“You are a cursed fellow, Liot Borson, and in the devil’s own temper; I will stay no longer with you.”
He stepped forward as he spoke, and instantly a cry, shrill with mortal terror, rang across the moor from sea to sea. Liot quickly raised himself, but he had barely time to distinguish the white horror of his enemy’s face and the despair of his upthrown arms. The next moment the moss had swallowed the man, and the thick, peaty water hardly stirred over his engulfing.
For a little while Liot fixed his eyes on the spot; then he lifted his stick and went forward, telling his soul in triumphant undertones: “He has gone down quick into hell; the Lord has brought him down into the pit of destruction; the bloody and deceitful man shall not live out half his days; he has gone to his own place.”
Over and over he reiterated these assurances, stepping securely himself to the ring of their doom. It was not until he saw the light in Paul Borson’s house that the chill of doubt and the sickness of fear assailed him. How could he smile into Karen’s face or clasp her to his breast again? A candle was glimmering in the window of a fisherman’s cottage; he stepped into its light and looked at his hands. There was no stain of blood on them, but he was angry at the involuntary act; he felt it to be an accusation.
Just yet he could not meet Karen. He walked to the pier, and talked to his conscience as he did so. “I never touched the man,” he urged. “I said nothing to lead him wrong. He was full of evil; his last words were such as slay a woman’s honor. I did right not to answer him. A hundred times I have vowed I would not turn a finger to save his life, and God heard and knew my vow. He delivered him into my hand; he let me see the end of the wicked. I am not to blame! I am not to blame!” Then said an interior voice, that he had not silenced, “Go and tell the sheriff what has happened.”
Liot turned home at this advice. Why should he speak now? Bele was dead and buried; let his memory perish with him. He summoned from every nook of his being all the strength of the past, the present, and the future, and with a resolute hand lifted the latch of the door. Karen threw down her knitting and ran to meet him; and when he had kissed her once he felt that the worst was over. Paul asked him about the house, and talked over his plans and probabilities, and after an interval he said:
“I saw Bele Trenby’s ship was ready for sea at the noon hour; she will be miles away by this time. It is a good thing, for Mistress Sabiston may now come to reason.”
“It will make no odds to us; we shall not be the better for Bele’s absence.”
“I think differently. He is one of the worst of men, and he makes everything grow in Matilda’s eyes as he wishes to. Lerwick can well spare him; a bad man, as every one knows.”
“A man that joys the devil. Let us not speak of him.”