"Well, you stay, and I will go down?" replied the first.
"Not I!" was the answer. "I'll not stay here in the dark with him."
"Then go down, and do not waste more time," said the first, somewhat sharply. "Tell the boy, if he ask, that the old man cut your hand while you were tying him--but, at all events, make haste!"
The other obeyed, and after a long and silent interval, returned with the light. It flashed upon a ghastly spectacle. There, on the floor, at a short distance from the bell-rope, which he had been endeavouring to reach, lay the figure of the unhappy miser in the midst of a pool of gore, which was still flowing slowly from two deep gashes in his throat. His mouth was open, and seemed in the very act of gasping. His eyes were unclosed and turned up, with a cold dull meaningless stare; and his gray hair, long, lank, and untrimmed, lay upon his ashy cheeks, dabbled with his own blood. By his side, exactly on the very spot where he had stood when the other left him, appeared the murderer. His features could not be seen, for they were still concealed by the crape over his face; but the attitude of his head and whole person evinced that his eyes were fixed, through the black covering, upon the spot where his victim lay, now first made visible to his sight by the entrance of the light. In his hand was a long clasp-knife, hanging laxly, with the point towards the ground, and a drop or two of blood had dripped from it upon the floor. The disarrayed chamber, the overturned furniture, and a small stream of blood that was winding its way amidst the inequalities of an old-fashioned floor, towards the doorway, where the beams had sunk a little, made up the rest of the scene--and a fearful scene it was.
"Is he quite dead?" demanded the man who entered, after a momentary pause.
"As dead as Adam!" replied the other, "And, as the business is done, there is no use of thinking more about it!" But the very words he used, might seem to imply that he had already been thinking more of what had passed than was very pleasing. "Such obstinate fools will have their own way--I never intended to kill him, I am sure; but he would have it; and he is quiet enough now!"
The other approached, and though, perhaps, the less resolute ruffian of the two, he now gazed upon the corpse, and spoke of it with that degree of vulgar jocularity, which is often affected to conceal more tremour and agitation than the actors in any horrid scenes may think becoming. Perhaps it was the same feelings that attempted to mask themselves in the overdone gaiety which Cromwell displayed on the trial and death of Charles Stuart.
"The old covey is quiet enough now, as you say!" remarked the inferior ruffian, drawing near with the light. "His tongue will never put you or I into the stone pitcher, Stephen."
"His blood may," replied the other, "if we do not make haste. She said the key of the chest was always upon him. There it is in his hand, as I live! We must make you let go your hold, sir--But you grasp it as tight in death as you did in life."
With some difficulty the fingers of the dead man were unclosed, and the large key of the iron safe wrenched from his grasp. The freshly stimulated thirst of plunder, did away, for the moment, all feelings of remorse and awe; and the two ruffians hastened to unlock the iron door in the wall, the one wielding the key, while the other held the light, and gazed eagerly over his shoulder. The first drawer they opened caused them both to draw a long deep breath of self-gratulation, so splendid was the sight of the golden rows of new sovereigns and old guineas it displayed. A bag was instantly produced, and the whole contents emptied in uncounted. The hand of the principal plunderer was upon the second drawer, when a loud ring at the house-bell startled them in their proceedings.