effective. In other
words, if you can get a fraction of a drop of it in a man's blood,
you kill him by paralysis quicker than if you put a bullet through
his heart."
"Nothing can save a man, then?" I questioned.
"Nothing on earth. Oh, I don't say that if somebody had an axe handy
and chopped your arm off at the shoulder an instant after you were
struck on the hand, you mightn't have a chance to live; but it would
take mighty quick work, and even then, it would be nip and tuck.
Freylinghuisen thinks it is a new discovery. I don't. I think some
one has dug up one of the old Medici formulae. Maybe it was placed in
the secret drawer, so that there would never be any lack of
ammunition for the mechanism."
"Godfrey," I said, "are you still bent on fooling with that thing?"
"More than ever; I'm going to find that secret drawer. And if the
fangs strike--well, I'm ready for them. See here what I had made
today."
He drew from his pocket something that looked like a steel gauntlet,
such as one sees on suits of old armour. He slipped it over his right
hand.
"You see it covers the back of the hand completely," he said, "half
way down the first joint of the fingers.
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