The tones of the voice—­the person of the suffering man—­were now readily distinguishable.

“Good God!  Rivers, what is to be the end of all this blundering?”

“Who would have thought to find him here?” was the ferocious answer; the disappointed malice of the speaker prompting him to the bitterest feelings against the unintended victim—­“why was he in the way? he is always in the way!”

“I am afraid you’ve done for him.”

“We must be sure of it.”

“Great God! would you kill him?”

“Why not?  It must be done now.”

The wounded man beheld the action of the speaker, and heard the discussion.  He gasped out a prayer for life:—­

“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.

The murderer laughed.

“It is your luck,” he said, “always to groan with devout feeling, when you have done the work of the devil!  You may spare your groans, if they are designed for repentance.  They are always too late!”

“It is a sad truth, though the devil said it.”

“Well, rouse up, and let’s be moving.  So far, our ride has been for nothing.  We must leave this carrion to the vultures.  What next?  Will it be of any use to pursue this boy again to-night?  What say you?  We must pursue and silence him of course; but we have pushed the brutes already sufficiently to-night.  They would be of little service to-night, in a longer chase.”

The person addressed did not immediately reply, and when he spoke, did not answer to the speech of his companion.  His reply, at length, was framed in obedience to the gloomy and remorseful course of his thought.