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 "You shall not do it," screamed the lad, running to the hearth and snatching up a poker.

All Danny's unnatural quiet had forsaken him.

There was a knock at the door, and an impatient footstep to and fro.

Kisseck walked into an inner room, and came back with a pistol in his hand.

"Men, don't you see it plain? That woman is at the bottom of it all," he said, turning to Corteen and Killip, and pointing, as he spoke, to the door. "She brought us here to trap us, and now she has come to see if we are at home. She has the men from Castle Rushen behind her; but she shall pay for it with her life. Out of the way, I say. Out—of—the—way."

Danny was standing again with his back to the door. He had the poker in his hand. Kisseck put the pistol on a table, and closed with Danny to push him aside. There was a terrible struggle. Amid curses from Kisseck and shouts from Corteen and Killip, the poker was wrenched from Danny's grasp and thrown on the floor. The lad himself was dragged away from the door, and the bolt was drawn.

Then in an instant Danny rushed to the table and picked up the pistol. There was a flash, a deafening explosion, a shriek, a heavy fall, and Kisseck rolled on the floor dead.

Danny staggered back to the door, the hot pistol still in his hand. He was petrified. His great eyes seemed to leap out of his head. When the smoke cleared he saw what he had done. His lips moved, but no words came from him. The other men were speechless. There was