“Your wife—my mother—was stoned to death by her tribe in the snow mountains back of Granada!”
My father sprang to his feet. For a moment he stood up, stiff and stark, like a marble shaft: then he reeled forward and fell prone upon the cushions, with a cry that made every nerve in my body quake.
That cry, that prostrate form, O God forgive me! barbarian that I was—my voice had smitten him to the soul. I, his only child, had fiendishly hurled him down to die! I looked upon him where he lay, ghastly and quivering, like a shot eagle, among the cushions. All the sweet memories of my infancy came back: a remembrance of the first tender kisses those lips had pressed on my forehead, seemed burning there in curses of my cruelty. I knelt down beside him, humbled to the dust, racked with an anguish so scathing, that while I longed to perish by his side, it seemed as if I were doomed to live on forever and ever.
I felt a shudder creep over his limbs as I bent over and touched him.
“Father, O my father!” I cried, in terrible anguish, “speak! say that I have not killed you!”
He did not speak; he did not move; his eyes were closed; his pale hand lay nerveless upon the carpet. An awful chill crept over me. I felt like a murderess stricken with the first curse of my crime.
Noises came from the balcony, people were scrambling up the steps, probably aroused by that fearful cry. I heard Turner’s voice—other persons were with him. One a professional-looking man, who held a roll of paper in his hand; another followed, carrying an inkstand bristling with pens. The first man sat down by a table, upon which some vases stood, and, unrolling a parchment, looked keenly at Turner.
“Awake him gently, there is no time to lose; this terrible effort must soon terminate all.”
Turner knelt down by his master, and I drew back, waiting breathlessly for him to speak; my very salvation seemed hanging on his first word. How white he grew; how those old hands shook as they touched the pale fingers that had fallen over the cushion! It was a long time before that good old man could master the tears that swelled to his throat. The stillness was profound. No one stirred; the barrister sat with one hand pressed on the will he had come to execute; the other held the pen suspended motionless.
“Will he sign now?” questioned the man, in a low voice; “it is all that is wanting.”