for he
felt unaccountably depressed and morbid. It was as though some danger
impended and instinct was warning him of it.

But in the dead silence of Okar there was no suggestion of sound. It
must have been in the ghostly hours between midnight and the
dawn--though a cold terror that had gripped Maison would not let him
get up to look at the clock that ticked monotonously on the sideboard.

He lay, clammy with sweat, every sense strained and acute, listening.
For, from continued contemplation of imaginary dangers he had worked
himself into a frenzy which would have turned into a conviction of real
danger at the slightest sound near him.

He expected sound to come; he waited for it, his ears attuned, his
senses alert.

And at last sound came.

It was a mere creak--such a sound as a foot might make on a stairway.
And it seemed to have come from the stairs leading to Maison's rooms.

He did not hear it again, though, and he might have fought off the new
terror that was gripping him, if at that instant he had not remembered
that when leaving the lower room he had forgotten to lock the rear
door--the door through which Morley had entered earlier in the evening;
the door through which Silverthorn had departed.

He had not locked that door, and that noise on the stairs might have
been made by some night prowler.

Aroused to desperation by his fears he started to get out of bed with
the intention of getting the revolver that lay in a drawer in the
sideboard.

His feet were on the floor as he sat on the edge of the bed preparatory
to standing, when he saw the door at the head of the stairs slowly
swing open and a figure of a man appear in the opening.

The light in the room was faint--a mere luminous star-mist--hut Maison
could see clearly the man's face. He stiffened, his hands gripping the
bedclothing, as he muttered hoarsely:

"Sanderson!"

Sanderson stepped into the room and closed the door. The heavy
six-shooter in his hand was at his hip, the long barrel horizontal, the
big muzzle gaping forebodingly into Maison's face. There was a cold,
mirthless grin on Sanderson's face, but it seemed to Maison that the
grin was the wanton expression of murder lust.

He knew, without Sanderson telling him, that if he moved, or made the
slightest outcry, Sanderson would kill him.

Therefore he made neither move nor sound, but sat there, rigid and
gasping for breath, awaiting the other's pleasure.

Sanderson came