sphere sounds floated dull and heavily; still Cashel
could hear the harsh tones of men in angry dispute, and to his amazement
they spoke in English.

"It's the old story," cried one, whose louder voice and coarser accents
bespoke him the inferior in condition--"the old story that I am sick of
listening to--when you have luck! when you have luck!"

"I used not to have a complaint against Fortune," said the other.
"Before we met, she had treated me well for many a year."

"And 'twas me that changed it, I suppose," said the first, in the same
insolent tone as before; "do you mean that?"

"The world has gone ill with me since that day."

"And whose fault is that?"

"Partly yours," said the other, in a slow, deliberate voice, every
syllable of which thrilled through Cashers heart as he listened. "Had
you secured the right man, it was beyond the power of Fortune to hurt
either of us. That fatal, fatal mistake!"

"How could I help it?" cried the other, energetically; "the night was
as dark as this--it was between two high banks--there was nothing to be
seen but a figure of a man coming slowly along--you yourself told me
who it would be--I did n't wait for more; and troth!"--here he gave a
fiendish laugh--"troth! you'll allow the work was well done."

"It was a most determined murder," said the other, thoughtfully.

"Murder! murder!" screamed the first, in a voice of fierce passion; "and
is it you that calls it a murder?"

"No matter how it is called. Let us speak of something else."

"Very well. Let us talk about the price of it. It is n't paid yet!"

"Is it nothing that I have taken you from abject, starving misery--from
a life of cold, want, and wretchedness, to live at ease in the first
city of the universe? Is it no part of the price that you spend your
days in pleasure and your nights in debauch?--that, with the appetite
of the peasant, you partake of the excesses of the gentleman? Is it no
instalment of the debt, I say, that you, who might now be ground down to
the very earth as a slave at home, dare to lift your head and speak thus
to _me?_"

"And is it _you_ dares to tell me this?" cried the other, in savage
energy; "is it you, that made me a murderer, and then think that I can
forget it because I'm a drunkard? But I don't forget it! I 'll never
forget it! I see him still, as he lay gasping before me, and trying to
beg for mercy when he could n't ask for it. I see him every day when I
'm in a lonely plac