e horrible eyes.... But not for long. Indeed, they had subjected
the document to the very barest perusal, when, with a convulsive
movement, the creature clawed at the paper, tore it with ravening hands
and, clapping the fragments to its distorted mouth, bit and savaged it
like a demoniac....

Hardened as he was to the spectacle of Rage dominant his lordship paled
before this paroxysm of unearthly passion. All the agony of
disappointed avarice, all the torment of mortification in defeat, all
the frenzy of impotent fury, blazed in one hideous blend out of that
frightful countenance. Could he have moved, the Judge would have
crossed himself.

Then suddenly came a change. The passion ebbed out of the face, the
paper fluttered out of the loosened fingers, the red-rimmed eyes took
on another look. Snail-slow the trembling hand was travelling across
the table....

Immediately between the silver candle-sticks lay a horse-pistol. As
the fingers approached it, their trembling increased. Twice they
hesitated, craven flesh rebelling against a recreant will. They shook
so frightfully upon encountering the butt that it seemed as if to grasp
it were beyond their power. Once they had seized it, however, the
trembling left them and passed into the hand....

With the approach of the weapon, the horror upon the face became
unspeakable. The eyes were starting, the mouth working painfully.
Resolved to be rid of life, yet terrified to die, the wretch was
writhing. There never was seen so loathsome a paradox. Cowardice was
gone crusading.

The Judge's tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.

With the assistance of the other hand, the pistol had been turned
about, but head and hands were all shaking so violently that the
introduction of the muzzle into the gaping mouth was hardly
accomplished. Twice cup missed lip, and the steel went jabbing against
the ashen cheek. The next moment gums drummed on the metal with a
hideous vibration.

With a shock his lordship recognized the sound as one which he and the
marshal had heard more than once at this hour, and, after discussion,
had attributed to an idiosyncrasy of water under the influence of heat.

That the supreme moment had arrived would have been patent from the
eyes alone. Riveted upon the trigger-finger, squinting until the
pupils were almost lost to view, they were the orbs of a fiend. Even
as the Judge gazed, the light of Insanity took flaming possession.
Hell, gro