“Do you dare to call me a thief?” said Spikeman, hoarsely.  “Ah!” he added, “how I talk!  These are strange feelings.  What I have to do must be done quickly.  Call Eveline Dunning.”

“Who is in the room?” he inquired, after the young lady had entered.

The names of those present were enumerated.  “Let them remain,” he said.  “They are of the congregation, but I would not that the world should know my shame.  Look not thus at me,” he exclaimed, as soon as he saw Eveline.  “Thy face is like thy father’s, the friend whom I wronged.  Be nigh to hear, but let me not see thee.  Eveline, the property which should be thine, I have misapplied, and it has melted from my grasp.  It was that my misdeed might not be discovered that I denied thee to Miles Arundel, though thy father wished the nuptials.  Yet, Eveline, marry him not; he is of the corrupt Church of England.”

These words he uttered with many interruptions of pain, resuming when the paroxysm passed away.

“Would you see Miles?” inquired the weeping girl.

“To what end?  I care not for him.  He is not of the congregation.  Go now.  I have done.”

“My spirit is lightened,” he said, as she left the room.  “Edmund Dunning,” he added, as his mind temporarily wandered, “why do you fasten your accusing eyes on me?  I have made all the reparation that I can.  What more?”

“Alas!” said Mr. Eliot, aside, to Governor Winthrop, “who would have thought this of one so zealous for our Israel?”

Low as was the tone, the words struck the ear of Spikeman.

“Whatever be my sins,” he said, “even though dark as those of David, I have been zealous unto slaying for the people of God.  Is the enemy taken?” he inquired.

“Whom mean you?” asked Winthrop.

“Whom should I mean, but the man ye call the Knight of the Golden Melice?”

“He is not yet taken,” answered the Governor.

“Let him be hunted, as a partridge on the mountains; let him be run down and seized; kill him, if he resists.”

“This is no fitting frame of mind for a parting spirit,” said Mr. Eliot.  “Let me beseech you to turn your thoughts on the Saviour.”

But delirium had now taken possession of the mind of the dying man, and made him insensible alike of all that was said and of pain.

“Away with him!” he cried, “who lays snares for the feet of my people.  Hew him down, though he hugged the arms of the altar.”

“Shall we not, beloved brother, unite our supplications to the throne of grace, for the last time on earth?” asked Mr. Eliot, bending over him.

“Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?  It is God who justifies,” said Spikeman, turning on the minister his glazing eyes.

“It is in vain,” said Winthrop.  “He heeds not nor understands what you say.”

“Papistical mummeries!  Your croziers, your mitres, your mumbled prayers from the mass-book!  I hate them!  Forty years long they wandered in the wilderness, but they prevailed at last.  Stay ye the hands of our Moses!  Be strong!  Quit ye like men.”