augmented every moment until the entire figure was in violent
agitation. Suddenly it sprang to its feet and with a movement almost
too quick for the eye to follow shot forward across table and chair,
with both arms thrust forth to their full length--the posture and
lunge of a diver. Moxon tried to throw himself backward out of
reach, but he was too late: I saw the horrible thing's hands close
upon his throat, his own clutch its wrists. Then the table was
overturned, the candle thrown to the floor and extinguished, and all
was black dark. But the noise of the struggle was dreadfully
distinct, and most terrible of all were the raucous, squawking sounds
made by the strangled man's efforts to breathe. Guided by the
infernal hubbub, I sprang to the rescue of my friend, but had hardly
taken a stride in the darkness when the whole room blazed with a
blinding white light that burned into my brain and heart and memory a
vivid picture of the combatants on the floor, Moxon underneath, his
throat still in the clutch of those iron hands, his head forced
backward, his eyes protruding, his mouth wide open and his tongue
thrust out; and--horrible contrast!--upon the painted face of his
assassin an expression of tranquil and profound thought, as in the
solution of a problem in chess! This I observed, then all was
blackness and silence.

Three days later I recovered consciousness in a hospital. As the
memory of that tragic night slowly evolved in my ailing brain
recognized in my attendant Moxon's confidential workman, Haley.
Responding to a look he approached, smiling.

"Tell me about it," I managed to say, faintly--"all about it."

"Certainly," he said; "you were carried unconscious from a burning