"But what carried you amongst such an atrocious band? What could you reap from the murder of the English ministers?--no merchant from Amsterdam stood with a full purse in the back ground."
"One step brings on another, and the rage of licentious mobs cannot be stopped until it has consumed itself. Upon the smoking ashes of the old palaces, between the overladen scaffold on one side and the charnel house on the other, blood from each side floating the slippery streets,--then is man's worth put to proof; then it is tried not by his prattling, which he calls eloquence--nor by his overloaded memory which he calls knowledge: then comes into play the arm, and then the head:"
"And what would you have gained as chief of a maddening populace?"
"What should I have gained? That sort of consideration I leave to the 'learned' and to 'ministers' and such people: my part is--to resolve and to execute as the crisis arises."
"So then it was mere appetite for destruction that drove you on? For that I should scarce have thought your misanthropy sufficient."
"Call it folly, call it frenzy, call it what you will--but something higher it was that stood in the back ground. A beautiful picture it was when I represented to myself all the great leaders, headless--and in that point on a level with the poor culprit that has just ascended the scaffold for stealing some half a pound of trash. This it was that allured me; and the pleasure of being myself the decapitator! Then worth should have borne the sway, and merit."
"Merit? What sort of merit?"
"You think a blood-hound has none,"--said Nicholas, with eyes that shot fire:--"but he can acquire it. Heaven and Earth! he that has such marrow--such blood in his veins--such a will--such an unconquerable will--he can begin a new life: he can be born again. Bertram, do not mock me when I tell you--passionate love has crazed my wits. See, here is a handkerchief of hers! For her sake do I curse my former life; for her sake, I would sink its memory into the depths of ocean! Oh that I could! that all the waters of the ocean could cleanse this hand! that I could come up from the deep sea as pure though I were as helpless as an infant! Once upon a dreadful night--But stop! what was that? Did you hear no whispering from below? Once upon a dreadful night----: Steps go there! hush! hush!"
Bertram's companion here suddenly drew his cloak from his shoulders--rolled it up under his arm--caught his coat-skirts under both arms--and stood with head and body bent forwards, whilst his eyes seemed to search and traverse the dark piles of building from which they had issued; his attitude was that of a stag, that, with pointed ears and with fore-feet rising for a bound, is looking to the thicket from which the noise issues that has startled him. Bertram too threw his eyes over the walls as far as he could to the lower part of the ruins; and remarked that, if any hostile attack were made, they should be without deliverance; they were shut in; and no egress remained except that which would be pre-occupied by their assailants.
"I believe I was mistaken," said Nicholas, drawing his breath again, just as Bertram fancied he saw a stirring of the shadow which lay within the gateway at the further end. He was on the point of communicating what he observed to the other, when suddenly a shot was fired. In that same instant Nicholas had thrown his cloak into the abyss; and without a word spoken ran straight, with an agility and speed that thunderstruck Bertram, to the archway; from which figures of armed men were now seen to issue apparently with the intention of intercepting the fugitive. Bertram now expected to see a struggle, as Nicholas was running right into the mouth of the danger. But in the midst of his quickest speed he checked--turned to the left about--leaped down with the instinctive agility of a chamois upon the wall below, which, bisecting the inner court, connected the main wall with the outer, and then ran along upon the narrow ridge of this inner wall, interrupted as it was by holes and loose stones. At every instant Bertram expected to see him fall and never rise again. But the danger to Nicholas came from another quarter. The pursuers, it would seem, had calculated on the intrepidity and agility of their man, and another group of men faced him on the opposite side. No choice appeared left to the fugitive--but to surrender, or to leap down. Suddenly he stood still, pulled out of his belt a brace of pistols--fired one in each hand upon the antagonists who stood near to him; and, whilst these shrank back in sudden surprise, though no one appeared wounded, with incredible dexterity and speed he sank from the eyes of Bertram--and disappeared. In a moment after Bertram thought he heard a dull sound as of a sullen plunge through briars and brambles into the rubbish below. All was then still.----