at this moment in that chamber of doom. The four unconscious sleepers
with the murderess in the midst of them, bending with hard, glittering
eyes over her prey, while around them all the huge shadows cast by the
dim, untrimmed light, like uncouth monsters, rose, flitted, and fell, as
if in a goblin-dance of joy over the scene of approaching guilt. Sleep,
solemn at any time, becomes almost awful when we gaze upon it amid the
stillness of night, so mysterious is it, and so near akin to the deeper
mystery of death,--so peaceful, with a peace so much like that of the
grave: men could scarcely comprehend the idea of the one, if they were
not acquainted with the reality of the other. There lay the mother, with
her arms around her sleeping child, whose painful breathing showed that
it suffered even while it slept. Such a spectacle might have moved the
hardest heart to pity; but it possessed no such power over that of the
desperate slave, whose vindictive purpose never wavered for an instant.
Passing round the bed, she stooped and softly encircled the emaciated
little neck with her fingers. One quick, strong gripe,--the poor, weak
hands were thrown up, a soft gasp and a slight spasm, and it was done.
The frail young life, which had known little except suffering, and which
disease would probably have extinguished in a few hours or days, was
thus at once and almost painlessly cut short by the hand of violence.

And now at last the way was clear. "I knew," said she afterwards, "the
situation of my mistress; and I thought that by jumping upon her with my
knees I should kill her at once." Disturbed by the slight struggle of
the dying child, Mrs. Wilde moved uneasily for a moment, and again sunk
into quietude, lying with her face--that hard, cold face--upward. This
was the opportunity for the destroyer. Bounding with all her might from
the floor, she came down with bended knees upon the body of her victim.
But the shock, though severe, was not fatal; and with a loud cry of
"Oh, Captain Wilde, help me!" she, by a convulsive effort, threw her
assailant to the floor. Though stunned and bewildered by the suddenness
and violence of the attack, the wretched woman in that terrible moment
recognized her enemy, and felt the desperate purpose with which she was
animated, and so recognizing and so feeling, must have known in that
momentary interval all that the human soul can know of despair and
terror. But it was only for a moment; for, before