"Remove your glasses and your wig!" he commanded in a low but terrible voice. My impulse was to obey unhesitatingly, but with an iron effort I subdued it. "Be quick!" he cried. I smiled. It was a miserable grimace, I dare admit, nevertheless I smiled. "By the God above us you will die in your tracks, unless you are unmasked before I count six!" I said to myself--"Oh, no, I shall not. Sir Charles Venner is a consumptive, with at most a year of life before him. Men cling to life most dearly when their days are numbered. Moreover, well he knows, this surgeon, that if he kills me he must hang! and speedily." "One!" said he. I smiled again. "Two!" "You are a great mathematician!" I sneered, and bowed to him. "Three!" "Murder me some other time, Sir Charles!" I muttered, "when you may do so with some hope of giving the penalty leg bail!" "Four!" he cried, in a voice that froze my blood. And with his thumb he raised the hammer of the pistol. "You will hang!" I gasped. "You will hang, and we shall meet in Hell!" "Five!" he hissed. "Fire!" I cried. It was the most courageous act of my life! Sir Charles Venner let his hand fall, and his eyes. I heard a click, and I watched him restore the pistol to his pocket. In one second he had aged ten years. He was now an old man, haggard faced and trembling. I strode to the bell and pressed the button. I had won the battle well--woe to the vanquished! I stalked over to the door and threw it wide. "Get out of this!" I grated. "Get out of this and go--hang yourself if you want to cheat the hangman. You've had your fun, and now by heaven! I'll have my pound of flesh!" He raised to me the face of a panic-stricken craven. "For Christ's sake!" he cried, and even pleaded with his hands. He was beaten indeed. Not only his courage, but his pride was shattered into fragments. I surveyed the wreck I had occasioned, and relented. "Well, then!" I said, "the money!" With feverish hands he tore from his coat a small bundle of notes and forced them upon me. "Count them, count them!" he mumbled. "Go!" I ordered sternly. "But, but--your oath!" "I'll keep it--go!" He uttered a hollow groan, and rushed out of the room. I looked at the notes. They were brand new, and ten in number. Each represented one thousand pounds. Hearing footfalls I concealed them, and a second later, there came to me the small thin-faced waiter who had conducted Sir Charles to my apartment. I gave him a florin, and said. "I want a man, big--my own size--just like me--to carry a box. You are too small. Send me a man like I want at once, but he must belong to your hotel, I can trust no strangers!"