A short violent shriek followed, as she staggered back and fell.
“Staunch the blood,” she exclaimed, “staunch the blood, an' there may be a chance of life yet.”
The man threw the dagger down, and was in the act of rushing out, when the door opened, and a posse of constables entered the house. Nell's face became at once ghastly and horror-stricken, for she found that the blood could not be staunched, and that, in fact, eternity was about to open upon her.
“Secure him!” said Nell, pointing to her murderer, “secure him, an' send quick for Lamh Laudher More. God's hand is in what has happened! Ay, I raised the blow for him, an' God has sent it to my own heart. Send, too,” she added, “for the Dead Boxer's wife, an' if you expect heaven, be quick.”
On receiving Nell's message the old man, his son, wife, and one or two other friends, immediately hurried to the scene of death, where they arrived a few minutes after the Dead Boxer's wife.
Nell lay in dreadful agony; her face was now a bluish yellow, her eye-brows were bent, and her eyes getting dead and vacant.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, “Andy Hart! Andy Hart! it was the black hour you brought me from the right way. I was innocent till I met you, an' well thought of; but what was I ever since? an' what am I now?”
“You never met me,” said the red-haired stranger, “till within the last fortnight.”
“What do you mean, you unfortunate man?” asked Rody.
“Andy Hart was my name,” said the man, “although I didn't go by it for some years.”