The Night Hawks led Gus before Doctor Cameron, untied his hands, removed the gag, and slipped the blindfold from his head.
Under the doctor’s rigid gaze the negro’s knees struck together, and he collapsed into complete hypnosis, merely lifting his huge paws lamely as if to ward a blow.
They seated him on the boulder from which the Cyclops rose, and Gus stared about the cave and grinned as if in a dream seeing nothing.
The doctor recalled to him the day of the crime, and he began to talk to his three confederates, describing his plot in detail, now and then pausing and breaking into a fiendish laugh.
Old McAllister, who had three lovely daughters at home, threw off his cap, sank to his knees, and buried his face in his hands, while a dozen of the white figures crowded closer, nervously gripping the revolvers which hung from their red belts.
Doctor Cameron pushed them back and lifted his hand in warning.
The negro began to live the crime with fearful realism—the journey past the hotel to make sure the victims had gone to their home; the visit to Aunt Cindy’s cabin to find her there; lying in the field waiting for the last light of the village to go out; gloating with vulgar exultation over their plot, and planning other crimes to follow its success—how they crept along the shadows of the hedgerow of the lawn to avoid the moonlight, stood under the cedar, and through the open windows watched the mother and daughter laughing and talking within——
“Min’ what I tells you now—Tie de ole one, when I gib you de rope,” said Gus in a whisper.
“My God!” cried the agonized voice of the figure with the double cross—“that’s what the piece of burnt rope in the fireplace meant!”
Doctor Cameron again lifted his hand for silence.