"You'll find it quite easy--I speak from experience," he replied, with a
desperate, evil grin.
"No. I have talked the situation over with my friend. You are going to
die, that is very certain, but not by my hand now, and not, Mr.
Midwinter, by the hand of the English law."
He was very quick. Even then he had an inkling of my meaning, for a
perceptible shadow fell over his face and his eyes narrowed to slits.
"You mean?"
"We are going to telephone to the City in the Clouds. People will come
from there and take you away--that will be easily managed. You will have
some form of trial, and then--execution."
I never saw a change from red to white so sudden. That big face suddenly
became a hideous, sickly white, toneless and opaque like the belly of a
sole.
"You won't deliver me to the Chinese?" he gasped. "You can't know them
as I do. They'd take a week killing me! They have horrible secrets--"
His voice died away in a whimper, and if ever I saw a man in deadly
terror, it was that man then.
But I hardened my heart. I remembered how Morse and Juanita had suffered
for two years at this man's hands. I remembered four murders, to my own
knowledge, and I shrugged my shoulders.
"I can't help that. You have made your bed, and you must lie upon it."
"But such a bed!" he murmured, and his head fell forward on his chest.
His arms were bound at the elbow, but he could move the lower portion,
and he now brought his right hand to his face.
"I'll telephone," said Bill, and went to the wall by the door where hung
the instrument.