Something about his manner told the jeweler that this creature was about to cut their throats as much for the pleasure of it as because of the supposed safety. It was confirmed when the masked fiend wheezed, malignantly:
Mr. Boon was suddenly conscious of an extreme cold, as if he had been thrown naked into an ice-cave. On Pierce's face, grown gray, the sweat stood in a microscopic dew. Gaylord's florid face was livid and tense; J. Sumner Storrs had closed his eyes and seemed asleep, but the breath whistled unpleasantly through his nostrils.
"Stop!" said the colonel so sharply that the duke turned like a flash--to look into the barrel of a blue-steel automatic.
"Drop the razor, old chap! I can't let you kill the beggars in cold blood. Upon my soul, I can't, you know!" His head was jerking and twisting at a furious rate, but the revolver was as steady as a rock.
"It's our only chance. It won't hurt them. They won't feel it any more than a feather--it's so sharp," whispered the black-masked devil.
"Drop it, I say!" said the colonel, peremptorily. They heard a gritting of teeth from behind the mask as the duke closed the razor and dropped it on the floor. Still covering his accomplice, the colonel put his foot on the weapon. "Thanks, old chap!" he said, pleasantly. At that very moment he could have capitalized the gratitude of the ten prisoners at many thousands.
"What's the difference between twenty years in the pen and twenty seconds in the electric chair? I myself prefer the chair. But I'd rather cut their throats and keep out of danger. I tell you, it's tempting Providence to leave these men--"
"Is it as much as twenty years, old fellow?" queried the colonel, obviously perturbed.
"I say, gentlemen, I don't want to stay twenty years indoors, you know. Really, it's not a pleasant thought. What? If I give you your lives you must not take away my liberty. So I will go out now and leave you here with my friend, unless you promise not to tell the police anything that will serve as a clue and yourselves do nothing to harm us. If you will act like gentlemen I'll undertake to prevent my friend here from severing your respective jugulars. Nod for 'Yes' and shake your heads for 'No.' Promise not to talk?"