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Updated: May 10, 2025
'Zounds, they are down already! cried Elzevir, 'and have found Maskew's body; it is all up; another minute and they will see us. But so strange is the force of mind on body, and the power of a greater to master a lesser fear, that when I heard those voices from below, all fright of falling left me in a moment, and I could open my eyes without a trace of giddiness.
And so thought whisked round till I saw Maskew's face wearing a look of evil triumph, when the pin fell at the auction, and again his face grew deadly pale, and there was the bullet-mark on his brow.
The blinds were pulled, but let enough light in to show a high-backed horsehair chair that stood at the table. In front of it lay an open volume, and a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, that I had often seen on Maskew's nose; so I knew it was his study, and that nothing had been moved since last he sat there.
She was sitting beside me when I awoke and knitting a piece of work. The heat of the day was somewhat less, and she told me that it was past five o'clock by the sun-dial; so I knew that I must go. She made me take a packet of victuals and a bottle of milk, and as she put it into, my pocket the bottle struck on the butt of Maskew's pistol, which I had in my bosom.
So I could see cliffs and ground, bushes and stones and sea, and all were of one pearly grey colour, or rather they were colourless; but the most colourless and greyest thing of all was Maskew's face. His hair had got awry, and his head showed much balder than when it was well trimmed; his face, too, was drawn with heavy lines, and there were rings under his eyes.
And so she did, and others beside me saw and used it, calling it 'Maskew's Match', and saying that it was the attorney sitting up all night to pore over ledgers and add up his fortune.
It grew clearer as we looked at it, and again was lost in the mirk, and then Elzevir said, 'Maskew's Match! It was a long-forgotten name that came to me from so far off, down such long alleys of the memory, that I had, as it were, to grope and grapple with it to know what it should mean.
I wish I had a thimbleful of powder to make this whistle sound' and he took Maskew's silver-butted pistol again from his bosom, and handled it lovingly, 'tis like my evil luck to carry fire-arms thirty years, and leave them at home at a pinch like this. With that he flung himself down where there was a narrow shadow close against the bottom of the wall, and in a minute I knew from his heavy breathing that he was asleep.
Still I pleaded hard for Maskew's life, hanging on Elzevir's arm, and using every argument that I could think of to soften his purpose; but he pushed me off; and though I saw that he was loth to do it, I had a terrible conviction that he was not a man to be turned back from his resolve, and would go through with it to the end.
And what a whirligig of time was here, that I should have saved Elzevir from having that blot on his conscience, and then that he should save my life, and now that Maskew's daughter should be the one to praise Elzevir when he lay dead! And still I could not speak. And again she said: 'John, have you no word for me? have you forgotten? do you not love me still? Have I no part in your sorrow?
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