Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/177

 himself had intended. These two men did not mean to give him a chance to promise anything. They simply intended to finish him and be done with it.

For the first time a twinge of fear passed through Val. It was one thing to get killed in the trenches, and he had seen many die on all sides of him; it was still another thing to be murdered in cold blood by a pair of murderers who seemed to look upon the matter as a joke.

“Say yer prayers, dearie,” mocked O’Hara, “Window closed?” he asked Rat.

“Yep. Door closes tight enough, I guess.”

“Sure t’ing. Only takes a few minnits to put dis bird outta his misery.”

Val looked up at them impotently. So this was to be the end for him. He could hardly believe it, and yet—it did not seem as though there was any way out. Black despair edged into his heart, and shaded its way across his face. He was helpless; he was theirs to do with as they pleased. He tried to look at things stoically, but it was hard. He felt that he could die easily, fighting, but this way, a rat in a trap—it was too much to expect a man to bear that stoically.

Momentarily terror struck its way deep into his soul; it was a fearsome way to die—to die thus deliberately and slowly, conscious that he was dying, yet with no kind of a chance of saving himself. He surmised the method of execution—illuminating gas. An eternity went by as he lay there watching them in this last moment, yet in reality it was but a few seconds.

“All set?” queried O’Hara. The other nodded. “Let’s go.”

He reached up and turned on the cock of the un-