I never saw a man in such deadly fear. His face went the colour of cheese, and a horrible choking noise began in his throat. He staggered to within a yard of the brink; another step and he would have plunged into the abyss. "You, you, _you_!" he said, the last word in a dreadful whisper. "The Oxford professor--yes. Mr. Vargus, I am a lover of music, and you have entertained me royally to-night. But you have played Chopin for the last time in this world." I lifted the pistol and covered his heart. His yellow mask quivered and was still. "Quickly, please," he said, and there was even a faint smile of relief about his pallid lips. He could face death gladly, and I knew why. To have shot him there and cast his body to the void would have been a mercy. I had other uses for Mr. Vargus. My pistol hand was steady as a rock. With the left I took out Danjuro's handcuffs and walked up to him. "Not yet," I said, when I was within a foot. He saw what I meant. As comprehension leapt into his eyes he tried to step back. He nearly did it, but I was just too quick for him. I caught his ankle with the crook of my right foot, and he crashed on his back with his head and shoulders actually over the chasm. Before he could move again I had jerked him backwards by the legs, and had him handcuffed. I pulled him to his feet by his collar, and half marched, half carried him back into the cave. He was nothing more than a bundle of clothes in my hands. "Now," I said, "take me _at once_ to the place where Miss Shepherd is confined, and, though I make no promises, it may go less hardly with you than the rest." He twisted his head and tried to look me in the face. "If I do, will you shoot me?" he whispered, fawning on me like a beaten dog. "For God's sake shoot me, or give me an opportunity to shoot myself." "The hangman will save you the trouble," I answered brutally. "Now then, march!" He gave a great wail of despair. "Ah, you don't know what I was once!" he cried, and there was such a horror of remorse, a damnation so profound in that cry of agony, that a fiend would have been moved. "I heard you play the Third Ballade," I answered, and my voice was no longer firm. "Death, please, Death." "Take me quickly to Miss Shepherd. Then perhaps--I can't kill you myself, but ..." It was as though my words poured a new life into his veins. His knees still knocked together in a loathsome paralysis, but he made effort to shamble forward. CHAPTER XIV THE AIR PIRATE AT LAST Vargus was silent now. Our feet made no noise upon the sandy floor of the cave. It was then that I heard something like a cat purring. Unconsciously I stopped to listen. No, it wasn't a cat, it was the faint drone of some night beetle; it was ... On the right wall of the cavern, remember that my back was turned to its mouth and the sea--there was a sudden flash of white light. The rest happened in five seconds.