our teeth chatter--then why cannot you
shout? Loosen the bandages with your hands--then you can. Ah, I see--
your hands are tied, they cannot aid you. How strangely things repeat
themselves, after long years; for MY hands were tied, that night, you
remember? Yes, tied much as yours are now--how odd that is. I could
not pull free. It did not occur to you to untie me; it does not occur to
me to untie you. Sh--! there's a late footstep. It is coming this way.
Hark, how near it is! One can count the footfalls--one--two--three.
There--it is just outside. Now is the time! Shout, man, shout!--it is
the one sole chance between you and eternity! Ah, you see you have
delayed too long--it is gone by. There--it is dying out. It is gone!
Think of it--reflect upon it--you have heard a human footstep for the
last time. How curious it must be, to listen to so common a sound as
that, and know that one will never hear the fellow to it again.'

Oh, my friend, the agony in that shrouded face was ecstasy to see! I
thought of a new torture, and applied it--assisting myself with a trifle
of lying invention--

'That poor Kruger tried to save my wife and child, and I did him a
grateful good turn for it when the time came. I persuaded him to rob
you; and I and a woman helped him to desert, and got him away in
safety.' A look as of surprise and triumph shone out dimly through the
anguish in my victim's face. I was disturbed, disquieted. I said--

'What, then--didn't he escape?'

A negative shake of the head.

'No? What happened, then?'

The satisfaction in the shrouded face was still plainer. The man tried
to mumble out some words--could not succeed; tried to express something
with his obstructed hands--failed; paused a moment, then feebly tilted
his head, in a meaning way, toward the corpse that lay nearest him.

'Dead?' I asked. 'Failed to escape?--caught in the act and shot?'

Negative shake of the head.

'How, then?'

Again the man tried to do something with his hands. I watched closely,
but could not guess the intent. I bent over and watched still more
intently. He had twisted a thumb around and was weakly punching at his
breast with it. 'Ah--stabbed, do you mean?'

Affirmative nod, accompanied by a spectral smile of such peculiar
devilishness, that it struck an awakening light through my dull brain,
and I cried--

'Did I stab him, mistaking him for you?--for that stroke was meant for
none but you.'

The aff