"But he will—he will. He is in our hands; and it is entirely to his interest to win our forgiveness for the part he has played. He is one of those people who are always on the side of the stronger.... Look at him."
The man remained motionless. Not a gesture. However his attitude did not look natural. Sitting as he was, half bent over, he should have lost his balance.
"Errington ... Webster ... light him up," Dorothy ordered.
Simultaneously the rays from the two electric lamps fell on him.
Some seconds passed.
"Ah!" sighed Dorothy, who was the first to grasp the terrible fact; and she started back.
All six of them were shocked by the same sight, at first inexplicable. The bust and the head which they believed to be motionless, were bending a little forward, with a movement which was hardly perceptible, but which did not cease. At the bottom of the orbits rose the eyes, quite round, eyes full of terror, which gleamed, like carbuncles, in the concentric fires of the two lamps. His mouth moved convulsively as if to utter a cry which did not issue from it. Then the head settled down on to the chest, dragging the bust with it. They saw for some seconds the ebony hilt of a dagger, the blade of which half buried in the right shoulder, at the junction with the neck, was streaming with blood. And finally the whole body huddled on to itself. Slowly, like a wounded beast, the man sank to his knees on the stone floor, and suddenly fell in a heap.
[CHAPTER XIV]
THE FOURTH MEDAL
Violent though this sensational turn was, it provoked from those who witnessed it neither outcries nor disorder. Something mastered their terror, smothered their words, and restrained their gestures: the impossibility of conceiving how this murder had been committed. The impossible resurrection of the Marquis was transformed into a miracle of death quite as impossible; but they could not deny this miracle since it had taken place before their eyes. In truth, they had the impression, since no living being had entered, that death itself had stepped over the threshold, crossed the room to the man, struck him in their presence with its invisible hand, and then gone away, leaving the murderous weapon in the corpse. None but a phantom could have passed. None but a phantom could have killed.