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Stern's hand twitched, with the autoers, but the blacks
"Raise not that hand, slave!" he ordered "You cannot shoot without the danger of killing this vile spawn of yours! And remember, too, the river lies far below, and very sharp are the waiting rocks!
"Fool that you are, that think yourself so wise! To leave this place withto cut passage-ways--"
"You devil! You hewed a way into hed brutally
"Silently, steadily, I labored!" he boasted "And behold the reward! Power for me; eternal slavery for you and all your blood--if any live!"
Insane with rage and hate, Allan nevertheless realized that now all depended on keeping his thought and nerve
One single premature move and his son would inevitably be hurled over the parapet, doo hundred and fifty feet to the river-bed below At all hazards, he must keep cool!
The sence, had not even thought of the obvious command to ht now hung all Allan's hopes
Even though the hter all, yet in Allan's heart burned a clear and steady flame of hot desire to compass H'yemba's death
And as the smith now loudly boasted, insulted, vilified, in the true e, i his pistol-barrel upward
Higher, higher, bit by bit it crept toward the horizontal Unaccustoht before him lay a supreme test of nerve and ht was too hideous even to be considered His father-heart yearned toward the frightened, crying child there in the traitor's grip
The unconscious for on the bed, see aloud to him: "Aim true, Allan! Aim true!"
For one false shot inevitably sealed the child's death To wound H'yemba and not kill him meant the catastrophe If the bullet failed to enter brain or heart, H'yeh mortally hurt--would of a surety, with his last quiver of strength, sling the boy outward over the dizzying parapet
Allan prayed; yet his prayer ordless, forlance down at the automatic His eyes must hold the smith's And he ain another moment's respite
What Allan said in those last terrible, eternal seconds he could never afterward recall
He only kneas treating with the ene--all with mechanical sub-consciousness