"Spare me, Guy! Save me, Wat, if you have a man's heart in your bosom. Save me! spare me! I would live! I—oh, spare me!"
And the dying man threw up his hands feebly, in order to avert the blow; but it was in vain. Munro would have interposed, but, this time, the murderer was too quick for him, if not too strong. With a sudden rush he flung his associate aside, stooped down, and smote—smote fatally.
"Kate!—ah!—O God, have mercy!"
The wretched and unsuspecting victim fell back upon the earth with these last words—dead—sent to his dread account, with all his sins upon his head! And what a dream of simple happiness in two fond, feeble hearts, was thus cruelly and terribly dispersed for ever!
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
WHAT FOLLOWED THE MURDER.
There was a dreadful pause, after the commission of the deed, in which no word was spoken by either of the parties. The murderer, meanwhile, with the utmost composure wiped his bloody knife in the coat of the man whom he had slain. Boldly and coolly then, he broke the silence which was certainly a painful one to Munro if not to himself.
"We shall hear no more of his insolence. I owed him a debt. It is paid. If fools will be in the way of danger, they must take the consequences."
The landlord only groaned.