ful moment immediately preceding
execution, when anticipation at last was to merge into soul-sickening
reality.

Strange that thought should come! Strange that he should be framing a
brain picture of such a scene, vivid, minute in detail! No--not strange.
He was picturing himself. The analogy was not perfect, it was true, he
had not had the months, weeks, days and hours of suspense; but it was
perfect enough to bring home to him with appalling force the realisation
of his position. He was standing as a condemned man might stand in those
last, final moments, those moments which he had imagined must be the
most terrible that could exist in life; but that dismay of soul, the
horror, the terror were not his--there was, instead, a smouldering fury,
a passionate amazement that it was his own life that was threatened. It
seemed impossible that it could be his voice that was speaking now in
such quiet, measured tones.

"Is it worth while, will it convince you now, any more than before, to
repeat that there is some mistake here? I am no more able to answer your
questions than you are yourselves. I never saw that man in the chair
there in my life until the moment that I hailed him in his cab to-night.
I do not know who the woman is to whom that ring belongs, much less do
I know where she is. And if there was a package of any sort in the
taxicab, as you state, I never saw it."

The lips under the mask curved into a lupine smile.

"Think well, Mr. Dale!" The man's voice was low, menacing. "Ethically,
if you so choose to consider it, your refusal may be the act of a brave
man; practically, it is the act of--a fool. Now--your answer!"

"I have answered you," said Jimmie Dale--and, relaxing the muscles in
his arms, let them hang limply for an instant in the grip of the two men
behind him. "I have no other answer."

It was only a sign, a motion of the leader's hand--but with it, quick
as a lightning flash, Jimmie Dale was in action. The limp arms tautened
into steel as he wrenched them loose, and, whirling around, he whipped
his fist to the chin of one of the two guards.

In an instant, with the blow, as the man staggered backward, the room
was in pandemonium. There was a rush from the door, and two, three, four
leaping forms hurled themselves upon Jimmie Dale. He shook them off--and
they came again. There was no chance ultimately, he knew that; it was
only the elemental within him that rose in fierce revolt at the thought
of t