As if evoked by his very solicitude Lanyard emerged from the skylight hatch, waved a hand in gay salute, then turned to stare down into the flaming pit from which he had climbed.

After a little he fell back a pace.  Then slowly, with the laboured movements of exhaustion, Victor worked head and shoulders through the opening and dragged himself out upon the roof.

On all fours he held in doubt, his head moving from side to side like the head of a stricken beast, seeking his enemy with dazzled eyes.  Then he made Lanyard out and, pulling himself together for the supreme effort, launched at his throat with the pounce of a great cat.

Lanyard met him halfway, caught him in the middle of his bound, wound wiry arms round the man and held him helpless.

His voice rang clear above the crackle of flames: 

“Victor! have you forgotten how you threatened one night, twenty years ago, to follow me to the very gates of Hell, and what I promised you—­that, if you did, I’d push you inside?  Or did you think I would forget?”

He cast the man from him, backward, down into the hungry maw of that inferno....