The light had gone out!

As if that dying of the little yellow flame were the signal for his death, there came to his ears a sharp hissing sound, a spark leaped up into the blackness before his eyes, and a slow, creeping glow came toward him over the rock at his feet.

The hour—­the minute—­the second had come, and MacDonald had pressed the little white button that was to send him into eternity!  He did not cry out now.  He knew that the end was very near, and in its nearness he found new strength.  Once he had seen a man walk to his death on the scaffold, and as the condemned had spoken his last farewell, with the noose about his neck, he had marveled at the clearness of his voice, at the fearlessness of this creature in his last moment on earth.

Now he understood.  Inch by inch the fuse burned toward him—­a fifth of the distance, a quarter—­now a third.  At last it reached a half—­was almost under his feet.  Two minutes more of life.  He put his whole strength once again in an attempt to free his hands.  This time his attempt was cool, steady, masterful—–­with death one hundred seconds away.  His heart gave a sudden bursting leap into his throat when he felt something give.  Another effort—­and in the powder-choked vault there rang out a thrilling cry of triumph.  His hands were free!  He reached forward to the fuse, and this time a moaning, wordless sob fell from him, faint, terrifying, with all the horror that might fill a human soul in its inarticulate note.  He could not reach the fuse because of the thong about his neck!

He felt for his knife.  He had left it in his room.  Sixty seconds more—­forty—­thirty!  He could see the fiery end of the fuse almost at his feet.  Suddenly his groping fingers came in contact with the cold steel of his pocket revolver and with a last hope he snatched it forth, stretching down his pistol arm until the muzzle of the weapon was within a dozen inches of the deadly spark.  At his first shot the spark leaped, but did not go out.  After the second there was no longer the fiery, creeping thing on the floor, and, crushing his head back against the sacks, Howland sat for many minutes as if death had in reality come to him in the moment of his deliverance.  After a time, with tedious slowness, he worked a hand into his trousers’ pocket, where he carried a pen-knife.  It took him a long time to saw through the rawhide thong about his neck.  After that he cut the rope that bound his ankles.

He made an effort to rise, but no sooner had he gained his feet than his paralyzed limbs gave way under him and he dropped in a heap on the floor.  Very slowly the blood began finding its way through his choked veins again, and with the change there came over him a feeling of infinite restfulness.  He stretched himself out, with his face turned to the black wall above, realizing only that he was saved, that he had outwitted his mysterious enemies again, and that he was comfortable.  He made no effort to think—­to