Page:Popular story of Blue Beard, or, The effects of female curiosity.pdf/21

( 21 ) it. Furious at being foiled in his aim, he threw her from him, and then seizing her by the hair of the head, was in the act of striking her a blow with his scimetar, which would have terminated her existence, when the noise of persons approaching, with hasty steps, arrested the progress of his sanguinary arm. blue beard had not time to conjecture who the intruders might be, when the door opened, and two officers, with their swords drawn, rushed into the apartment.

Struck with terror, the guilty wretch released his wife from his grasp, and without attempting to resist, he tried to effect his escape from the resentment of her brothers; but they pursued, and seized him before he had got above twenty paces from the place. After reproaching him with his cruelty, they dragged him back to the spot where he intended to have murdered their sister; and there, stabbing him to the heart with their swords, he expired, uttering the most horrid oaths and imprecations.

Fatima, who had fallen to the ground at the time blue beard quitted the hold of her, still lay in the same situation insensible; for the appearance of her brothers, at the moment she expected certain death, had thrown