ened to a
cabaret near. A surgeon was soon procured, and the bullet was discovered
to have penetrated the chest, cutting in its passage some large
blood-vessel, from which the blood flowed copiously. That the result
must be fatal it was evident; but as the bleeding showed signs of
abatement, it seemed possible life might be protracted some hours. No
time was therefore to be lost in obtaining the dying man's declaration,
and a Juge d'Instruction, accompanied by a notary, was immediately on
the spot. As the surgeon had surmised, a coagulum had formed in the
wounded vessel, and, the bleeding being thus temporarily arrested, the
man rallied into something like strength, and with a mind perfectly
conscious and collected. To avoid the shock which the sight of Cashel
might occasion, Roland did not appear at the bedside.

Nor need we linger either at such a scene, nor witness that fearful
straggle between the hope of mercy and the dread consciousness of its
all but impossibility. The dying confession has nothing new for the
reader; the secret history of the crime is already before him, and it
only remains to speak of those events which followed Keane's flight from
Ireland. As Linton's servant he continued for years to travel about the
Continent, constantly sustained by the hope that the price of his crime
would one day be forthcoming, and as invariably put off by the excuse
that play, on which he entirely depended for means, had been unlucky,
but that better times were certainly in store for him. The struggles and
difficulties of an existence thus maintained; the terrible consciousness
of an unexpiated crime; the constant presence of one who knew the secret
of the other, and might at any moment of anger, or in some access of
dissipation, reveal it, made up a life of torture to which death would
be a boon; added to this, that they frequently found themselves in the
same city with Cashel, whom Linton never dared to confront. At Messina
they fell in with Rica, as the proprietor of a gaming-table which Linton
continually frequented. His consummate skill at play, his knowledge of
life, and particularly the life of gamblers, his powers of agreeability,
soon attracted Rica's notice, and an intimacy sprang up which became a
close friendship--if such a league can be called by such a name.

By the power of an ascendancy acquired most artfully, and by persuasive
flatteries of the most insidious kind, he induced Rica to bring Maritana
on