"Jean Croisset, there is a note under my watch on the table. After you have killed me take it to Meleese. If you fail I shall haunt you to your grave!"
Still no sound--no gleam of steel pointing at aim through the black aperture. Would the shot come from behind?
Tick--tick--tick--tick--
He counted the beating of his watch up to twenty. A sound stopped him then, and he closed his eyes, and a great shiver passed through his body.
It was the tiny bell of his watch tinkling off the hour of six!
Scarcely had that sound ceased to ring in his brain when from far through the darkness beyond the wall of his prison there came a creaking noise, as if a heavy door had been swung slowly on its hinges, or a trap opened--then voices, low, quick, excited voices, the hurrying tread of feet, a flash of light shooting through the gloom. They were coming! After all it was not to be a private affair, and Jean was to do his killing as the hangman's job is done in civilization--before a crowd. Howland's arms dropped to his side. This was more terrible than the other--this seeing and hearing of preparation, in which he fancied that he heard the click of Croisset's gun as he lifted the hammer.
Instead it was a hand fumbling at the door. There were no voices now, only a strange moaning sound that he could not account for. In another moment it was made clear to him. The door swung open, and the white-robed figure of Meleese sprang toward him with a cry that echoed through the dungeon chambers. What happened then--the passing of white faces beyond the doorway, the subdued murmur of voices, were all lost to Howland in the knowledge that at the last moment they had let her come to him, that he held her in his arms, and that she was crushing her face to his breast and sobbing things to him which he could not understand. Once or twice in his life he had wondered if realities might not be dreams, and the thought came to him now when he felt the warmth of her hands, her face, her hair, and then the passionate pressure of her lips on his own. He lifted his eyes, and in the doorway he saw Jean Croisset, and behind him a wild, bearded face--the face that had been over him when life was almost choked from him on the Great North Trail. And beyond these two he saw still others, shining ghostly and indistinct in the deeper gloom of the outer darkness. He strained Meleese to him, and when he looked down into her face he saw her beautiful eyes flooded with tears, and yet shining with a great joy. Her lips trembled as she struggled to speak. Then suddenly she broke from his arms and ran to the door, and Jean Croisset came between them, with the wild bearded man still staring over his shoulder.
"M'seur, will you come with us?" said Jean.
The bearded man dropped back into the thick gloom, and without speaking Howland followed Croisset, his eyes on the shadowy form of Meleese. The ghostly faces turned from the light, and the tread of their retreating feet marked the passage through the blackness. Jean fell back beside Howland, the huge bulk of the bearded man three paces ahead. A dozen steps more and they came to a stair down which a light shone. The Frenchman's hand fell detainingly on Howland's arm, and when a moment later they reached the top of the stairs all had disappeared but Jean and the bearded man. Dawn was breaking, and a pale light fell through the two windows of the room they had entered. On a table burned a lamp, and near the table were several chairs. To one of these Croisset motioned the engineer, and as Howland sat down the bearded man turned slowly and passed through a door. Jean shrugged his shoulders as the other disappeared.
"Mon Dieu, that means that he leaves it all to me," he exclaimed. "I don't wonder that it is hard for him to talk, M'seur. Perhaps you have begun to understand!"