“Listen, Zindorf,” he cried; “the bell began to toll for Duncan, but it tolls now for the murderer of Ordez. It tolls to raise the country against the assassin!”
The false monk had the courage of his master. He stood out and faced my father.
“But can you find him, Pendleton,” he said. And his harsh voice was firm. “You find Ordez dead; well, some assassin shot him and carried his body into the cut of the abandoned road. But who was that assassin? Is Virginia scant of murderers? Do you know the right one?”
My father answered in his great dominating voice
“God knows him, Zindorf, and I know him!... The man who murdered Ordez made a fatal blunder... He used a sign of God in the service of the devil and he is ruined!”
The big man stepped slowly backward into the room, while my father's voice, filling the big empty spaces of the house, followed after him.
“You are lost, Zindorf! Satan is insulted, and God is outraged! You are lost!”
There was a moment's silence; from outside came the sound of men and horses. The notes of the girl, light, happy, ascended from the lower chamber, as she sang about her preparations for the journey. Zindorf continued to step awfully backward. And Lucian Morrow, shaken and sober, cried out in the extremity of fear:
“In God's name, Pendleton, what do you mean; Zindorf, using a sign of God in the service of the devil.”
And my father answered him: