"

"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