As he thus spoke, the wind swept vehemently upon the windows with a sound as if some great thing had rushed, against them, and was pressing for admission, and the gust blew out the candle; the blast died away in a lengthened wail, and then again came rushing and howling up to the windows, as if the very prince of the powers of the air himself were thundering at the casement; then again the blue dazzling lightning glared into the room and gave place to deeper darkness.
"Pah! that lightning smells like brimstone. Sangue d'un dua, I hear something in the room."
Yielding to his terrors, Parucci stumbled to the door opening upon the great lobby, and with cold and trembling fingers drawing the bolt, sprang to the stairs and shouted for assistance in a tone which speedily assembled half the household in the chamber of death.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE CRONES—THE CORPSE, AND THE SHARPER.
Haggard, exhausted, and in no very pleasant temper, Henry Ashwoode rode up the avenue of Morley Court.
"I shall have a blessed conference with my father," thought he, "when he learns the fate of the thousand pounds I was to have brought him—a pleasant interview, by ——. How shall I open it? He'll be no better than a Bedlamite. By ——, a pretty hot kettle of fish this—but through it I must flounder as best I may—curse it, what am I afraid of?"
Thus muttering, he leaped from the saddle, leaving the well-trained steed to make his way to the stable, and entered at the half open door. In the hall he encountered a servant, but was too much occupied by his own busy reflections to observe the earnest, awe-struck countenance of the old domestic.
"Mr. Henry—Mr. Henry—stay, sir—stay—one moment," said the man, following and endeavouring to detain him.