His eyes traveled to the note on the table and he began searching in his coat pockets.  In one of them he found the worn stub of a pencil, and for many minutes after that he was oblivious to the passing of time as he wrote his last words to Meleese.  When he had finished he folded the paper and placed it under his watch.  At the final moment, before the shot was fired, he would ask Jean to take it.  His eyes fell on his watch dial and a cry burst from his lips.

It lacked but ten minutes of the final hour!

Above him he heard faintly the sharp barking of dogs, the hollow sound of men’s voices.  A moment later there came to him an echo as of swiftly tramping feet, and after that silence.

“Jean,” he called tensely.  “Ho, Jean—­Jean Croisset—­”

He caught up the paper and ran from one black opening to another, calling the Frenchman’s name.

“As you love your God, Jean, as you have a hope of Heaven, take this note to Meleese!” he pleaded.  “Jean—­Jean Croisset—­”

There came no answer, no movement outside, and Howland stilled the beating of his heart to listen.  Surely Croisset was there!  He looked again at the watch he held in his hand.  In four minutes the shot would be fired.  A cold sweat bathed his face.  He tried to cry out again, but something rose in his throat and choked him until his voice was only a gasp.  He sprang back to the table and placed the note once more under the watch.  Two minutes!  One and a half!  One!

With a sudden fearless cry he sprang into the very center of his prison, and flung out his arms with his face to the hole next the door.  This time his voice was almost a shout.

“Jean Croisset, there is a note under my watch on the table.  After you have killed me take it to Meleese.  If you fail I shall haunt you to your grave!”

Still no sound—­no gleam of steel pointing at aim through the black aperture.  Would the shot come from behind?

Tick—­tick—­tick—­tick—­

He counted the beating of his watch up to twenty.  A sound stopped him then, and he closed his eyes, and a great shiver passed through his body.

It was the tiny bell of his watch tinkling off the hour of six!

Scarcely had that sound ceased to ring in his brain when from far through the darkness beyond the wall of his prison there came a creaking noise, as if a heavy door had been swung slowly on its hinges, or a trap opened—­then voices, low, quick, excited voices, the hurrying tread of feet, a flash of light shooting through the gloom.  They were coming!  After all it was not to be a private affair, and Jean was to do his killing as the hangman’s job is done in civilization—­before a crowd.  Howland’s arms dropped to his side.  This was more terrible than the other—­this seeing and hearing of preparation, in which he fancied that he heard the click of Croisset’s gun as he lifted the hammer.