“_Sahib! Sahib!_” he hissed. “What would you do?” Wrenching the weapon from the stiff, unresisting fingers, he hurled it across the room. Brood groaned. His tall body swerved forward, but his legs refused to carry him. The Hindu caught him as he was sinking limply to his knees. With a tremendous effort of the will, Brood succeeded in conquering the black unconsciousness that was assailing him. He straightened up to his full height and with trembling fingers pointed to the prostrate figure on the floor. “The pistol, Ranjab! Where is it? Give it to me! Man, can I live after _that?_ I have killed my son--my own son! Quick, man!” “_Sahib!_” cried the Hindu, wringing his hands. “I cannot! I cannot!” “I command you! The pistol!” Without a word the Hindu, fatalist, slave, pagan that he was, turned to do his master's bidding. It was not for him to say nay, it was not for him to oppose the will of the master, but to obey. All this time Yvonne was crouching against the table, her horrified gaze upon the great red blotch that grew to terrible proportions as she watched. She had not moved, she had not breathed, she had not taken her hands from her ears where she had placed them at the sound of the explosion. “Blood! It is blood!” she moaned, and for the first time since the shot was fired her husband glanced at the one for whom the bullet had originally been intended. An expression of incredulity leaped into his face, as if he could not believe his senses. She was alive and unhurt! His bullet had not touched her. His brain fumbled for the explanation of this miracle. He had not aimed at Frederic, he had not fired at him, and yet he lay stretched out there before him, bleeding, while the one he had meant to destroy was living--incomprehensively living! How had it happened? What agency had swept his deadly bullet out of its path to find lodgment in the wrong heart? There was no blood gushing from her breast; he could not understand it. She did not take her eyes from the great red blot; she was fascinated by the horror that spread farther and farther across the gleaming white. She was alone, utterly alone with the most dreadful thing she had ever known; alone with that appalling thing called death. A life was leaving its warm, beautiful home as she watched, leaving in a path of red, creeping away across a stretch of white! “Blood!” she wailed again, a long, shuddering word that came not from her lips but from the very depths of her terror-stricken soul. Slowly Brood's mind worked out of the maze. His shot had gone straight, but Frederic himself had leaped into its path to save this miserable creature who would have damned his soul if life had been spared to him.