eyes fixed on the Governor.

"James Tarran Bignold!" Grassette said harshly, with eyes that searched
the Governor's face; but they found no answering look there. The
Governor, then, did not remember that tragedy of his home and hearth, and
the man who had made of him an Ishmael. Still, Bignold had been almost a
stranger in the parish, and it was not curious if the Governor had
forgotten.

"Bignold!" he repeated, but the Governor gave no response.

"Yes, Bignold is his name, Grassette," said the Sheriff. "You took a
life, and now, if you save one, that'll balance things. As the Governor
says, there'll be a reprieve anyhow. It's pretty near the day, and this
isn't a bad world to kick in, so long as you kick with one leg on the
ground, and--"

The Governor hastily intervened upon the Sheriff's brutal remarks.
"There is no time to be lost, Grassette. He has been ten days in the
mine."

Grassette's was not a slow brain. For a man of such physical and bodily
bulk, he had more talents than are generally given. If his brain had
been slower, his hand also would have been slower to strike. But his
intelligence had been surcharged with hate these many years, and since
the day he had been deserted, it had ceased to control his actions--a
passionate and reckless wilfulness had governed it. But now, after the
first shock and stupefaction, it seemed to go back to where it was before
Marcile went from him, gather up the force and intelligence it had then,
and come forwards again to this supreme moment, with all that life's