No, thank you," said Malet-Marsac. "I would like to get as far away as
possible and stay there."

Major Ranald laughed.

"Wouldn't like to visit the mortuary and see a post-mortem?"

"No, thank you."

"What about the Holy One?" put in the City Magistrate. "Did you
'autopsy' him? A pleasure to hang a chap like him."

"Yes, the brute. I'll show you his neck vertebrae presently if you like.
Kept 'em as a curiosity. An absolute break of the bone itself. People
talk about pain, strangulation, suffocation and all that. Nothing of
the sort. Literally breaks the neck. Not mere separation of the
vertebrae you know. I'll show you the vertebra itself--clean broken...."

Captain Malet-Marsac swayed on his feet. What should he do? A blue mist
floated before his eyes and a sound of rushing waters filled his ears.
Was he fainting? He must _not_ faint, and fail his friend. And then, the
roar of the waters was pierced and dominated by the voice of that friend
saying--

"Hul_lo_! old bird. Awf'ly good of you to turn out, such a beastly cold
morning."

John Robin Ross-Ellison had come round an adjacent corner, a European
warder on either side of him and another behind him, all three, to their
credit, as white as their white uniforms and helmets. On his head was a
curious bag-like cap.

Ross-Ellison appeared perfectly cheerful, absolutely natural, and
without the slightest outward and visible sign of any form of
perturbation.

"'Morning, Ranald," he continued. "Sorry to be the cause of turning you
out in the cold. Gad! _isn't_ it parky. Hope you aren't going to keep me
standing. If I might be allowed I'd quote unto you the words which a
pretty American girl once used when I asked if I might kiss her--'_Wade
right in, Bub!_'"

"'Fraid I can't 'wade in' till seven o'clock--er--Ross-Ellison,"
answered the horribly embarrassed Major Ranald. "It won't be long."

"Right O, I was only thinking of your convenience. _I'm_ all right,"
said the remarkable criminal, about to suffer by the Mosaic law at the
hands of Christians, to receive Old Testament mercy from the disciples
of the New, to be done-by as he had done.

An Indian clerk, salaaming, joined the group, and prepared to read from
an official-looking document.

"Read," said Major Ranald, and the clerk in a high sing-song voice,
regardless of punctuation, read out the charge, conviction and
death-warrant of the man formerly calling himself John Robin
Ross-Ellison, and now pro