trated all his force into the utterance of the final
sentences, vowing to himself that his fallen enemy should understand!
Did he think of Gnulemah then? or of Salome--partly for whose; sake,
he feigned, he had assumed the scourge?

"My sister died,--was burned to death before she was a year old. In
trying to save her, the nurse almost lost her own life. On that same
night, this nurse gave birth to a daughter,--whose name you have
called Gnulemah. Salome is her mother. Who her father is, Manetho, you
best know!"

The words were spoken,--but had the culprit heard them? Salome (who
from the first had shrunk back to the head of the bed, beyond the
possible range Manetho's vision) burst into confused hysteric cries.
Gnulemah had risen from her altar and was looking at Balder: he felt
her glance,--but though he told himself that he had done but justice,
he dared not meet it!--He kept his eyes fastened on the pallid
countenance of the Egyptian. The latter's breath came feebly and
irregularly, but the anxious expression was gone, and there was again
the flickering smile. All at once there was an odd, solemn change.--

The man was dying. Balder saw it,--saw that his enemy was escaping him
unpunished! There yet remained one stimulant that might rouse him, and
in the passion of the moment this self-appointed lieutenant of the
Almighty applied it.

"Come forward here, Salome!" cried he; "let him look on the face that
his sins have given you. As there is a God in Heaven, your wrongs
shall be set right!"

Salome moved to obey; but Gnulemah glided swiftly up and held her
back. Balder stepped imperiously forward to enforce his will. Had he
but answered his wife's eyes even then!--He came forward one step.

Then burst a thunder-clap like the crashing together of heaven and
earth! At the same instant a blinding, hot glare shut out all sight.
Balder was hurled back against the wall, a shock like the touch of
death in every nerve.

He staggered up, all unstrung, his teeth chattering. He saw,--not the
lamp, flickering in the draught from the broken window,--not Manetho,
lying motionless with the smile frozen on his lips,--not Salome,
prostrate across the body of him she had worshipped.

He saw Gnulemah--his wife whom he loved--rise from the altar's step
against which she had been thrown; stand with outstretched arms and
blank, wide-open eyes; grope forwards with outstretched arms and
uncertain feet; grope blindly this way and tha