E. R. Punshon

“ Rupert asked, looking at the packing-case, his mouth and lips so suddenly dry he found it difficult to speak at all.
Deede Dawson began to laugh, a low and dreadful laughter that had in it no trace of merriment at all, but only of mockery and malice.
It was such laughter as a devil from the nethermost pit might give vent to when he saw at last a good man yield to long temptation.
“What's in there?” Rupert said again, pointing to the packing-case, and it was as though his soul swooned within him for fear of what the answer might be. ”

“ Evening came. The last rays of the sun lay slantingly across the wide spaces of the downs. Nothing was to be seen, nothing heard. The passing of a belated bee buzzing its way home was an event. It was so lonely, Wilton had sometimes the impression that perhaps he might be the last man left alive. Immeasurably remote seemed the busy, crowded life of the plains below.
It was night now, and all the downs were wrapped in a soft, impenetrable darkness. An immense silence brooded. Overhead one by one the stars shone out. There was no moon. Once or twice Wilton dozed. ”

“ But quick as he was, Rupert was quicker still, and as Deede Dawson leaped he lifted his pistol and fired, though his aim was not at the man, but at the revolver lying on the top of the roll of carpet where Deede Dawson had placed it.
The bullet, for Rupert was a man who seldom missed, struck the weapon fair and whirled it, shattered and useless, to the floor. Deede Dawson, whose hand had been already outstretched to seize it, drew back with a snarl that was more like the cry of a trapped wolf than any sound produced from human lips. ”