"You have indeed," said Farrington.
They were the first words he had spoken.
"Give me enough to get out of the country," Poltavo appealed, "just the money that I have in my pocket, and I promise you that I will never trouble you again."
"My friend," said Farrington, "I have trusted you too long. You forced yourself upon me when I did not desire you, you thwarted me at every turn, you betrayed me whenever it was possible to betray me, or whenever it was to your advantage to do so, and I am determined that you shall have no other chance of doing me an injury."
"What is this foolery?" asked Poltavo, in a mixture of blind fear and rage. They had unlocked the handcuffs and taken them off him, and now for the first time Poltavo noticed that the curious bronze clamps on his wrists were attached by thick green cords to a plug in the wall.
He shrieked aloud as he saw this, and the full horror of the situation flashed upon him.
"My God," he screamed, "you are not going to kill me?"
Farrington nodded slowly.
"We are going to kill you painlessly, Poltavo," he said. "It was your life or ours. We do not desire to cause you unnecessary suffering, but here is the end of the adventure for you, my friend."
"You are not going to electrocute me?" croaked the man in the chair, in a hoarse cracked voice. "Don't say that you are going to electrocute me, Farrington! It is diabolical, it is terrible. Give me a chance of life! Give me a pistol, give me a knife, but fight me fair. Treat me as you will; hand me to the police, anything but this; for God's sake, Farrington, don't do this!"