Oh! it is terrible to see a man so full of life and health but yesterday, look thus.
"Is he quite dead?" said George Norton. "My poor dear master!—my good generous master! Noah, lend a hand to raise him up."
With a deep groan I seconded his efforts, and the head of the murdered man rested upon my knees. As I crouched beside him on the ground, a viper was gnawing at my heart. I would have given my chance of an eternity of bliss, which not many hours ago I had possessed as man's only true inheritance, to have recalled the transactions of that dreadful night.
"See, here is a wound in his breast," cried I. "He has not been shot, but stabbed with a long sharp dirk or knife. He must have been taken unawares, for he seems to have made no effort to defend himself."
"Here is his hat," cried another. "The back of it is all battered and crushed in. He has been knocked down and then stabbed. Oh, that Martin—that infernal villain!"
Whenever I heard Martin reproached as the murderer, I fancied that those dead eyes of my master looked into my soul with a mournful scorn. Yet I lacked the moral courage to say, "I am the man."
We formed a litter of boughs, and carried the body up to the Hall. We had not proceeded many steps on our sad journey, before Norton stumbled over something in the path. It was the bloody knife.
"Here is something that will give a clue to the mystery. By Jove! Bill Martin's American knife. He was showing this wicked-looking blade and bragging about it the other night at the White Horse. Murder will out. If evidence were wanted of his guilt, this knife would hang him. Faugh! the blood is still wet upon the blade."
The knife passed from hand to hand, and to mine among the rest. I did not see the blood. It appeared to me red-hot—to glow and flicker with the flames of hell.
It was the dawn of day when we reached the Hall with our melancholy burthen. The fatal news had travelled there before us. Half the inhabitants of the village were collected on the lawn. The old servants were standing on the steps to receive the body of their master. As we drew near, cries and groans arose on every side.