I bounded to his relief he turned his ghastly face upon me. But the
way between us was blocked, and I was preparing myself to see him sink
before my eyes when an unearthly shriek rose from behind us, and every
living soul in that mass of struggling humanity paused, set and staring,
with stiffened limbs and eyes fixed, not on him, not on me, but on one
of their own number--the only woman amongst them, Janet Clapsaddle--who,
with clutching hands clawing her breast, was reeling in solitary agony
in her place beside the board. As they looked she fell, and lay with
upturned face and staring eyes, in whose glassy depths the ill-fated
ones who watched her could see mirrored their own impending doom.

It was an awful moment. A groan, in which was concentrated the despair
of seven miserable souls, rose from that petrified band; then, man by
man, they separated and fell back, showing on each weak or wicked face
the particular passion which had driven them into crime and made them
the victims of this wholesale revenge. There had been some sort of bond
between them till the vision of death rose before each shrinking soul.
Shoulder to shoulder in crime, they fell apart as their doom approached,
and rushing, shrieking, each man for himself, they one and all sought to
escape by doors, windows, or any outlet which promised release from this
fatal spot. One rushed by me--I do not know which one--and I felt as if
a flame from hell had licked me, his breath was so hot and the moans he
uttered so like the curses we imagine to blister the lips of the lost.
None of them saw me; they did not even detect the sliding form of the
lawyer crawling away before them to some place of egress of which they
had no knowledge; and, convinced that in this scene of death I could
play no part worthy of her who awaited me, I too rushed away, and,
seeking my old path through the cellar, sought her side, where she still
crouched in patient waiting against the dismal wall.

IV

THE FINAL SHOCK

Her baby had fallen asleep. I knew this by the faint, low sweetness of
her croon; and, shuddering with the horrors I had witnessed--horrors
which acquired a double force from the contrast presented by the peace
of this quiet spot and the hallowing influence of the sleeping infant--I
threw myself down in the darkness at her feet, gasping out:

"Oh, thank God and your uncle's seeming harshness that you have escaped
the doom which has overtaken those others! You and y