"I'll make terms with you even now, if you hand me the book," said the wily voice again.
She bowed her face in her hands, and smiled even in the midst of her terror at such a proposition.
A long silence followed, then the steady sawing of the wooden panel went on.
It was done. A wintry star glimmered in through a gap large enough to admit a man's arm; then the star was blotted out, and a metallic click was heard.
She felt, with a muffled and sickening heart-throb, that her enemy was holding the pistol at full cock toward her, only waiting for the least betrayal to fire.
She raised her head and watched, in fascinated horror, for the flash which was to herald her death.
"Do you surrender?" demanded the assassin, in a voice quick and imperative.
Had Margaret possessed an atom less presence of mind, she would have answered involuntarily "No," in her scorn of the cowardly villain, but she bit her lip in time, and held her peace.
Full well she knew that her first word would be the signal of her death.
"There are two hours and a half before daylight," said the enemy. "Are you willing to have that pistol pointed at you for two hours and a half, waiting to shoot you with the first gleam of daylight, or will you give up the note-book and come to terms with me, for our mutual safety?"