had killed Fenn. She took
it, and came with us. The old man stood still where he was; he was like
stone. I looked at him for a minute and thought; then I turned round and
went to the bar-room; and he followed. Just as I got inside the door,
I saw the girl start back, and her hand drop, for she saw that it was
Fingall; he was looking at her very strange. It was the rule to empty
the gun into a man who had been sentenced; and already Fingall had heard
his, 'God-have-mercy!' The girl was to do it.

"Fingall said to her in a muffled voice, 'Fire--Cynthie!'

"I guessed what she would do. In a kind of a dream she raised the pistol
up--up--up, till I could see it was just out of range of his head, and
she fired. One! two! three! four! five! Fingall never moved a muscle;
but the bullets spotted the wall at the side of his head. She stopped
after the five; but the arm was still held out, and her finger was on
the trigger; she seemed to be all dazed. Only six chambers were in the
gun, and of course one chamber was empty. Fenn had its bullet in his
lungs, as we thought. So someone beside Cynthie touched her arm, pushing
it down. But there was another shot, and this time, because of the push,
the bullet lodged in Fingall's skull."

Pierre paused now, and waved with his hand towards the mist which hung
high up like a canopy between the hills.

"But," said Lawless, not heeding the scene, "what about that sixth
bullet?"

"Holy, it is plain! Fingall did not fire the shot. His revolver was
full, every chamber, when Cynthie first took it."

"Who killed the lad?"

"Can you not guess? There had been words between the father and the
boy: both had fierce blood. The father, in a mad minute, fired; the
boy wanted revenge on Fingall, and, to save his father, laid it on the
other. The old man? Well, I do not know whether he was a coward, or
stupid, or ashamed--he let Fingall take it."

"Fingall took it to spare the girl, eh?"

"For the girl. It wasn't good for her to know her father killed his own
son."

"What came after?"

"The worst. That night the girl's father killed himself, and the two
were buried in the same grave. Cynthie--"

"Fingall! Fingall!--Oh, Fingall!"

"You hear? Yes, like that all the time as she sat on the floor, her
hair about her like a cloud, and the dead bodies in the next room. She
thought she had killed Fingall, and she knew now that he was innocent.
The two were buried. Then we told her that Fingall was