“Good-bye, Mike,” said that person to the swallowing fainting wretch.  “Don’t try and say anything.  I know exactly what you feel.  Sorry we can’t shake hands,” and he stepped off in the wake of Major Ranald, closely guarded by three warders.

The City Magistrate and Captain Malet-Marsac followed.  At Major Ranald’s knock, the small inner door of the gate-house was opened and the procession filed through it into the strong room where the warders stood to attention.  Having re-fastened the door, the jailer opened the outer one and the procession passed out of the jail into the blessed free world, the world that might be such a place of wonder, beauty, delight, health and joy, were man not educated to materialism, false ideals, false standards, and blind strife for nothing worth.

The sepoy-guard stood in a semicircle from the gate-house to the entrance to a door-way in the jail-wall.  Ross-Ellison took his last look at the sky, the distant hills, the trees, God’s good world, and then turned into the doorless door-way with his jailers, and faced the scaffold in a square, roofless cell.  The warder behind him drew the cap down over his face, and he was led up a flight of shallow stairs on to a platform on which was a roughly-chalked square where two hinged flaps met.  As he stood on this spot the noose of the greased rope was placed round his neck by a warder who then looked to Major Ranald for a sign, received it, and pulled over a lever which withdrew the bolts supporting the hinged flaps.  These fell apart, Ross-Ellison dropped through the platform, and Christian Society was avenged.

Without a word, Captain Malet-Marsac strode, as in a dream, to his horse, rode home, and, as in a dream, entered his sanctum, took his revolver from its holster and loaded it.

Laying it on the table beside him, he sat down to write a few words to the Colonel of his regiment, Colonel Wilberforce Wriothesley of the 99th Baluch Light Infantry, and to send his will to a brother-officer whom he wished to be his executor.

This done, he took up the revolver, placed the muzzle in his mouth, the barrel pointing upward, and—­pulled the trigger.

Click!

And nothing more.

A tiny, nerve-shattering, world-shaking, little universe-rocking click—­and nothing more.

A bad cartridge.  He remembered complaints about the revolver ammunition from the Duri Small Arms Ammunition Factory.  Too long in stock.

Should he try the same one again, or go on to the next?  Probably get better results from the first, as the cap would be already dented by the concussion.  He took the muzzle of the big revolver from his aching mouth and, releasing the chamber, spun it round....  He would place it to his temple this time.  Holding one’s mouth open was undignified.  He raised the revolver—­and John Bruce burst into the room.  He had seen Malet-Marsac ride by, and knew where he had been.