The head of the pin was drooping, though very
slightly, but as I saw it droop a month before, and I knew that the final
act was not far off.
Maskew knew it too, for he made his last appeal, using such passionate
words as I cannot now relate, and wriggling with his body as if to get
his hands from behind his back and hold them up in supplication. He
offered money; a thousand, five thousand, ten thousand pounds to be set
free; he would give back the Why Not?; he would leave Moonfleet; and all
the while the sweat ran down his furrowed face, and at last his voice was
choked with sobs, for he was crying for his life in craven fear.
He might have spoken to a deaf man for all he moved his judge; and
Elzevir's answer was to cock the pistol and prime the powder in the pan.
Then I stuck my fingers in my ears and shut my eyes, that I might
neither see nor hear what followed, but in a second changed my mind and
opened them again, for I had made a great resolve to stop this matter,
come what might.
Maskew was making a dreadful sound between a moan and strangled cry; it
almost seemed as if he thought that there were others by him beside
Elzevir and me, and was shouting to them for help. The sun had risen, and
his first rays blazed on a window far away in the west on top of Portland
Island, and then there was a tinkle in the inside of the lanthorn, and
the pin fell.
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