"Not in the least. Don’t be a bit afraid, we’ll soon be out of this mess." Finding that Livenza lay still, I plunged my hand into my pocket and found my match-box. "Here are matches;" and when our fingers touched in the dark hers were cold and shaking violently. I pressed them gently and whispered: "It’s all right now, sweetheart;" and a moment or two later, the candle was found and re-lighted, revealing by its dim flame a scene of confusion and disorder in the humble little room which bore eloquent testimony to the scene which had just been enacted. "You must hunt about and find something to tie this mad devil up with; I daren’t leave him," I said next; and taking the candle she went out of the room, her face dead white, and her hands shaking so that the candle flickered unsteadily. Meanwhile Livenza lay so still in the darkness that I began to fear he was dead. I could feel no pulse in his listless wrist, which dropped when I released it like the arm of a corpse. I unfastened his coat and laid my hand on his heart, and then I could just detect a faint fluttering; but it was enough to prove he still lived. After a few minutes Sarita came back carrying a small length of cord which she had found; and with this I fastened his legs. Taking the candle I looked with a good deal of anxiety into his eyes; and sending Sarita for water I dashed it on his face, and made such crude efforts as I knew of to bring him back to consciousness. For a long time the effort seemed vain, and the apparent difficulty of restoring him, led me to an act of carelessness that came within an ace of proving fatal to everything. Sarita had been carrying Livenza’s revolver which had fallen close to her feet when I had burst in, and now she picked up mine and laid them both on the table; and I, thinking that Livenza would be better if I raised him, dragged him up and set him on a chair close to them. It was the act of a fool. He had evidently been duping me for some time, and now he waited until my hands were off him, when he seized his chance with the cunning of a madman, and snatched up one of the revolvers. A cry from Sarita was my first hint of the peril, and I turned to find the barrel levelled point blank at me. Her cry came just as he was pulling the trigger and he started and missed me. Quick as thought he turned on her as she moved to the other side of the room; but his hand was too shaky for him to aim correctly, and by the mercy of Providence he missed her. Then before I could interfere to stop him, for the three shots followed in rapid succession, he put the pistol to his own temple and fired. This time the aim was true enough, and with a groan, he fell back off the chair dead. The revolver dropped close to him, and I kicked it away and bent over him, and laid my hand on his heart.