stle. We
uster make our coffins more roomier in Idaho territory. Now, Judge,
you jest begin to let this door down, slow, on to me. I want to feel
the same pleasure as the other jays had when those spikes began to
move toward their eyes!'

'Oh no! no! no!' broke in Amelia hysterically. 'It is too terrible! I
can't bear to see it!--I can't! I can't!' But the American was
obdurate. 'Say, Colonel,' said he, 'why not take Madame for a little
promenade? I wouldn't hurt her feelin's for the world; but now that I
am here, havin' kem eight thousand miles, wouldn't it be too hard to
give up the very experience I've been pinin' an' pantin' fur? A man
can't get to feel like canned goods every time! Me and the Judge
here'll fix up this thing in no time, an' then you'll come back, an'
we'll all laugh together!'

Once more the resolution that is born of curiosity triumphed, and
Amelia stayed holding tight to my arm and shivering whilst the
custodian began to slacken slowly inch by inch the rope that held back
the iron door. Hutcheson's face was positively radiant as his eyes
followed the first movement of the spikes.

'Wall!' he said, 'I guess I've not had enjoyment like this since I
left Noo York. Bar a scrap with a French sailor at Wapping--an' that
warn't much of a picnic neither--I've not had a show fur real pleasure
in this dod-rotted Continent, where there ain't no b'ars nor no
Injuns, an' wheer nary man goes heeled. Slow there, Judge! Don't you
rush this business! I want a show for my money this game--I du!'

The custodian must have had in him some of the blood of his
predecessors in that ghastly tower, for he worked the engine with a
deliberate and excruciating slowness which after five minutes, in
which the outer edge of the door had not moved half as many inches,
began to overcome Amelia. I saw her lips whiten, and felt her hold
upon my arm relax. I looked around an instant for a place whereon to
lay her, and when I looked at her again found that her eye had become
fixed on the side of the Virgin. Following its direction I saw the
black cat crouching out of sight. Her green eyes shone like danger
lamps in the gloom of the place, and their colour was heightened by
the blood which still smeared her coat and reddened her mouth. I cried
out:

'The cat! look out for the cat!' for even then she sprang out before
the engine. At this moment she looked like a triumphant demon. Her
eyes blazed with ferocity, her hair bristled o