word of command of an Inspector. They were armed
with Martini-Henry rifles and triangular-bladed bayonets, very long.
Their faces looked cruel, the stones of the gate-house and main-guard
looked cruel, the beautiful misty morning looked cruel.

Would that damned magistrate never come? Didn't he know that
Malet-Marsac was fighting for his manhood and terribly afraid? Didn't he
know that unless he came quickly Malet-Marsac would either leap on his
horse and ride it till it fell, or else lose control inside the jail and
either burst into tears, faint, or--going mad--put up a fight for his
friend there in the jail itself, snatch weapons, get back to back with
him and die fighting then and there--or, later, on the same scaffold?
His friend--by whose side he had fought, starved, suffered,
triumphed--his poor two-natured friend....

Could not one of these cursed clever physicians, alienists,
psychologists, hypnotists--whatever they were--have cut the strange
savagery and ferocity out of the splendid John Robin Ross-Ellison?...

A buffalo passed, driven by a barely human lout. The lout was free--the
brainless, soulless bovine lout was free in God's beautiful world--and
Ross-Ellison, soldier and gentleman, lay in a stone cell, and in quarter
of an hour would dangle by the neck in a pit below a platform--perhaps
suffering unthinkable agonies--who could tell?... His old friend and
commandant--

Would Wellson never come? What kept the fellow? It was disgraceful
conduct on the part of a public servant in such circumstances. Think
what an eternity of mental suffering each minute must now be to
Ross-Ellison! What was he doing? What were they doing to him? _Could_
the agony of Ross-Ellison be greater than that of Malet-Marsac? It must
be a thousand times greater. How could that tireless activity, that
restless initiative, that cool courage, that unfathomable ingenuity be
quenched in a second? How could such a wild free nature exist in a cell,
submit to pinioning, be quietly led like a sheep to the slaughter? He
who so loved the mountain, the wild desert, the ocean, the free
wandering life of adventure and exploration.

Would Wellson never come? It must be terribly late. Could they have
hanged Ross-Ellison already? Could he have gone to his death thinking
his friend had failed him; had passed by, like the Levite, on the other
side; had turned up a sanctimonious nose at the letter of the Murderer;
had behaved as some "friends" do be