"Ay, Achmet the Astrologer. Ha! ha! As much an astrologer as you or I. It was his part of our vengeance—my part was to see it carried out. I swore, by my dying mother's bedside, to devote my life to that purpose. Have I not kept my oath?"
She folded her arms and looked at him with a face of devilish malignity. He recoiled from her as from a visible demon.
"For God's sake, go! You bring a breath of hell into this prison.
Go—go! You have done your master's work. Leave me!"
"Not yet; you have heard but half the truth. Oh, potent Prince of Kingsland, hear me out! You will be hanged tomorrow morning for murdering your wife! You didn't murder her, did you? Who do you suppose did it?"
He rose to his feet, staggered back against the wall, his eyes starting from their sockets.
"Great God!"
"Ah, you anticipate, I see. Yes, my lord of Kingsland, I murdered your pretty little wife! Keep off! I have a pistol here, and I'll blow your brains out if you come one step nearer—if you utter a word! I don't want to cheat Jack Ketch, if I can. And it is no use your crying for help—there is no one to hear, and these stone walls are thick. Stand there, my rich, my noble, my princely brother, and listen to the truth."
He stood, holding by the wall, paralyzed with horror.
"Yes, I murdered her!" Sybilla reiterated, with sneering triumph. "Disguised in your clothes, using your dagger; and she died, believing it to be you. All I told, and all the boy Dawson told at the trial was true as the Heaven you believe in. Your wife was true as truth, pure as the angels. She loved only you—she loved you with her whole heart and soul. Her vow by the bedside of her dying father chained her tongue. To save you the shame, the humiliation of learning the truth about her degraded mother, she met in secret this Mr. Parmalee. On that night she went to the stone terrace to see her mother, for the first, the last, the only time. I arranged it all—I lured her there—I stabbed her, and flung her over into the sea! I hated her for your sake—I hated her for her own. And to-morrow, for my crime, you will die!"
And still he gazed, paralyzed, stunned, speechless.