I said to myself—"Oh, no, I shall not. Sir Charles Venner is a consumptive, with at most a year of life before him. Men cling to life most dearly when their days are numbered. Moreover, well he knows, this surgeon, that if he kills me he must hang! and speedily."
"One!" said he.
I smiled again.
"Two!"
"You are a great mathematician!" I sneered, and bowed to him.
"Three!"
"Murder me some other time, Sir Charles!" I muttered, "when you may do so with some hope of giving the penalty leg bail!"
"Four!" he cried, in a voice that froze my blood. And with his thumb he raised the hammer of the pistol.
"You will hang!" I gasped. "You will hang, and we shall meet in Hell!"
"Five!" he hissed.