d. At Major Ranald's
knock, the small inner door of the gate-house was opened and the
procession filed through it into the strong room where the warders
stood to attention. Having re-fastened the door, the jailer opened the
outer one and the procession passed out of the jail into the blessed
free world, the world that might be such a place of wonder, beauty,
delight, health and joy, were man not educated to materialism, false
ideals, false standards, and blind strife for nothing worth.

The sepoy-guard stood in a semicircle from the gate-house to the
entrance to a door-way in the jail-wall. Ross-Ellison took his last look
at the sky, the distant hills, the trees, God's good world, and then
turned into the doorless door-way with his jailers, and faced the
scaffold in a square, roofless cell. The warder behind him drew the cap
down over his face, and he was led up a flight of shallow stairs on to a
platform on which was a roughly-chalked square where two hinged flaps
met. As he stood on this spot the noose of the greased rope was placed
round his neck by a warder who then looked to Major Ranald for a sign,
received it, and pulled over a lever which withdrew the bolts supporting
the hinged flaps. These fell apart, Ross-Ellison dropped through the
platform, and Christian Society was avenged.

Without a word, Captain Malet-Marsac strode, as in a dream, to his
horse, rode home, and, as in a dream, entered his sanctum, took his
revolver from its holster and loaded it.

Laying it on the table beside him, he sat down to write a few words to
the Colonel of his regiment, Colonel Wilberforce Wriothesley of the 99th
Baluch Light Infantry, and to send his will to a brother-officer whom he
wished to be his executor.

This done, he took up the revolver, placed the muzzle in his mouth, the
barrel pointing upward, and--pulled the trigger.

_Click_!

And nothing more.

A tiny, nerve-shattering, world-shaking, little universe-rocking
_click_--and nothing more.

A bad cartridge. He remembered complaints about the revolver ammunition
from the Duri Small Arms Ammunition Factory. Too long in stock.

Should he try the same one again, or go on to the next? Probably get
better results from the first, as the cap would be already dented by the
concussion. He took the muzzle of the big revolver from his aching mouth
and, releasing the chamber, spun it round.... He would place it to his
temple this time. Holding one's mouth open was undign