the curse of that
foolishness off o' me! You've got to do one single thing that's like
the man I took ye for, or you've got to die. Times waz when I'd have
wished it for your account--that's gone, Lacy Bassett! You've got to
do it for ME. You've got to do it so I don't see 'd--d fool' writ in
the eyes of every man ez looks at me."

He had apparently risen and walked towards the door. His voice sounded
from another part of the room.

"I'll give ye till to-morrow mornin' to do suthin' to lift this curse
off o' me. Ef you refoose, then, by the living God, I'll slap yer face
in the dinin'-room, or in the office afore them all! You hear me!"

There was a pause, and then a quick sharp explosion that seemed to fill
and expand both rooms until the windows were almost lifted from their
casements, a hysterical inarticulate cry from Lacy, the violent opening
of a door, hurried voices, and the tramping of many feet in the
passage. I sprang out of bed, partly dressed myself, and ran into the
hall. But by that time I found a crowd of guests and servants around
the next door, some grasping Bassett, who was white and trembling, and
others kneeling by Captain Jim, who was half lying in the doorway
against the wall.

"He heard it all," Bassett gasped hysterically, pointing to me. "HE
knows that this man wanted to kill me."

Before I could reply, Captain Jim partly raised himself with a
convulsive effort. Wiping away the blood that, oozing from his lips,
already showed the desperate character of his internal wound, he said
in a husky and hurried voice: "It's all right, boys! It's my fault.
It was ME who done it. I went for him in a mean underhanded way jest
now, when he hadn't a weppin nor any show to defend himself. We
gripped. He got a holt o' my derringer--you see that's MY pistol
there, I swear it--and turned it agin me in self-defense, and sarved me
right. I swear to God, gentlemen, it's so!" Catching sight of my
face, he looked at me, I fancied half imploringly and half
triumphantly, and added, "I might hev knowed it! I allers allowed Lacy
Bassett was game!--game, gentlemen--and he was. If it's my last word,
I say it--he was game!"

And with this devoted falsehood upon his lips and something of the old
canine instinct in his failing heart, as his head sank back he seemed
to turn it towards Bassett, as if to stretch himself out at his feet.
Then the light failed from his yearning upward glance, and the curse o