"Don't imagine that I intended to kill him in cold blood. It would only have been rigid justice if I had done so, but I could not bring myself to do it. I had long determined that he should have a show for his life if he chose to take advantage of it. Among the many billets which I have filled in America during my wandering life, I was once janitor and sweeper out of the laboratory at York College. One day the professor was lecturing on poisons, and he showed his students some alkaloid, as he called it, which he had extracted from some South American arrow poison, and which was so powerful that the least grain meant instant death. I spotted the bottle in which this preparation was kept, and when they were all gone, I helped myself to a little of it. I was a fairly good dispenser, so I worked this alkaloid into small, soluble pills, and each pill I put in a box with a similar pill made without the poison. I determined at the time that when I had my chance, my gentlemen should each have a draw out of one of these boxes, while I ate the pill that remained. It would be quite as deadly, and a good deal less noisy than firing across a handkerchief. From that day I had always my pill boxes about with me, and the time had now come when I was to use them.

"It was nearer one than twelve (было ближе к часу, чем к полуночи: «к двенадцати»), and a wild, bleak night (ночь была ветреная, промозглая; wild — бурный, штормовой; bleak — холодный, промозглый), blowing hard and raining in torrents (дул сильный ветер, и шел проливной дождь; torrent — ливень). Dismal as it was outside (несмотря на мерзкую погоду: «хотя снаружи было мрачно»; dismal — мрачный; унылый; гнетущий), I was glad within (на душе: «внутри» у меня было радостно)— so glad that I could have shouted out from pure exultation (настолько радостно, что я мог бы закричать от восторга: «от чистого ликования»). If any of you gentlemen have ever pined for a thing (если когда-либо кто-нибудь из вас, джентльмены, безумно желал чего-нибудь; to pine — чахнуть, томиться; изнемогать, изнывать, иссыхать; /for, after smth./ жаждать чего-либо, тосковать по чему-либо), and longed for it during twenty long years (и жаждал этого двадцать долгих лет), and then suddenly found it within your reach (а затем внезапно обнаружил это на расстоянии вытянутой руки; to reach — протягивать; reach — досягаемость, предел досягаемости), you would understand my feelings (вы поймете мои чувства). I lit a cigar, and puffed at it to steady my nerves (я зажег сигару и закурил, чтобы успокоить нервы; to puff — дымить; покуривать), but my hands were trembling (но мои руки дрожали), and my temples throbbing with excitement (а в висках стучало от возбуждения). As I drove, I could see old John Ferrier and sweet Lucy looking at me out of the darkness and smiling at me (когда я ехал, я видел, как старик Джон Феррьер и милая Люси смотрели на меня из темноты и улыбались мне), just as plain as I see you all in this room (так же ясно, как я вижу всех вас здесь в комнате). All the way they were ahead of me (всю дорогу они были передо мной), one on each side of the horse (справа и слева от лошади: «один на каждой стороне лошади») until I pulled up at the house in the Brixton Road (пока я не натянул поводья у дома на Брикстон-роуд).