But his perplexed brain reeled to the realization that he still lay up here instead of among the rocks upon which he should have been broken two hundred feet below. Presumably the victor had waited for returning consciousness in the victim to consummate that atrocity. But Thornton's unaccountable whims had flown at another tangent. "Git up, Bas," he commanded, briefly, "yore life b'longs ter me. I won hit--an' ye're goin' ter die--but my fingers don't ache no more fer a holt on yore throat--they're satisfied." "What air--ye goin' ter do, now?" Rowlett found words hard to form; and the victor responded promptly, "I've done concluded ter take ye down thar, afore ye dies, an' make ye crave Dorothy's pardon on yore bended knees. Ye owes hit ter her." Slowly Rowlett dragged himself to a sitting posture. His incredulous senses wanted to sing out in exultation, but he forced himself to demur with surly obduracy. "Hain't hit enough ter kill me without humiliatin' me, too?" "No, hit hain't enough fer me an' hit's too tardy fer _you_ ter make no terms now." Bas Rowlett exaggerated his dizzy weakness. There was every reason for taking time. This mad idea that had seized upon the other was a miracle of deliverance for him. If only he could kill time until night had come and the moon had risen, it would prove not only a respite but a full pardon--capped with a reserved climax of triumph. Down there at that house the mob would soon come, and circumstance would convert him, at a single turn of the wheel, from humbled victim to the avenger ironically witnessing the execution of his late victor. After a while he rose and stood experimentally on his legs. "I reckon I kin walk now," he said, drearily, "ef so be ye lets me go slow--I hain't got much of my stren'th back yit." "Thar hain't no tormentin' haste," responded Thornton; "we've got all night afore us." * * * * * When they reached the house, it stood mistily bulked among shadows, with its front door open upon an unlighted room. The men had tramped down that slope in silence, and they crossed the threshold in silence, too, the captive preceding his captor; and the householder paused to bolt the door behind him. Then, holding a vigilant eye on the forced guest who had not spoken, Thornton lighted a lamp and backed to the closed bedroom door at whose sill he had seen a slender thread of brightness. In all his movements he went with a wary slowness, as though he were held by a cord, and the cord was the line of direct glance that he never permitted to deviate from the face of his prisoner. Now while his right hand still fondled the revolver, he groped with his left for the latch and opened the door at his back. "Dorothy," he called in a low voice, "I wisht ye'd come in hyar, honey." From within he heard a sound like a low moan; but he knew it was a sigh of relief loosening tight nerve cords that had been binding his wife's heart in suspense.