t my enemy, I heard
a heavy fall. Oh, God! there at my feet lay Garry, lay in a huddled,
quivering heap, lay on his face, and in his fair hair I saw a dark stain
start and spread. Then, in a moment, I realised what my brother had
done.

I fell on my knees beside him.

"Garry, Garry!" I moaned. I heard Berna scream, and I saw that Locasto
was coming for me. He was a man no longer. He had killed. He was a
brute, a fury, a devil, mad with the lust of slaughter. With a snarl he
dashed at me. Again I thought he was going to shoot, but no! He raised
the heavy revolver and brought it crashing down on my head. I felt the
blow fall, and with it my strength seemed to shoot out of me. My legs
were paralysed. I could not move. And, as I lay there in a misty daze,
he advanced on Berna.

There she stood at bay, a horror-stricken thing, weak, panting,
desperate. I saw him corner her. His hands were stretched out to clutch
her; a moment more and he would have her in his arms, a moment--ah! With
a suddenness that was like a flash she had raised the heavy reading-lamp
and dashed it in his face.

I heard his shriek of fear; I saw him fall as the thing crashed between
his eyes; I saw the flames spurt and leap. High in the air he rose,
awful in his agony. He was in a shroud of fire; he was in a pool of
flame. He howled like a dog and fell over on the bed.

Then suddenly the oil-soaked bedding caught. The curtains seemed to leap
and change into flame. As he rolled and roared in his agony, the blaze
ran up the walls, and caught the roof. Help, help! the room was afire,
was burning up. Fire! Fire!

Out in the corridor I heard a great running about, shouting of men,
screaming of women. The whole place seemed to be alive, panic-stricken,
frenzied with fear. Everything was in flames now, burning fiercely,
madly, and there was no stopping them. The hotel was burning, and I,
too, must burn. What a horrible end! Oh, if I could only do something!
But I could not move. From the waist down I was like a dead man. Where
was Berna? Pray God she was safe. I could not cry for aid. The room was
reeling round and round. I was faint, dizzy, helpless.

The hotel was ablaze. In the streets below crowds were gathering. People
were running up and down the stairway, fighting to get free, mad with
terror, leaping from the windows. Oh, it was awful, to burn, to burn! I
seemed to be caged in flames that were darting at me savagely,
spitefully. Would nobody sa