und from one to
the other with a dazed face.

Before they could answer, a voice clear and sonorous drew their
eyes across the ravine towards Rosenblatt's cabin. At a little
distance from the cabin they could distinguish the figure of a man
outlined in the lurid light of the leaping flames. He was speaking
to Rosenblatt, whose head could be seen thrust far out of the
window.

"Who is that man?" cried the Sergeant.

"Mother of God!" said old Portnoff in a low voice.
"It is Malkarski. Listen."

"Rosenblatt," cried the old man in the Russian tongue, "I have
something to say to you. Those bags of gunpowder, that dynamite
with which you were to destroy two innocent men, are now piled
under your cabin, and this train at my feet will fire them."

With a shriek Rosenblatt disappeared, and they could hear him
battering at the door. Old Malkarski laughed a wild, unearthly
laugh.

"Rosenblatt," he cried again, "the door is securely fastened!
Three stout locks will hold it closed."

The wretched man thrust his head far out of the window, shrieking,
"Help! Help! Murder! Help!"

"Listen, you dog!" cried Malkarski, his voice ringing down through
the ravine, "your doom has come at last. All your crimes, your
treacheries, your bloody cruelties are now to be visited upon you.
Ha! scream! pray! but no power in earth can save you. Aha! for this
joy I have waited long! See, I now light this train. In one moment
you will be in hell."

He deliberately struck a match. A slight puff of wind blew it out.
Once more he struck a match. A cry broke forth from Kalman.

"Stop! stop! Malkarski, do not commit this crime!"

"What is he doing?" said the Sergeant, pulling his pistol.

"He is going to blow the man up!" groaned Kalman.

The Sergeant levelled his pistol.

"Here, you man," he cried, "stir in your tracks and you are dead!"

Malkarski laughed scornfully at him and proceeded to strike his
third match. Before the Sergeant could fire, old Portnoff sprang
upon him with the cry, "Would you murder the man?"

Meantime, under the third match, the train was blazing, and slowly
creeping toward the cabin. Shriek after shriek from the wretched
victim seemed to pierce the ears of the listeners as with sharp
stabs of pain.

"Rosenblatt," cried old Malkarski, putting up his hand, "you know
me now?"

"No! no!" shrieked Rosenblatt. "Mercy! mercy! quick! quick!
I know you not."

The old man drew himself up to a figure straight and tall.