Page:The Necromancer, or, The Tale of the Black Forest Vol. 2.djvu/198

 My gun dropped on the ground when Robert fell—Murderer, stammered I with quivering lips—the forest was as silent as a church-yard, and I heard distinctly the word murderer. Creeping nearer to the spot where my enemy was swimming in his blood, I saw him just expire. I stood a dreadful minute of grisly horror before my murdered foe, as if petrified—a yelling laughter restored me to the use of my senses: 'Wilt thou any more tell tales, good friend,' said I, stepping boldly nearer, and turning him upon his back. His eyes were wide open, I grew serious, and every power of utterance fled; strange and horrid sensations chilled my heart."

Till then I had been a transgressor of the laws on the score of the disgrace I had suffered, but now I had perpetrated a deed for which I had not yet atoned. An hour before that horrid action, no man living would have been able to persuade me that there was a more abject being upon earth