"Calendar of Cases to be tried at the Spring Session of the Court of General Gaol Delivery. Presiding Deemster—DEEMSTER VICTOR STOWELL."
Then came a moral thunderclap. Opening the Calendar he read these words on the first page of it:
REX v. CORTEEN
FOR MURDER
DEPOSITIONS.
That Elizabeth Corteen, commonly called Bessie Collister, on or about the fifth day of April—in the parish of Ballaugh, in the Isle of Man, feloniously, wilfully, and of her malice aforethought, did kill and murder a certain male child, contrary to the form of the Statute in such cases made and provided, and against the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his Crown and dignity.
A mist rose before Stowell's eyes. He could not read any more, but stood for a moment looking down at the writing. Life seemed to run out of him in a pounding rush. The walls of the room, and particularly the picture of his mother, began to reel about in a rapidly increasing vertigo. He put his hand on a chair but felt nothing. At the next moment darkness came and he knew no more.
END OF THIRD BOOK
FOURTH BOOK
THE RETRIBUTION
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE WIND AND THE WHIRLWIND
Next day the insular newspapers announced that the new Deemster, on his return home from Castletown, after the ceremony of his swearing-in, had had a sudden seizure. A heavy fall had been heard by the servants, and they had found their master lying on the floor of the library, unconscious.