"God! why didn't I shoot you on entrance!" he cried. "Your courage is certainly colossal."

A fine smile, without even the hint of humour now, touched the daring detective's lip. Brotherson's anger seemed to grow under it, and he loudly repeated:

"It's more than colossal; it's abnormal and -" A moment's pause, then with ironic pauses -" and quite unnecessary save as a matter of display, unless you think you need it to sustain you through the ordeal you are courting. You wish to help me finish and prepare for flight?"

"You consider yourself competent?"

Brotherson's eyes fell and he walked once to the extremity of the oval flooring and back.

"Well, we will grant that. But that's not all that is necessary. My requirements demand a companion in my first flight. Will you go up in the car with me on Saturday night?"

A quick affirmative was on Sweetwater's lips but the glimpse which he got of the speaker's face glowering upon him from the shadows into which Brotherson had withdrawn, stopped its utterance, and the silence grew heavy. Though it may not have lasted long by the clock, the instant of breathless contemplation of each other's features across the intervening space was of incalculable moment to Sweetwater, and, possibly, to Brotherson. As drowning men are said to live over their whole history between their first plunge and their final rise to light and air, so through the mind of the detective rushed the memories of his past and the fast fading glories of his future; and rebelling at the subtle peril he saw in that sardonic eye, he vociferated an impulsive:

"No! I'll not -" and paused, caught by a new and irresistible sensation.