THE BLOODY DEED.
Let us leave the outlaws to their progress for a brief space, while we gather up and pursue for awhile some other clues of our story.
We have witnessed the separation of Mark Forrester from his sweetheart, at the place of trysting. The poor fellow had recovered some of his confidence in himself and fortune, and was now prepared to go forth with a new sentiment of hope within his bosom. The sting was in a degree taken from his conscience—his elastic and sanguine temperament contributed to this—and with renewed impulses to adventure, and with new anticipations of the happiness that we all dream to find in life; the erring, but really honest fellow, rode fearlessly through the dim forests, without needing more auspicious lights than those of the kindling moon and stars. The favor of old Allen, the continued love of Kate, the encouragements of young Colleton, his own feeling of the absence of any malice in his heart, even while committing his crime, and the farther fact that he was well-mounted, and speeding from the region where punishment threatened—all these were influences which conspired to lessen, in his mind, the griefs of his present privation, and the lonely emotions which naturally promised to accompany him in his solitary progress.
His course lay for the great Southwest—the unopened forests, and mighty waters of the Mississippi valley. Here, he was to begin a new life. Unknown, he would shake off the fears which his crime necessarily inspired. Respited from death and danger, he would atone for it by penitence and honest works. Kate Allen should be his solace, and there would be young and lovely children smiling around his board. Such were the natural dreams of the young and sanguine exile.
"But who shall ride from his destiny?" saith the proverb. The wing of the bird is no security against the shaft of the fowler, and the helmet and the shield keep not away the draught that is poisoned. He who wears the greaves, the gorget, and the coat-of-mail, holds defiance to the storm of battle; but he drinks and dies in the hall of banqueting. What matters it, too, though the eagle soars and screams among the clouds, halfway up to heaven—flaunting his proud pinions, and glaring with audacious glance in the very eye of the sun—death waits for him in the quiet of his own eyry, nestling with his brood. These are the goodly texts of the Arabian sage, in whose garden-tree, so much was he the beloved of heaven, the birds came and nightly sang for him those solemn truths—those lessons of a perfect wisdom—which none but the favored of the Deity are ever permitted to hear. They will find a sufficient commentary in the fortune of the rider whom we have just beheld setting out from his parting with his mistress, on his way of new adventure—his heart comparatively light, and his spirit made buoyant with the throng of pleasant fancies which continually gathered in his thought.
The interview between Forrester and his mistress had been somewhat protracted, and his route from her residence to the road in which we find him, being somewhat circuitous, the night had waned considerably ere he had made much progress. He now rode carelessly, as one who mused—his horse, not urged by its rider, became somewhat careful of his vigor, and his gait was moderated much from that which had marked his outset. He had entered upon the trace through a thick wood, when the sound of other hoofs came down upon the wind; not to his ears, for, swallowed up in his own meditations, his senses had lost much of their wonted acuteness. He had not been long gone from the point of the road in which we found him, when his place upon the same route was supplied by the pursuing party, Rivers and Munro. They were both admirably mounted, and seemed little to regard, in their manner of using them, the value of the good beasts which they bestrode—driving them as they did, resolutely over fallen trees and jutting rocks, their sides already dashed with foam, and the flanks bloody with the repeated application of the rowel. It was soon evident that farther pursuit at such a rate would be impossible: and Munro, as well for the protection of the horses, as with a knowledge of this necessity, insisted upon a more moderated and measured pace.
Much against his own will, Rivers assented, though his impatience frequent found utterance in words querulously sarcastic. The love of gain was a besetting sin of the landlord, and it was by this passion that his accomplice found it easy, on most occasions, to defeat the suggestions of his better judgment. The tauntings of the former, therefore, were particularly bestowed upon this feature in his character, as he found himself compelled to yield to the requisition of the latter, with whom the value of the horses was no small consideration.
"Well, well," said Rivers, "if you say so, it must be so; though I am sure, if we push briskly ahead, we shall find our bargain in it. You too will find the horse of the youth, upon which you had long since set your eyes and heart, a full equivalent, even if we entirely ruin the miserable beasts we ride."
"The horse you ride is no miserable beast," retorted the landlord, who had some of the pride of a southron in this particular, and seemed solicitous for the honor of his stud—"you have jaded him by your furious gait, and seem entirely insensible to the fact that our progress for the last half hour, continued much longer, would knock up any animal. I'm not so sure, too, Guy, that we shall find the youngster, or that we shall be able to get our own bargain out of him when found. He's a tough colt, I take it, and will show fight unless you surprise him."
"Stay—hear you nothing now, as the wind sets up from below? Was not that the tramping of a horse?"
They drew up cautiously as the inquiry was put by Rivers, and pausing for a few minutes, listened attentively. Munro dismounted, and laying his ear to the ground, endeavored to detect and distinguish the distant sounds, which, in that way, may be heard with far greater readiness; but he arose without being satisfied.
"You hear nothing?"
"Not a sound but that which we make ourselves. Your ears to-night are marvellous quick, but they catch nothing. This is the third time to-night you have fancied sounds, and heard what I could not; and I claim to have senses in quite as high perfection as your own."
"And without doubt you have; but, know you not, Munro, that wherever the passions are concerned, the senses become so much more acute; and, indeed, are so many sentinels and spies—scouring about perpetually, and with this advantage over all other sentinels, that they then never slumber. So, whether one hate or love, the ear and the eye take heed of all that is going on—they minister to the prevailing passion, and seem, in their own exercise, to acquire some of the motive and impulse which belong to it."
"I believe this in most respects to be the case. I have observed it on more than one occasion myself, and in my own person. But, Guy, in all that you have said, and all that I have seen, I do not yet understand why it is that you entertain such a mortal antipathy to this young man, more than to many others who have at times crossed your path. I now understand the necessity for putting him out of the way; but this is another matter. Before we thought it possible that he could injure us, you had the same violent hatred, and would have destroyed him at the first glance. There is more in this, Guy, than you have been willing to let out; and I look upon it as strange, to say nothing more, that I should be kept so much in the dark upon the subject."
Rivers smiled grimly at the inquiry, and replied at once, though with evident insincerity,—
"Perhaps my desire to get rid of him, then, arose from a presentiment that we should have to do it in the end. You know I have a gift of foreseeing and foretelling."
"This won't do for me, Guy; I know you too well to regard you as one likely to be influenced by notions of this nature—you must put me on some other scent."
"Why, so I would, Wat, if I were assured that I myself knew the precise impulse which sets me on this work. But the fact is, my hate to the boy springs from certain influences which may not be defined by name—which grow out of those moral mysteries of our nature, for which we can scarcely account to ourselves; and, by the operation of which, we are led to the performance of things seemingly without any adequate cause or necessity. A few reflections might give you the full force of this. Why do some men shrink from a cat? There is an instance now in John Bremer; a fellow, you know, who would make no more ado about exchanging rifle-shots with his enemy at twenty paces, than at taking dinner; yet a black cat throws him into fits, from which for two days he never perfectly recovers. Again—there are some persons to whom the perfume of flowers brings sickness, and the song of a bird sadness. How are we to account for all these things, unless we do so by a reference to the peculiar make of the man? In this way you may understand why it is that I hate this boy, and would destroy him. He is my black cat, and his presence for ever throws me into fits."
"I have heard of the things of which you speak, and have known some of them myself; but I never could believe that the nature of the person had been the occasion. I was always inclined to think that circumstances in childhood, of which the recollection is forgotten—such as great and sudden fright to the infant, or a blow which affected the brain, were the operating influences. All these things, however, only affect the fancies—they beget fears and notions—never deep and abiding hatred—unquiet passion, and long-treasured malignity, such as I find in you on this occasion."
"Upon this point, Munro, you may be correct. I do not mean to say that hatred and a desire to destroy are consequent to antipathies such as you describe; but still, something may be said in favor of such a notion. It appears to me but natural to seek the destruction of that which is odious or irksome to any of our senses. Why do you crush the crawling spider with your heel? You fear not its venom; inspect it, and the mechanism of its make, the architecture of its own fabrication, are, to the full, as wonderful as anything within your comprehension; but yet, without knowing why, with an impulse given you, as it would seem, from infancy, you seek its destruction with a persevering industry, which might lead one to suppose you had in view your direst enemy."
"This is all very true; and from infancy up we do this thing, but the cause can not be in any loathsomeness which its presence occasions in the mind, for we perceive the same boy destroying with measured torture the gaudiest butterfly which his hat can encompass."
"Non sequitur," said Rivers.
"What's that? some of your d——d law gibberish, I suppose. If you want me to talk with you at all, Guy, you must speak in a language I understand."
"Why, so I will, Wat. I only meant to say, in a phrase common to the law, and which your friend Pippin makes use of a dozen times a day, that it did not follow from what you said, that the causes which led to the death of the spider and the butterfly were the same. This we may know by the manner in which they are respectively destroyed. The boy, with much precaution and an aversion he does not seek to disguise in his attempts on the spider, employs his shoe or a stick for the purpose of slaughter. But, with the butterfly, the case is altogether different. He first catches, and does not fear to hold it in his hand. He inspects it closely, and proceeds to analyze that which his young thought has already taught him is a beautiful creation of the insect world. He strips it, wing by wing of its gaudy covering; and then, with a feeling of ineffable scorn, that so wealthy a noble should go unarmed and unprotected, he dashes him to the ground, and terminates his sufferings without further scruple. The spider, having a sting, he is compelled to fear, and consequently taught to respect. The feelings are all perfectly natural, however, which prompt his proceedings. The curiosity is common and innate which impels him to the inspection of the insect; and that feeling is equally a natural impulse which prompts him to the death of the spider without hesitation. So with me—it is enough that I hate this boy, though possessed of numberless attractions of mind and person. Shall I do him the kindness to inquire whether there be reason for the mood which prompts me to destroy him?"
"You were always too much for me, Guy, at this sort of argument, and you talk the matter over ingeniously enough, I grant; but still I am not satisfied, that a mere antipathy, without show of reason, originally induced your dislike to this young man. When you first sought to do him up, you were conscious of this, and gave, as a reason for the desire, the cut upon your face, which so much disfigured your loveliness."
Rivers did not appear very much to relish or regard this speech, which had something of satire in it; but he was wise enough to restrain his feelings, as, reverting back to their original topic, he spoke in the following manner:—
"You are unusually earnest after reasons and motives for action, to-night: is it not strange, Munro, that it has never occasioned surprise in your mind, that one like myself, so far superior in numerous respects to the men I have consented to lead and herd with, should have made such my profession?"
"Not at all," was the immediate and ready response of his companion. "Not at all. This was no mystery to me, for I very well knew that you had no choice, no alternative. What else could you have done? Outlawed and under sentence, I knew that you could never return, in any safety or security, whatever might be your disguise, to the society which had driven you out—and I'm sure that your chance would be but a bad one were you to seek a return to the old practice at Gwinnett courthouse. Any attempt there to argue a fellow out of the halter would be only to argue yourself into it."
"Pshaw, Munro, that is the case now—that is the necessity and difficulty of to-day. But where, and what was the necessity, think you, when, in the midst of good practice at Gwinnett bar, where I ruled without competitor, riding roughshod over bench, bar, and jury, dreaded alike by all, I threw myself into the ranks of these men, and put on their habits? I speak not now in praise of myself, more than the facts, as you yourself know them, will sufficiently warrant. I am now above those idle vanities which would make me deceive myself as to my own mental merits; but, that such was my standing there and then, I hold indisputable."
"It is true. I sometimes look back and laugh at the manner in which you used to bully the old judge, and the gaping jury, and your own brother lawyers, while the foam would run through your clenched teeth and from your lips in very passion; and then I wondered, when you were doing so well, that you ever gave up there, to undertake a business, the very first job in which put your neck in danger."
"You may well wonder, Munro. I could not well explain the mystery to myself, were I to try; and it is this which made the question and doubt which we set out to explain. To those who knew me well from the first, it is not matter of surprise that I should be for ever in excitements of one kind or another. From my childhood up, my temper was of a restless and unquiet character—I was always a peevish, a fretful and discontented person. I looked with scorn and contempt upon the humdrum ways of those about me, and longed for perpetual change, and wild and stirring incidents. My passions, always fretful and excitable, were never satisfied except when I was employed in some way which enabled me to feed and keep alive the irritation which was their and my very breath of life. With such a spirit, how could I be what men style and consider a good man? What folly to expect it. Virtue is but a sleepy, in-door, domestic quality—inconsistent with enterprise or great activity. There are no drones so perfect in the world as the truly orthodox. Hence the usual superiority of a dissenting, over an established church. It is for this reason, too, and from this cause, that a great man is seldom, if ever, a good one. It is inconsistent with the very nature of things to expect it, unless it be from a co-operation of singular circumstances, whose return is with the comets. Vice, on the contrary, is endowed with strong passions—a feverish thirst after forbidden fruits and waters—a bird-nesting propensity, that carries it away from the haunts of the crowded city, into strange wilds and interminable forests. It lives upon adventure—it counts its years by incidents, and has no other mode of computing time or of enjoying life. This fact—and it is undeniable with respect to both the parties—will furnish a sufficient reason why the best heroes of the best poets are always great criminals. Were this not the case, from what would the interest be drawn?—where would be the incident, if all men, pursuing the quiet paths of non-interference with the rights, the lives, or the liberties of one another, spilt no blood, invaded no territory, robbed no lord of his lady, enslaved and made no captives in war? A virtuous hero would be a useless personage both in play and poem—and the spectator or reader would fall asleep over the utterance of stale apothegms. What writer of sense, for instance, would dream of bringing up George Washington to figure in either of these forms before the world—and how, if he did so, would he prevent reader or auditor from getting excessively tired, and perhaps disgusted, with one, whom all men are now agreed to regard as the hero of civilization? Nor do I utter sentiments which are subjects either of doubt or disputation. I could put the question in such a form as would bring the million to agree with me. Look, for instance, at the execution of a criminal. See the thousands that will assemble, day after day, after travelling miles for that single object, to gape and gaze upon the last agonizing pangs and paroxsyms of a fellow-creature—not regarding for an instant the fatigue of their position, the press of the crowd, or the loss of a dinner—totally insusceptible, it would seem, of the several influences of heat and cold, wind and rain, which at any other time would drive them to their beds or firesides. The same motive which provokes this desire in the spectator, is the parent, to a certain extent, of the very crime which has led to the exhibition. It is the morbid appetite, which sometimes grows to madness—the creature of unregulated passions, ill-judged direction, and sometimes, even of the laws and usages of society itself, which is so much interested in the promotion of characteristics the very reverse. It may be that I have more of this perilous stuff about me than the generality of mankind; but I am satisfied there are few of them, taught as I have been, and the prey of like influences, whose temper had been very different from mine. The early and operating circumstances under which I grew up, all tended to the rank growth and encouragement of the more violent and vexing passions. I was the victim of a tyranny, which, in the end, made me too a tyrant. To feel, myself, and exercise the temper thus taught me, I had to acquire power in order to secure victims; and all my aims in life, all my desires, tended to this one pursuit. Indifferent to me, alike, the spider who could sting, or the harmless butterfly whose only offensiveness is in the folly of his wearing a glitter which he can not take care of. I was a merciless enemy, giving no quarter; and with an Ishmaelitish spirit, lifting my hand against all the tribes that were buzzing around me."
"I believe you have spoken the truth, Guy, so far as your particular qualities of temper are concerned; for, had I undertaken to have spoken for you in relation to this subject, I should probably have said, though not to the same degree, the same thing; but the wonder with me is, how, with such feelings, you should have so long remained in quiet, and in some respects, perfectly harmless."
"There is as little mystery in the one as in the other. You may judge that my sphere of action—speaking of action in a literal sense—was rather circumscribed at Gwinnett courthouse: but, the fact is, I was then but acquiring my education. I was, for the first time, studying rogues, and the study of rogues is not unaptly fitted to make one take up the business. I, at least, found it to have that effect. But, even at Gwinnett courthouse, learning as I did, and what I did, there was one passion, or perhaps a modified form of the ruling passion, which might have swallowed up all the rest had time been allowed it. I was young, and not free from vanity; particularly as, for the first time, my ears had been won with praise and gentle flatteries. The possession of early, and afterward undisputed talents, acquired for me deference and respect; and I was soon tempted to desire the applauses of the swinish multitude, and to feel a thirsting after public distinction. In short, I grew ambitious. I soon became sick and tired of the applauses, the fame, of my own ten-mile horizon; its origin seemed equivocal, its worth and quality questionable, at the best. My spirit grew troubled with a wholesale discontent, and roved in search of a wider field, a more elevated and extensive empire. But how could I, the petty lawyer of a county court, in the midst of a wilderness, appropriate time, find means and opportunities even for travel? I was poor, and profits are few to a small lawyer, whose best cases are paid for by a bale of cotton or a negro, when both of them are down in the market. In vain, and repeatedly, did I struggle with circumstances that for ever foiled me in my desires; until, in a rash and accursed hour, when chance, and you, and the devil, threw the opportunity for crime in my path! It did not escape me, and—but you know the rest."
"I do, but would rather hear you tell it. When you speak thus, you put me in mind of some of the stump-speeches you used to make when you ran for the legislature."
"Ay, that was another, and not the least of the many reverses which my ambition was doomed to meet with. You knew the man who opposed me; you know that a more shallow and insignificant fop and fool never yet dared to thrust his head into a deliberative assembly. But, he was rich, and I poor. He a potato, the growth of the soil; I, though generally admitted a plant of more promise and pretension—I was an exotic! He was a patrician—one of the small nobility—a growth, sui generis, of the place—"
"Damn your law-phrases! stop with that, if you please."
"Well, well! he was one of the great men; I was a poor plebeian, whose chief misfortune, at that time, consisted in my not having a father or a great-grandfather a better man than myself! His money did the work, and I was bought and beat out of my election, which I considered certain. I then acquired knowledge of two things. I learned duly to estimate the value of the democratic principle, when I beheld the vile slaves, whose votes his money had commanded, laughing in scorn at the miserable creature they had themselves put over them. They felt not—not they—the double shame of their doings. They felt that he was King Log, but never felt how despicable they were as his subjects. This taught me, too, the value of money—its wonderful magic and mystery. In the mood occasioned by all these things, you found me, for the first time, and in a ready temper for any villany. You attempted to console me for my defeats, but I heard you not until you spoke of revenge. I was not then to learn how to be vindictive: I had always been so. I knew, by instinct, how to lap blood; you only taught me how to scent it! My first great crime proved my nature. Performed under your direction, though without your aid, it was wantonly cruel in its execution, since the prize desired might readily have been obtained without the life of its possessor. You, more merciful than myself, would have held me back, and arrested my stroke; but that would have been taking from the repast its finish: the pleasure, for it was such to me in my condition of mind, would have been lost entirely. It may sound strangely even in your ears when I say so, but I could no more have kept my knife from that man's throat than I could have taken wing for the heavens. He was a poor coward; made no struggle, and begged most piteously for his life; had the audacity to talk of his great possessions, his rank in society, his wife and children. These were enjoyments all withheld from me; these were the very things the want of which had made me what I was—what I am—and furiously I struck my weapon into his mouth, silencing his insulting speech. Should such a mean spirit as his have joys which were denied to me? I spurned his quivering carcass with my foot. At that moment I felt myself; I had something to live for. I knew my appetite, and felt that it was native. I had acquired a knowledge of a new luxury, and ceased to wonder at the crimes of a Nero and a Caligula. Think you, Munro, that the thousands who assemble at the execution of a criminal trouble themselves to inquire into the merits of his case—into the justice of his death and punishment? Ask they whether he is the victim of justice or of tyranny? No! they go to see a show—they love blood, and in this way have the enjoyment furnished to their hands, without the risk which must follow the shedding of it for themselves."
"There is one thing, Guy, upon which I never thought to ask you. What became of that beautiful young girl from Carolina, on a visit to the village, when you lost your election? You were then cavorting about her in great style, and I could see that you were well nigh as much mad after her as upon the loss of the seat."
Rivers started at the inquiry in astonishment. He had never fancied that, in such matters, Munro had been so observant, and for a few moments gave no reply. He evidently winced beneath the inquiry; but he soon recovered himself, however—for, though at times exhibiting the passions of a demoniac, he was too much of a proficient not to be able, in the end, to command the coolness of the villain.
"I had thought to have said nothing on this subject, Munro, but there are few things which escape your observation. In replying to you on this point, you will now have all the mystery explained of my rancorous pursuit of this boy. That girl—then a mere girl—refused me, as perhaps you know; and when, heated with wine and irritated with rejection, I pressed the point rather too warmly, she treated me with contempt and withdrew from the apartment. This youth is the favored, the successful rival. Look upon this picture, Walter—now, while the moon streams through the branches upon it—and wonder not that it maddened, and still maddens me, to think that, for his smooth face and aristocratic airs of superiority, I was to be sacrificed and despised. She was probably a year younger than himself; but I saw at the time, though both of them appeared unconscious of the fact, that she loved him then. What with her rejection and scorn, coming at the same time with my election defeat, I am what I am. These defeats were wormwood to my soul; and, if I am criminal, the parties concerned in them have been the cause of the crime."
"A very consoling argument, if you could only prove it!"
"Very likely—you are not alone. The million would say with yourself. But hear the case as I put it, and not as it is put by the majority. Providence endowed me with a certain superiority of mind over my fellows. I had capacities which they had not—talents to which they did not aspire, and the possession of which they readily conceded to me. These talents fitted me for certain stations in society, to which, as I had the talents pre-eminently for such stations, the inference is fair that Providence intended me for some such stations. But I was denied my place. Society, guilty of favoritism and prejudice, gave to others, not so well fitted as myself for its purposes or necessities, the station in all particulars designed for me. I was denied my birthright, and rebelled. Can society complain, when prostituting herself and depriving me of my rights, that I resisted her usurpation and denied her authority? Shall she, doing wrong herself in the first instance, undertake to punish? Surely not. My rights were admitted—my superior capacity: but the people were rotten to the core; they had not even the virtue of truth to themselves. They made their own governors of the vilest and the worst. They willingly became slaves, and are punished in more ways than one. They first create the tyrants—for tyrants are the creatures of the people they sway, and never make themselves; they next drive into banishment their more legitimate rulers; and the consequence, in the third place, is, that they make enemies of those whom they exile. Such is the case with me, and such—but hark! That surely is the tread of a horse. Do you hear it? there is no mistake now—" and as he spoke, the measured trampings were heard resounding at some distance, seemingly in advance of them.
"We must now use the spur, Munro; your horses have had indulgence enough for the last hour, and we may tax them a little now."
"Well, push on as you please; but do you know anything of this route, and what course will you pursue in doing him up?"
"Leave all that to me. As for the route, it is an old acquaintance; and the blaze on this tree reminds me that we can here have a short cut which will carry us at a good sweep round this hill, bringing us upon the main trace about two miles farther down. We must take this course, and spur on, that we may get ahead of him, and be quietly stationed when he comes. We shall gain it, I am confident, before our man, who seems to be taking it easily. He will have three miles at the least to go, and over a road that will keep him in a walk half the way. We shall be there in time."
They reached the point proposed in due season. Their victim had not yet made his appearance, and they had sufficient time for all their arrangements. The place was one well calculated for the successful accomplishment of a deed of darkness. The road at the foot of the hill narrowed into a path scarcely wide enough for the passage of a single horseman. The shrubbery and copse on either side overhung it, and in many places were so thickly interwoven, that when, as at intervals of the night, the moon shone out among the thick and broken clouds which hung upon and mostly obscured her course, her scattered rays scarcely penetrated the dense enclosure.
At length the horseman approached, and in silence. Descending the hill, his motion was slow and tedious. He entered the fatal avenue; and, when in the midst of it, Rivers started from the side of his comrade, and, advancing under the shelter of a tree, awaited his progress. He came—no word was spoken—a single stroke was given, and the horseman, throwing up his hands, grasped the limb which projected over, while his horse passed from under him. He held on for a moment to the branch, while a groan of deepest agony broke from his lips, when he fell supine to the ground. At that moment, the moon shone forth unimpeded and unobscured by a single cloud. The person of the wounded man was fully apparent to the sight. He struggled, but spoke not; and the hand of Rivers was again uplifted, when Munro rushed forward.
"Stay—away, Guy!—we are mistaken—this is not our man!"
The victim heard the words, and, with something like an effort at a laugh, though seemingly in great agony, exclaimed—
"Ah, Munro, is that you?—I am so glad! but I'm afraid you come too late. This is a cruel blow; and—for what? What have I done to you, that—oh!—"
The tones of the voice—the person of the suffering man—were now readily distinguishable.
"Good God! Rivers, what is to be the end of all this blundering?"
"Who would have thought to find him here?" was the ferocious answer; the disappointed malice of the speaker prompting him to the bitterest feelings against the unintended victim—"why was he in the way? he is always in the way!"
"I am afraid you've done for him."
"We must be sure of it."
"Great God! would you kill him?"
"Why not? It must be done now."
The wounded man beheld the action of the speaker, and heard the discussion. He gasped out a prayer for life:—
"Spare me, Guy! Save me, Wat, if you have a man's heart in your bosom. Save me! spare me! I would live! I—oh, spare me!"
And the dying man threw up his hands feebly, in order to avert the blow; but it was in vain. Munro would have interposed, but, this time, the murderer was too quick for him, if not too strong. With a sudden rush he flung his associate aside, stooped down, and smote—smote fatally.
"Kate!—ah!—O God, have mercy!"
The wretched and unsuspecting victim fell back upon the earth with these last words—dead—sent to his dread account, with all his sins upon his head! And what a dream of simple happiness in two fond, feeble hearts, was thus cruelly and terribly dispersed for ever!