“Is this a dream?” cried Godfrey, glancing instinctively at his hands, on whose white well-formed fingers no trace of the recently enacted tragedy remained, “did you really witness the scene you have just described; tell me the truth.  Mary, or by ——­”

“Could these feeble limbs carry me to Ashton,” said the girl, interrupting the dreadful oath ere it found utterance, “or could this rocking brain steady them, were I, indeed, able to rise from my bed—­”

“Mathews,” cried Godfrey, “what do you think of this?”

“That we should be off, or put such dreamers to silence.”

“Be off!  That’s impossible.  It would give rise to the suspicion that we were the murderers.  Besides, are we not both subpoenaed as witnesses against him.”

“I don’t like it,” said Mathews, gloomily.  “The devil has revealed every circumstance to the girl.  What if she were to witness against us?”

“Nonsense!  Who would take the evidence of a dream?” said Godfrey.

“I’m not so sure that it was a dream.  You know her of old.  She’s very cunning.”

“But the girl’s too ill to move from her bed.  Besides, she never would betray me.”

“I’m not so sure of that.  She’s turned mighty religious of late.  It was only last night that I heard her pray to God to forgive her sinful soul; and then she promised to lead a new life.  Now I should not wonder if she were to begin by hanging us.”

“If I thought so,” said Godfrey, grasping a knife he held in his hand, and glancing towards the bed.  “But no.  We both do her injustice.  She would die for me.  She would never betray me.  Mary,” he continued, going to the bed-side, “what was the message that the angel told you?”

“It was in the unknown tongue,” said Mary.  “I understood it in my sleep, but since I awoke it has all passed from my memory.”  Then laughing in her delirium, she burst out singing: 

    His voice was like the midnight wind
      That ushers in the storm,
    When the thunder mutters far behind
      On the dark clouds onward borne;
    When the trees are bending to its breath,
      The waters plashing high,
    And nature crouches pale as death
      Beneath the lurid sky. 
    ’Twas in such tones he spake to me,
      So awful and so dread;
    If thou would’st read the mystery,
      Those tones will wake the dead.

* * * * *

“She is mad!” muttered Godfrey, resuming his seat at the table.  “Are you afraid, Bill, of the ravings of a maniac?  Come, gather up courage and pass the bottle this way; and tell me how we are to divide the rest of the spoil.”

“Let us throw the dice for it.”

“Agreed.  Who shall have the first chance?”

“We will throw for that.  The lowest gains.  I have it,” cried Mathews, clutching the box.

“Stop!” said Mary.  “Fair play’s a jewel.  There are three of you at the table.  Will you not let the old man have one chance to win back his gold?”