Pine Street was still thrilling with the energy of a steam-engine working at high pressure. Waves of excitement agitated the crowds that hung about the entrance of the Stock Exchange, and there was the familiar succession of roars and barks with which the traders in stocks find it necessary to transact their business. Yet I thought I saw a weakening of interest among the speculators--a lessening of the tension among the excited men who were following the course of the market. I leaped to the hope that the crisis was passing.
As I reached the steps of the Exchange the confused roar of the crowd was interrupted. Three short, sharp explosions crackled upon the air with staccato distinctness and the clamor hushed for a moment with a suddenness as startling as the shots themselves. A dozen yards down Pine Street a thin cloud of blueish smoke rose and drifted away on the morning breeze.
For a moment the crowd surged back as though in fear, and I saw a bent, white-bearded man standing with a revolver in his hand, looking down at a prostrate something on the pavement. A few trailing threads of smoke floated up from the revolver's muzzle. Then there was a forward rush, and the crowd closed in; but in that momentary glimpse I had recognized the bent form and dreamy face of Merwin.
The hush gave way to shouts. Men were running from all directions. The crowd pushed closer. Windows overlooking the place were suddenly filled with excited observers, questions were eagerly exchanged, and the cry rose:
"Peter Bolton has been shot!"
At the name of Bolton the blood bounded through my arteries with suffocating force, and I pushed my way through the throng with feverish energy. When I broke through the ring that surrounded the prostrate form, a policeman was just laying his hands on Merwin, and raising his dub as if to strike him. The old man handed his revolver to the officer, and cried:
"I am Merwin. He has robbed me of my money for twenty years, and he said I should die a beggar. And I shot him!"
On the pavement lay Peter Bolton. His hands were pressed to a reddening circle on his coat, and his face was drawn into an expression of anxious fear. As I bent over him, a look of recognition flashed into his eyes. And even in the pangs of dissolution a sardonic smile drew down the corners of his mouth, while has sarcastic voice, reduced in volume till it was scarcely more than a whisper, drawled painfully:
"You've missed your chance, Hampden. You'll never get rich now. I fought--you all--and I've beat--you all."
He paused in weakness, and the murmur of voices about me filled my ears. There was scarce a sympathetic tone to be heard, and thrice the words floated to me: