He stepped back to the other side of the room, and set his back to the
door.

"Don't move," he said to Calvin Oke, whose chair stood immediately under
the line of fire, "your head is not the least in the way. And don't
turn it either, but keep your eye on the candle to the right."

This was spoken in the friendliest manner, but it hardly reassured Oke,
who would have preferred to keep his eye on the deadly weapon now being
lifted behind his back. Nevertheless he did not disobey, but sat still,
with his eyes fixed on the mantelshelf, and only his shoulders twitching
to betray his discomposure.

_Bang!_

The room was suddenly full of sound, then of smoke and the reek of
gunpowder. As the noise broke on their ears one of the candles went out
quietly. The candlestick did not stir, but a bullet was embedded in the
panel behind. Calvin Oke felt his scalp nervously.

"One," counted the stranger. He walked quietly to the table, set down
his smoking pistol, and took up the other, looking round at the same
time on the white faces that stared on him behind the thick curls of
smoke. Stepping back to his former position, he waited while they could
count twenty, lifted the second pistol high, brought it smartly down to
the aim and fired again.

The second candle went out, and a second bullet buried itself in Prudy's
panel.