“Gintlemen, hain’t none o’ yees got no pity fer the ould mither and fayther that hasn’t niver a sowl to wurruk fer ’em an’ suppoort ’em in their fable ould age, barrin’ their only son as stands here wid a rope round his neck?” he asked.
“A son who has supported them by robbery and murder!” cried the same stern voice that had spoken before. “The time is up. Your blood be on your own head!” it added, and at a signal the wagon moved from under the culprit, and left him dangling high in air, the noose tightening about his neck.
The stern executioners stood watching him by the light of their lanterns till fully satisfied that life was extinct, then crowded into their wagons and drove away as they had come.
At the moment of their entrance into the cell Belinda staggered back into the shadow of a tree, at some little distance from the one they had selected as a gallows, from which, in an agony of woe, she witnessed the whole dreadful scene. She was in terror for herself, lest she might be made to share Phelim’s fate, yet that fear was almost swallowed up for the time in the anguish of grief for him that wrung her heart, as she looked upon the tragedy that ended the earthly life of the man she still loved, deeply dyed villain though she knew him to be.
She clung to the tree for support, while eye and ear were intent to catch every expression of his countenance and tone of his voice. But the flickering light of the lanterns gave her only fitful glimpses of his features, and the oaths and curses that fell from his lips were not such words as even she would desire to treasure up in her memory, for they inspired her with no hope that he was going to a better and happier world.
When she saw the wagon driven from under him, and knew that the deed was accomplished, she fell in a heap at the foot of the tree to which she had been clinging, and knew nothing more till roused to consciousness by the sound of the wheels of the departing vehicles.
Feebly she raised herself to a sitting posture, then glanced fearfully around till fully convinced that the self-constituted executioners were gone not to return; then, getting upon her feet like one who had scarce strength to move, she dragged herself to the other tree, where the body was hanging.
It was swaying slowly in the night wind.
“Phelim!” she cried, hoarsely—“Phelim, speak to me! Oh, it can’t be that ye’ll never speak again! Yes, he’s dead; they’d never leave him till they was sure o’ that! Oh, me heart’s broke! I ain’t got nothin’ to live fer no more! I might’s well a let ’em hang me, too!” and weeping, shuddering, tottering with weakness, she crept away to her hiding-place in the woods.
She had no bed but the ground, no covering save the starry canopy of heaven; she had no earthly friend, and had never cared to seek the friendship of that One “who sticketh closer than a brother.”