"Curse the thing," he groaned. "Damn it, I didn't make it for my own use. What is the matter with me?" He glanced slyly, fearfully over his shoulder and then faced the thing deliberately, his jaws set, his eyes staring.
"It is a quick way—a sure way," he muttered. "I haven't anything to live for and but a few years at most. Nobody cares whether I live or die—not even I. James Bansemer could not batter me down, as he surely will, if I—"
He crossed to an old chest and unlocked its lid with feverish haste. A bundle of papers came up in the grasp of his tense fingers. Casting dreadful glances at the insistent axe, he seated himself at the table and began looking over the papers.
"He won't take his father's rotten money, but he'll take mine. It's honest. It represents wages honestly, bitterly earned. There's more than twenty thousand to give him. He'll be surprised. Twenty thousand." He laid the first paper, his will drawn in favour of Graydon Bansemer, signed and addressed; upon the table, and then carelessly tossed the other documents into the chest. "By the Lord Harry, I'll have the best of James Bansemer yet. His boy will take my money even though he spurns his. God, I wish I could see him when he knows all this. It would be glorious."
He fingered the document for a tense moment, and then arose to remove his coat and vest. These he hung away in his closet with all his customary carefulness. In the middle of the room he stopped, his quivering face turned toward the gaunt thing of execution. His feet seemed nailed to the floor; his brain was urging him to go on with the horrid deed, his body was rebelling. The torture of terror was overpowering him.
Suddenly he found his strength of limb. With a guttural howl he clasped his hands to his eyes and fled blindly into his bedroom. Hurling his long, shivering frame upon the bed, he tried to shut out the enticing call of the thing of death. How long he quivered there, shuddering and struggling, he could not have told. In the end—and as suddenly as he had fled—he leaped up and with a shrill laugh dashed back into the other room.
There was no hesitation in his body now. With a maniacal glee he rushed upon the devilish contrivance in the corner, tearing the axe from its place with ruthless hands. Throughout the building rang the sounds of smashing wood, furious blows of steel upon wood, and high above the din arose the laugh of Elias Droom. In two minutes, the guillotine lay in chips and splinters about the room—destroyed even as it was on the point of destroying him.
Dropping back against the wall, wet with perspiration, a triumphant grin upon his face, Elias surveyed the wreckage. His muscles relaxed and his eyes lost the dread that had filled them. The smile actually grew into an expression of sweetness and peace that his face had never known before.
As he staggered to a chair close by, a great sigh of relief broke from his lips.
"There!" he gasped. "It's over! it's over! My head is on my shoulders—it really is after all! It is not rolling into the corner—no! no! By my head—my own head, too—it was a close call for you, Elias Droom. Now, I'll take what comes. I'll wait for James Bansemer! I'll stick it out to the end. If he comes, he'll find me here. I've conquered the infernal death that stood waiting so long for me in that corner—and I never suspected it, either. God, how near it was to me! It stood there and waited for me to come. It knew that I would come sooner or later! But I've smashed it—it's gone! It's not there!"