"All these gentlemen are my brothers."
"And what now, woman?"
"You have just five minutes to live. You were set to destroy us; we will destroy you."
"Poor creature," said Oscar in a tone of deep commiseration.
The woman glared, for there was a terrible significance in his tones, and she shouted:
"Down him and make sure."
Alas! the arrangements fortunately were run on seconds, not minutes, or our hero would have been a dead man. As the woman shouted "Down him!" there came a second, voice, stern and commanding:
"Hold! don't let a man move or every soul of you dies."
There was a tableau at that moment such as never has been equaled on the stage under all the complexity of colored lights. It was a scene never to be forgotten by any of the witnesses, a scene awful in its intensity of dramatic effect. The woman suddenly appeared to become frozen with horror. The men removed their masks in their excitement and their pale visages shone like so many corpses as all leaned forward and listened and looked.
In the doorway stood two men, armed with repeating rifles. Behind them crowded others, and at that instant every one of those wretches know that defeat and capture stared them in the face. All their labor, all their cunning and their skill had come to naught. All realized that the greatest detective feat on record had been accomplished. All knew that there was no escape, unless quickly with their own hands they freed themselves through the grave.