prophecies from the Book of Daniel.

I stopped to hear him only for a moment or so. I do not think I
should have halted at all but his crowd blocked my path, and the
sight of his queer wild expression, the gesture of his upward-pointing
finger, held me.

"There is the end of all your Sins and Follies," he bawled. "There!
There is the Star of Judgments, the Judgments of the most High
God! It is appointed unto all men to die--unto all men to die"--his
voice changed to a curious flat chant--"and after death, the
Judgment! The Judgment!"

I pushed and threaded my way through the bystanders and went on,
and his curious harsh flat voice pursued me. I went on with the
thoughts that had occupied me before--where I could buy a revolver,
and how I might master its use--and probably I should have forgotten
all about him had he not taken a part in the hideous dream that
ended the little sleep I had that night. For the most part I lay
awake thinking of Nettie and her lover.

Then came three strange days--three days that seem now to have been
wholly concentrated upon one business.

This dominant business was the purchase of my revolver. I held
myself resolutely to the idea that I must either restore myself by
some extraordinary act of vigor and violence in Nettie's eyes or I
must kill her. I would not let myself fall away from that. I felt
that if I let this matter pass, my last shred of pride and honor
would pass with it, that for the rest of my life I should never
deserve the slightest respect or any woman's love. Pride kept me
to my purpose between my gusts of passion.

Yet it was not easy to buy that revolver.

I had a kind of shyness of the moment when I should have to face
the shopman, and I was particularly anxious to have a story ready
if he should see fit to ask questions why I bought such a thing.
I determined to say I was going to Texas, and I thought it might
prove useful there. Texas in those days had the reputation of a
wild lawless land. As I knew nothing of caliber or impact, I wanted
also to be able to ask with a steady face at what distance a man
or woman could be killed by the weapon that might be offered me.
I was pretty cool-headed in relation to such practical aspects of
my affair. I had some little difficulty in finding a gunsmith. In
Clayton there were some rook-rifles and so forth in a cycle shop,
but the only revolvers these people had impressed me as being too
small and toylike for my purpose. It