“I said seven, madam; seven men all bruised and”—
He stopped, arrested and confused nearly to choking, by her still smile of scorn.
“Seven men, Lemuel Atkins,” said she, derisively. “Seven men with knives in their hands. Seven armed ruffians, and my husband, bare-handed, crushed them all! Oh, my husband, but I am proud of you! And you, Lemuel Atkins, you have the face to come here, and blazon the shame of your seven hired assassins. Well done!”
Brutal and impudent as he was, Mr. Atkins could not but be abashed at this sarcastic exposure of his inglorious complaint, and stood working his jaw in the effort to collect himself.
“And you want to see my husband?” pursued Muriel. “Good. You shall see him. Richard, throw open those doors.”
Wentworth immediately flung the folding-doors asunder, and Muriel, grasping the merchant by the wrist, drew him into the room, and up to the couch.
“There he is,” said she, “murdered! By you!”
The merchant’s visage instantly changed to a frightful and ghastly blue, his jaw dropped, his hair rose bristling, and, petrified with horror, he stood glaring at the corpse. Like many coarse natures, he had a natural vulgar dread of a dead body, but added to that was the terrific shock of being brought suddenly before the slaughtered corpse of his niece’s husband, the dreadful consciousness that he himself was morally responsible for this ruin, and the soul-sickening fear that now the law would pursue its authors, and that his own wicked and illegal act, with the blood of a murder on it, would be exposed to the public view. The simple illegal kidnapping, at a time when Boston had gone for kidnapping, was nothing; his tribe would wink at that; but with this crime upon it, he never could survive the consequences.
“See,” said Muriel, laying bare the breast, “there is the wound of the knife that slew him. You, Lemuel Atkins, through your agent, struck that blow.”
She looked at him with clear and glowing eyes, but he did not heed her, nor did the ghastly aspect of his visage change. Transfixed with horror, he stood immovable, his gaze bound by a dreadful fascination to the short purple line in an orb of red suffusion on the white breast. But at last, his glassy eyes wandered to her face.