'
"Dr. Eames had turned his tired but still talkative head over his shoulder,
and had found himself looking into a small round black hole, rimmed by a
six-sided circlet of steel, with a sort of spike standing up on the top.
It fixed him like an iron eye. Through those eternal instants during
which the reason is stunned he did not even know what it was.
Then he saw behind it the chambered barrel and cocked hammer of
a revolver, and behind that the flushed and rather heavy face of Smith,
apparently quite unchanged, or even more mild than before.
"`I'll help you out of your hole, old man,' said Smith,
with rough tenderness. `I'll put the puppy out of his pain.'
"Emerson Eames retreated towards the window. `Do you mean
to kill me?' he cried.
"`It's not a thing I'd do for every one,' said Smith with emotion;
`but you and I seem to have got so intimate to-night, somehow.
I know all your troubles now, and the only cure, old chap.'
"`Put that thing down,' shouted the Warden.
"`It'll soon be over, you know,' said Smith with the air of a
sympathetic dentist. And as the Warden made a run for the window
and balcony, his benefactor followed him with a firm step
and a compassionate expression.
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