"Thank God!" continued Hatchie, "we have beaten them off."
"Heaven is kinder to me than I deserve," murmured Emily, bursting into tears, as the terrible scene through which she had just passed was fully realized. "But where is Henry—Captain Carroll—is he safe?"
"All safe, ma'am; the catamounts have not been in his room," replied Jerry Swinger. "Cheer up, ma'am; it mought have been worse."
"Let us carry this carrion from the house," said Hatchie, seizing the prostrate Vernon in no gentle gripe. "Let us fasten him to a tree, and I will not take my eye from him or the lawyer till both are hung."
"Stay, stay, Hatchie!" exclaimed Dr. Vandelier, who at that moment entered. "He is my son!"
"Good heavens!" said Emily, rising from her recumbent posture on the sofa.
"It is indeed true," replied the doctor, in a melancholy tone. "I would that he had died in the innocency of his childhood. I recognized him as he entered the house, and had nearly lost my consciousness, as the terrible reality stared me in the face, that my son, he whose childhood I had watched over, who once called me by the endearing name of father, is a common midnight assassin!
"Is he your persecutor?" continued the doctor, relieved by an abundant shower of tears which the terrible truth had called to his eyes. "Is he the person who has caused you so much trouble?"
"No, no, sir!" responded Emily, eager to afford the slightest comfort to the bereaved heart of the father; "he only acted for Maxwell."
"A hired villain! without even the paltry excuse of an interested motive to palliate the offence. O God! that I should be brought so low!"—and the doctor wrung his hands in anguish.