind. D'ye hear now--now--now?"

It was, indeed, the faintest of faint sounds when Haw-Haw caught it. It
was, in the roar of the rain, as indistinct as some distant light on the
horizon which may come either from a rising star or from the window of a
house. But it had a peculiar quality of its own, even as the house-light
would be tinged with yellow when the stars are cold and white. A small
and distant sound, and yet it cut through the crashing of the storm more