"Villain!" cried Morcar, tearing the bag of gold from his grasp: "is this the reward of our hospitality?"
"It's mine—and I can prove it," thundered the Resurrection Man. "But let me go—I don't want to hurt any of you—and you needn't hurt me."
"Ah! that voice!" ejaculated the Traveller, who had just reached the bottom of the stairs as Tidkins uttered those words: then, before a single arm could even be stretched out to restrain him, he rushed with the fury of a demon upon the Resurrection Man, and planted his long dagger in the miscreant's breast.
Tidkins fell: a cry of horror broke from the gipsies; and the Traveller was instantly secured.
"He is not dead—but he is dying," exclaimed Morcar, raising the Resurrection Man in his arms.
"Tell him, then," cried the Traveller, in a tone of mingled triumph and joy,—"tell him that the man who was transported four years ago by his infernal treachery has at length been avenged,—tell him that he dies by the hand of Crankey Jem!"
These words seemed to animate the Resurrection Man for a few moments: he made an effort to speak—but his tongue refused to articulate the curses which his imagination prompted; and, turning a glance of the most diabolical hatred upon the avenger, he sank back insensible in the arms of Morcar.
The gipsies conveyed him up stairs, and placed him on a bed, where Aischa, who, like many females of her race, possessed no inconsiderable amount of medical knowledge, immediately attended upon him.
CHAPTER CXXXVI.
THE SECRET TRIBUNAL.
HALF an hour after the occurrences just related, a strange and terribly romantic scene took place at the Gipsies' Palace in Saint Giles's.