“Her hand it was that wiped the death-dew from the fading forehead, returned the last pressure of the failing fingers, and closed the glazing eyes of the dead victim—dead by her deed. But they
“‘Are in their graves, where she,
Their murderess, soon shall be.’
“For she has lost the game at which she staked her soul, and sits there now to wait her doom.
“Bowed down and crushed almost unto death is she? Aye, not by grief for her sin, but for that ‘sin’s detection and despair.’
“Beautiful, is she? Aye! beautiful as all the fatal growths of her native clime! beautiful as the spotted serpent of her jungles—as the striped tigress of her forests—as the stately ignatia of her plains!
“Thank Heaven, she is not a native of civilized and Christian Europe, but of that deadly clime where the fierce heat of the sun draws from the earth the most noxious plants, and developes in man and brute the most ferocious passions—the land of the upas and the cobra—the land of Nena Sahib!
“But enough,” he concluded. He would not deal in invective, or seek to exaggerate that guilt which no words of the prosecutor could magnify. He had stated the facts of the case; he would now proceed to call witnesses to prove them.
This severe opening charge was felt by all to be no mere official denunciation by the prosecutor, but the awful truth, as he himself believed it to be, and finally succeeded in causing judge, jury, and audience to accept it.
Its effect upon the poor young prisoner was overwhelming. She drooped still lower, and breathed from the depths of her wounded spirit—