Page:Duty and Inclination. Volume 3.pdf/294

292 under his fair burden, Melliphant was proceeding as rapidly as he could to place her within it, and to seat himself beside her. Whose arm was it which suddenly checked him in his purpose? Whose voice was it that, with undaunted accent, sounded in his ear, bidding him stop, and, in warrior-like tones, commanding him to give an account of himself, and the ignoble action he was performing? Whose but the Lord Deloraine's, the noble champion of injured innocence and virtue!

"Let go your hold, villain!" cried the peer, who was accompanied by a friend of not less spirit or bravery than himself, "and stand on your defence. The situation in which we find the lady, the lateness of the hour, the force you use, sufficiently betray you, and proclaim the deed you are about to be an evil one!"

Wrath, fury, vengeance, at being thus arrested, alternately possessed Melliphant; having nothing left but to enter upon the combat demanded of him so imperiously, secretly armed, he resolved to resist to the last drop of his blood his unexpected antagonist. Having withdrawn his hold from Rosilia, she sank fainting on the turf. He drew from his pocket a pistol, which, devoid of principle or honour, with an assassin-like assault, he instantly aimed at the breast of Lord Deloraine, but which, in the struggle that ensued, as if by retributive justice, went off unexpectedly and lodged its contents in the body of Melliphant,—thus doomed to receive his punishment by his own