undertone, an unending torrent of incoherent blasphemies, as appears to
be the habit of that type of man when frightened. I stepped silently
behind him and looked over his shoulder at the expiring criminal,
speculating on what he would do next. At the moment he was paralyzed and
imbecile with terror, and I had a strong inclination to dispatch him
then and there; but the same odd impulse that I had noticed on the last
occasion constrained me to dally with him. Again I was possessed by a
strange, savage playfulness like that which impels a cat or leopard to
toy daintily and tenderly with its prey for a while before the final
scrunch.

"We remained thus motionless for more than half a minute in a silence
broken only by his blasphemous mutterings. Then, quite suddenly, he
stood up and began to flash his lantern on the stairs and about the hall
until at length its light fell full on my face which was within a foot
of his own. And at that apparition he uttered a most singular cry, like
that of a young goat, and started back. Another moment and he would have
raised his pistol arm, but I had foreseen this and was beforehand with
him. Even as his hand rose, the concussor struck the outer side of his
arm, between the shoulder and the elbow, on the exact spot where the
musculo-spiral nerve turns round the bone. The effect was most
interesting. The sudden nerve stimulus produced an equally sudden
contraction of the extensors. The forearm straightened with a jerk, the
fingers shot out straight and the released revolver flew clattering
along the hall floor.

"Anatomy has its uses even in a midnight scuffle.

"The suddenness of my appearance and the promptness of my action
paralyzed him completely. He stared at me in abject terror and gibbered