"What do I mean? I will tell you! I loved you, Emerence Bauer, and I hate Henry Schulte for the insult he has put upon me. You scorn my love, and Henry Schulte must pay the penalty. He shall never possess you, for—I mean to kill you!"
With a wild shriek, that rang through the air as the cry of a frightened bird, Emerence turned to flee from the fiend before her. But, alas, too late! The murderous weapon came down with a dull, heavy crushing sound upon that fair, girlish head, and she fell lifeless at the feet of the madman who had slain her.
"She fell lifeless at the feet of the madman who had slain her."
Without uttering a word Nat Toner lifted up the body of the unfortunate girl and threw it over the low railing of the bridge into the rippling water beneath. A splash followed that sent the water in brightly burnished crystals high in the air—and then the river flowed on, as though unconscious and uncaring for the burden that had been committed to its keeping.
Raising himself to his full height and shaking his blood-red hand in the direction of the village, Nat Toner cried out with demoniac exultation:
"Now, Henry Schulte, I am revenged!"
Saying which, he plunged into a strip of woods that grew near by, and disappeared from view.
Oh, shimmering moon, did no pitying glance fall from thy cold, bright face as this fair, young life was cruelly beaten out by the hand of her brutal assassin? Oh, glittering stars, did no dark clouds intervene between thy merry twinklings and the dreadful scene below? And ye, oh, rippling river, did no murmur escape thee as the crimson tide of this fair dead girl mingled with thy transparent waves and floated away into the darkness of the night?