And that made me the sorrier for him, and at last I felt
I could not stand by and see him done to death.
When Elzevir had stuck the pin into the candle he never shut the slide
again; and though no wind blew, there was a light breath moving in the
morning off the sea, that got inside the lanthorn and set the flame
askew. And so the candle guttered down one side till but little tallow
was left above the pin; for though the flame grew pale and paler to the
view in the growing morning light, yet it burnt freely all the time. So
at last there was left, as I judged, but a quarter of an hour to run
before the pin should fall, and I saw that Maskew knew this as well as I,
for his eyes were fixed on the lanthorn.
At last he spoke again, but the brave words were gone, and the thin voice
was thinner. He had dropped threats, and was begging piteously for his
life. 'Spare me,' he said; 'spare me, Mr. Block: I have an only daughter,
a young girl with none but me to guard her. Would you rob a young girl of
her only help and cast her on the world? Would you have them find me dead
upon the cliff and bring me back to her a bloody corpse?'
Then Elzevir answered: 'And had I not an only son, and was he not brought
back to me a bloody corpse? Whose pistol was it that flashed in his face
and took his life away? Do you not know? It was this very same that shall
flash in yours.
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