Sir Charles Venner answered me with his revolver. The bullet crashed into Dr. Vernet's brain and I felt my face spattered with blood. I fired in return, and Dr. Fulton, uttering a frightful scream, pitched headlong on the floor.
It was a bad shot, for I had fired at Sir Charles Venner.
For a moment thereafter the latter stood still, and we stared into each other's eyes across the trail of smoke. I became conscious that Dr. Vernet's dead body was too heavy for me to support longer. It was slipping from my grasp, slipping, slipping. I realized that very soon I should be without my shield. As at last it fell, I fired, twice in quick succession. I heard an answering shot, then a woman's piercing scream. I fired again. The room was by then full of smoke; I could see nothing, but I heard someone rushing towards me shouting and cursing. For a fifth time I fired. There followed the sound of a fall, then a deep and dreadful silence. I waited with my revolver at full cock, not daring to breathe, my every nerve on strain, listening and peering vainly through the pall of smoke. Very slowly and gradually the white mist lifted. At my feet the woman I loved was lying very still. Blood was welling in a rich crimson stream from a wound in her breast. Beyond her Sir Charles Venner lay face downwards on the floor. Both his arms were extended at full length, and at a few inches from his clenched right hand was his revolver. Beudant and Dr. Fulton lay beside Sir Charles Venner's body. All seemed dead. Oppressed with a wild and hideous sense of unreality, I stared stupidly before me. A smoke wreath, growing transparent, showed me at length a living face. Jussieu stood within the room, a black statue of horror. Scarcely conscious of what I did, I raised my pistol and pointed it at his breast. He did not move. I fired and he fell.
"Jussieu stood within the room, a black statue of horror."
At the sound Marion's eyes opened. She looked up at me. I uttered a cry of agony and, throwing away my smoking weapon, I sank on my knees beside her.
"Are you hurt?" she breathed.
"No—no—but you—you are wounded—you are dying," I wailed.
She gave me a most wonderful and tender smile. "For you," she gasped. "To save you! He would have killed you—but his bullet is—here." With a great effort she raised one hand and caught at her breast.