"Her have a gat 'un now," cried a clown, running round the end of the house, as if he were enjoying it. "Reckon our passon wun't baite much moore, after Passon Jack be atop of 'un."
"Oh sir, oh sir, oh for God's sake, sir," cried the poor lady who had lain on the ground, rushing up to us, and kneeling, and trying to get hold of us; "you must have come to stop it, sir. Only one hour—allow him one hour, dear, dear sirs, for repentance. He has not been a good man, I know, but I am his own wife, good kind sirs—and if he could only have a little time, if it were only half an hour—he might, he might——"
Here a sound of throttling came through a broken windowpane, and down she fell insensible.
"What does it mean?" cried Rodney Bluett; "is it murder, madness, or suicide? Follow me, Davy. Here I go, anyhow, into the thick of it."
He dashed through the window; and I with more caution, cocking my pistol, followed him, while I heard the clown shouting after us—
"Danged vules both of 'e. Bide outside, bide outside, I tell 'e."
Oh that we had remained outside! I have been through a great deal of horrible sights, enough to harden any man, and cure him of womanly squeamishness. Yet never did I behold, or dream of, anything so awful as the scene that lay before me. People were longing to look at it now, but none (save ourselves) durst enter.
It was Chowne's own dining-room, all in the dark, except where a lamp had been brought in by a trembling footman, who ran away, knowing that he brought this light for his master to be strangled by. And in the corner now lay his master, smothered under a feather-bed; yet with his vicious head fetched out in the last rabid struggle to bite. There was the black hair, black face, and black tongue, shown by the frothy wainscot, or between it and the ticking. On the feather-bed lay exhausted, and with his mighty frame convulsed, so that a child might master him, Parson Jack Rambone, the strongest man, whose strength (like all other powers) had laid a horrible duty upon him. Sobbing with all his great heart he lay, yet afraid to take his weight off, and sweating at every pore with labour, peril of his life, and agony.
"Oh Dick, Dick," he said, quite softly, and between his pantings; "how many larks have we had together, and for me to have to do this to you! I am sure you knew me, before you died. I think you know me now, Dick. Oh, for God's sake, shut your eyes! Darling Dick, are you dead, are you dead? You are the very cleverest fellow ever I came across of. You can do it, if you like. Oh, dear Dick, Dick, my boy, do shut your eyes!"
We stood looking at them, with no power to go up to them; all experience failed us as to what was the proper thing to do, till I saw that Chowne's face ought to have a napkin over it. None had been laid for dinner; but I knew where butlers keep them.