By the light of a kerosene lamp placed at the end of a rough wooden table a tall gaunt man is reading something written in a book. the man reads silently as his fingers trace the words. As the man lifts the book towards the light the shadows cast throw half the room in to darkness obscuring the faces of seven men sitting against the log wall of the little cabin. On the other side sits three people, two women and a man, an elderly Indian, all equally silent, equally motionless. Next to them is an empty chair. By extending an arm anyone of them can touch the man laying on the table face upward covered by a sheet, his arms by his side, the man Hugh Morgan is dead...

The story was inspired by he celebrated American writer Ambrose Bierce.