Page:Tales of my landlord (Volume 2).djvu/131

 words which escaped from him at intervals—"Thou art taken, Judas—thou art taken—Cling not to my knees—cling not to my knees—hew him down—a priest? Ay, a priest of Baal to be bound and slain, even at the brook Kishon—Fire-arms will not prevail against him—Strike—thrust with the cold iron—put him out of pain—put him out of pain, were it but for the sake of his grey hairs."

Much alarmed at the import of these expressions, which seemed to burst from him even in sleep with the stern energy accompanying the perpetration of some act of violence, Morton shook his guest by the shoulder in order to wake him. The first words he uttered were, "Bear me where ye will, I will avouch the deed."

His glance around having then fully awakened him, he at once assumed all the stern and gloomy composure of his ordinary manner, and throwing himself on his knees before speaking to Morton, poured forth an ejaculatory prayer for the suffer-