Part 50 (2/2)
”Since you found a gray mask so becoming, Garth,” he snarled, ”it's only fair to give you honest cause to wear one. But you'll go poor Simmons one better. _Your_ mask won't need any eye holes.”
Nora cried out again.
”You couldn't do it,” Garth muttered.
Beneath his rage lurked a fear of which he had never dreamed himself capable. To face death would have been so much simpler.
”What's in that bottle, Slim?”
”A black cap for you, d.a.m.n you! Pure vitriol!”
He bent closer.
”Squirm! Those ropes and your own handcuffs will hold you. You'll beg me for a bullet before I'm through.”
George twisted the girl so she had to watch.
”Pipe your handsome beau, Nora! You'll think I'm more your style in about ten seconds.”
She shuddered.
”You're not bad enough to do that, Slim!”
”Watch me,” he answered.
A complete satisfaction blotted from his eyes the fear he had hitherto never quite concealed--the quiet fear of a strong man who acknowledges his own inevitable destiny. Garth reminded him of that. It was his last weapon.
”They'll get you, Slim. They're keeping the chair warm for you. Will this help then?”
Slim laughed.
”Will it hurt? I've waited for this moment ever since you and she sent me to rot in the Tombs. I'll pay old scores while I can.”
With an extreme deliberation he commenced to tip the bottle. The fluid, almost imperceptibly approaching the mouth, exercised for Garth a dreadful fascination. It was easy to estimate its progress. George had been right. In about ten seconds! And he couldn't get his chained hands to his eyes. He tried to tell himself it was impossible that that innocent-appearing fluid in the control of this criminal could condemn him to an unrelieved blackness through which, hideously scarred, he must grope henceforth, a thing repellent and past use.
The lights were centred upon his face. It struck him as ironic that their glare should hurt his eyes.
Suddenly Nora sprang forward. She stretched her hand towards Slim, but she didn't touch the bottle or his wrist, for the fluid filled the neck; was so close to the edge that a quick contact might have spilled it.
George looked on, his hands in his pockets, his att.i.tude expressing satisfaction at a just and long-deferred punishment.
Slim smiled at Nora. He moved the bottle a little. A drop fell.
Something tortured the skin of Garth's cheek. It was as if an iron at white heat had been applied against his flesh with a strong pressure.
The stuff was real enough.
Again Slim moved the bottle sluggishly, so that the liquid, ready to trickle out, was directly above Garth's eyes. Nora reached and closed her hands about the mouth.
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