The first long-drawn exhaust of the dinkey engine moving the slag kettle out to its spilling place ripped the silence. Gordon heard--and he did not hear: he was watching the prone figure at the dump's toe. When it should rise, he meant to fire from where he stood under the eaves of the ore-shed. The murder-thought contemplated nothing picturesque or dramatic. It was merely the dry thirst for the blood of a mortal enemy, as it is wont to be off the stage or out of the pages of the romancers. The puffing locomotive had pushed the slag-pot car half-way to the track-end before Farley sat up as one dazed and seemed to be trying to get on his feet. Twice and once again he essayed it, falling back each time upon the bent and doubled leg. Then he looked up and saw the slag-car coming; saw and cried out as men scream in the death agony. The end rails of the dumping track were fairly above him. Gordon heard the yell of terror and witnessed the frenzied efforts of the doomed man to rise and get out of the path of the impending torrent. Whereupon the murder devil whispered in his ear again. Farley's foot was caught in one of the many scars or seams in the lava bed. It was only necessary to wait, to withhold the merciful bullet, to go away and leave the wretched man to his fate. That fate was certain, lacking a miracle to avert it. There were no workmen in that part of the yard; and the two men in charge of the slag kettle were on the opposite side of the engine where the dumping mechanism was connected. Farley was screaming again, but now the safety-valve of the locomotive was blowing off steam with a din to drown all. Gordon tossed the gun aside and turned away. It was better so. Possibly at the climaxing instant he might have lacked the firmness to aim and press the trigger. This was simpler, easier, more in keeping with Vincent Farley's deserts; more satisfying to the thirst for vengeance. Was it? Like a bolt from the heavens, into the very midst of the cold-blooded, murderous triumph, came a long-neglected form of words, writing itself in flaming letters in his brain: _Thou shall do no murder._ And after it another: _But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you._ He put his hands before his eyes, stumbled blindly and fell down, groveling in the yellow sand of the ore floor, as that one of old whom the possessing devils tore and rended. Hell and the furies!--was this to be the end of it? Did the old, time-worn fables planted in the lush and mellow soil of childhood wait only for the moment of superhuman trial to assert themselves truth of the very truth? God in Heaven! must he be flogged back into the ranks he had deserted when every drop of blood in his veins was crying out for shame?