“Say your prayers if you know any, quick now, while we see what Strangemore wants,” one said, carelessly, to the prisoner, while another asked: “Well, what is it you wish, Strangemore?” He answered, eagerly. “Grant me this great boon. Spare the life of your victim!” There ensued a moment of ominous, unbroken silence. While it lasted Talbot Strangemore advanced through the little group of men that surrounded the prisoner. He put up his hand and touched the rope about his neck. “Let me take this away, please. Let us be men, not devils,” he said, boldly. There was a low murmur of anger and dissatisfaction. Harvey Wilson advanced a step nearer. “Better leave them alone, Stangemore,” he said. “The villain richly merits his fate, and the men will not easily be balked of executing justice upon him.” “But surely they will listen to me,” Talbot said. “Remember I am the one most deeply wronged, and they must hear me when I beg for mercy and not justice for Oswald Ferris.” “You would have us let him go?” one asked. “Yes, because I want him to live. I have a great boon to ask of him, and I believe that surely if you spare his life at my request he will have mercy upon me!” They stood round about the prisoner listening silently for Talbot’s further speech. “Friends and comrades,” he continued, “At the dawn of day I must leave you to journey back to my own land to my wife who lies in prison in deadly peril of her life. But even when I go how can I deliver her from the fatal power of the law unless I can carry with me the confession of the real murderer of poor erring Sibyl St. Alban?” CHAPTER XLVIII. FLIGHT INTO THE DESERT. A ringing cry went up from the group of men. “We will make him confess the truth before we hang him!” they exclaimed, and Ferris who had been listening in silent hopefulness to the colloquy, uttered a howl of rage and fear at learning from those words how determined they were to destroy him. They crowded Strangemore on one side and said to the prisoner: “Will you give us a written confession of the murder of Mrs. St. Alban before we hoist you up?” His face grew dark with vindictive defiance. “I did not kill her and I will not confess to a lie!” he replied, boldly. They whispered among themselves several minutes and then they came back to him. “Will you confess to the murder if we spare your life in return for it?” they asked him, and he burst into a fit of hoarse, dreadful laughter.