Mark stood there, white as a sheet, glaring at the speaker.
“How will you stand then, Mark, with officers and men of honour. Take my offer before you fall.”
“I tell you,” whispered Mark huskily, “that Richard Frayne is dead, and that you are an impostor.”
“And I tell you that I will have no mercy now,” cried Richard, excitedly. “I tried to spare you, but this life is intolerable since you came here. Once more, will you accept my terms?”
“Impostor!”
“Then take your chance!”
“Take yours!” cried Mark, in the same low whisper, as he snatched a revolver from his pocket and fired quickly at his cousin, who sprang back, dragged a hop-pole from the side of the alley, snapping it in two, and, wild with agony and excitement, made a rush at Mark, who met it by standing firm, now taking aim at his cousin’s head.
But he did not fire; for all at once Richard’s knees gave way, the stout pole fell from his grasp, and, flinging up his hands, he swayed over backward with a crash, bearing down a portion of the hop-bine as he fell.
Mark stood there with his arm still rigidly extended, but altering his position now. Then, taking a step or two forward, he bent over, gazing fixedly at his cousin’s distorted face, and taking aim once more as he stooped. He was about to draw the trigger, when the sharp barking of a dog arose from two or three hundred yards away.
The barking ceased, and Mark hurriedly thrust the pistol back in his pocket, but a sudden thought struck him, and, quickly stooping down, he seized his cousin’s clenched right hand, dragged the fingers apart, and placed the weapon in his grasp; then laying the broken piece of hop-pole back, as if it had been broken in the fall, he rose and looked sharply up and down the alley, and stepped into the next, after peering through and looking up and down that.