"'Now it's my turn,' he said to me with his cunning smile. Throw up
your hands.'
"I saw then it was man for man. If I let him take me I was in for a
good seven years. I'd sooner be dead than do seven years for him.
'Shoot and be damned,' I said. I ducked as I spoke, and as I ducked I
made a dive with my hand for my hip pocket where I had put my revolver.
He fired and missed. He fired again, but his toy revolver missed fire,
for I heard the hammer click. But that was his last chance. I fired at
his heart and he dropped beside the desk, I didn't wait for anything
more--I bolted. I got tangled in the staircase curtains and fell down
the stairs. As I was falling I thought what a nice trap I would be in
if I broke my leg and had to lie there until the police came. But I
wasn't much hurt and I got up and dashed out of the house and over the
fence into the wood, the way I came."
He stopped, and his gaze wandered round the hushed court till it rested
on the prisoner, who with his hands grasping the rail of the dock had
leaned forward in order to catch every word. Kemp turned his gaze from
the man in the dock to the man in the scarlet robe on the bench, and it
was to the judge that he addressed his concluding words.
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