"Hardcastle," said their leader, "I shall find some means of punishing you. As for you, Wiley----"
"You shall not punish me, Captain Gray!" interrupted Wiley, knitting his brows and speaking through his teeth; "for by----, if you don't mind what you're about, I'll hang you all."
Franklin Gray sat and heard him calmly, keeping his eyes fixed upon him with stern unchanging gaze till he had done speaking. He then looked round once more, saying, "You hear!" and, at the same moment, he drew a pistol from under his coat. Every face around turned pale but his own; and Wiley started up from the table. But before he could take a single step, and while yet, with agony of approaching fate upon him, he gazed irresolute in the face of his leader, the unerring hand of Franklin Gray had levelled the pistol and fired.
The ball went right through his head; the unhappy man bounded up two or three feet from the ground, and then fell dead at the end of the table. Franklin Gray sat perfectly still, gazing through the smoke for about a minute; and through the whole hall reigned an awful silence. He then laid the pistol calmly down on the table before him, and drew forth a second.
Hardcastle crossed his arms upon his breast, and looked him full in the face, saying, "Well, Captain, I'm ready."
"You mistake me," said Gray, laying down the pistol on the table, with the muzzle towards himself. "My friends, if I have done wrong by the shot I have fired, any of you that so pleases, has but to take up that pistol and use it as boldly as I have done its fellow. What say you; am I right or wrong?"
"Right, right!" replied every voice.
"Well, then," said Gray, putting up the weapons again, "some of you take him down; and you, Doveton and Marcham, hark ye;" and he spoke a few words to them apart. "Take Hardcastle with you," he added; "that shall be his punishment!" so saying, he turned, took up a lamp that stood near, and quitted the hall.
Franklin Gray mounted the steps in the tower that we have mentioned, slowly and sadly; paused halfway up, and fell into deep thought. His reverie lasted but a minute: he then proceeded, and reached the room where the fair being whom he called Mona was watching anxiously for his coming. Her eyes questioned him; but he made no reply in words. He threw his right arm round her, however and rested his face upon her bosom for several minutes, with his eyes shut; then pressed her to his heart, kissed her cheek, and said "Come my Mona, come and see our babe sleeping."