"No? Well, then, I will give you, to-day, just one chance to
live--one, you dog--one. Don't move an eyelash! Tell me honestly why
you have been trying to get word with the girl, and you shall go out
from here living. Lie to me about it, and I am going to kill you where
you sit, as I would a mad dog. You know me, Slavin--now speak!"
So intensely still was it, Hampton could distinguish the faint ticking
of the watch in his pocket, the hiss of the breath between the giant's
clinched teeth. Twice the fellow tried to utter something, his lips
shaking as with the palsy, his ashen face the picture of terror. No
wretch dragged shrieking to the scaffold could have formed a more
pitiful sight, but there was no mercy in the eyes of the man watching
him.
"Speak, you cringing hound!"
Slavin gripped his great hands together convulsively, his throat
swelling beneath its red beard. He knew there was no way of escape.
"I--I had to do it! My God, Captain, I had to do it!"
"Why?"
"I had to, I tell you. Oh, you devil, you fiend! I 'm not the one you
're after--it's Murphy!"
For a single moment Hampton stared at the cringing figure. Then
suddenly he rose to his feet in decision. "Stand up! Lift your hands
first, you fool. Now unbuckle your gun-belt with your left hand--your
left, I said! Drop it on the floor."
There was an unusual sound behind, such as a rat might have made, and
Hampton glanced aside apprehensively. In that single second Slavin was
upon him, grasping his pistol-arm at the wrist, and striving with hairy
hand to get a death-grip about his throat. Twice Hampton's left drove
straight out into that red, gloating face, and then the giant's
crushing weight bore him backward. He fought savagely, silently, his
slender figure like steel, but Slavin got his grip at last, and with
giant strength began to crunch his victim within his vise-like arms.
There was a moment of superhuman strain, their breathing mere sobs of
exhaustion. Then Slavin slipped, and Hampton succeeded in wriggling
partially free from his death-grip. It was for scarcely an instant,
yet it served; for as he bent aside, swinging his burly opponent with
him, some one struck a vicious blow at his back; but the descending
knife, missing its mark, sunk instead deep into Slavin's breast.
Hampton saw the flash of a blade, a hand, a portion of an arm, and then
the clutching fingers of Slavin swept him down. He reached out blindly
as he fell, his hand closing about the deserted knife-hilt. The two
crashed down together upon the floor, the force of the fall driving the
blade home to the gambler's heart.