"So you prefer to remain here and be disgraced, eh? My plan is the only one left and to-night is the only time for the doing. If we succeed Spain will gloss over the affair; if we fail——"
"Stop, Gabriel, I won't listen to you, and I'll do no more of your hellish work. A few mouths ago my life was at least decent. I'll have no dealings with you after what you have said. I can only thank God that I was with you in this, else that poor girl would have had no mercy shown her and would now be dead. Perhaps that will atone a little when I meet my Maker. I'll expose you, Dasso—you—you murderer."
The spring that Dasso made took the lieutenant unawares and bore him heavily to the ground, his head striking one of the carved iron firedogs as he went down with a dull crash, and he lay still where he had fallen. The face of the elder man was livid with passion.
"You'll expose me, eh? Murderer, eh? Many have thought that, but no one has called me it to my face." The fingers were tightening round the throat of the unconscious officer.
"When—you—meet—your—Maker, you said. That will be to-night, my friend." He pressed more heavily, leaning his weight full upon the body.
And when all was over and the form beneath him no longer made any movement or sound, he stood up. There were great beads of moisture on his face, and the decanter clinked pitifully against the glass as he poured out more wine.
He took the cloth from the long sideboard and dropped it over the face of the man on the floor.
Now the sound that they had heard came to him again in little bursts, and he walked unsteadily to the window. Pieces of the glass dropped by Mozara crunched under his heel.
The lamp had not been relit, and the murderer was able to see clearly into the moon-bathed street. The Three Lilies was in darkness—evidently the sound had not come from that quarter.
Again. This time it was more pronounced, and Dasso could make out a dark patch, dotted with lantern light, moving towards the house from the direction of the town. As the murmur grew more distinct, the watching man could make out a word here and there; they were calling his name, and the epithets attached to it were not flattering.