But Madeline was of that fine and high order of spirit which rises in proportion to danger, and calming her sister as well as she could, till she found her attempts wholly ineffectual, she seized the light with a steady hand, opened the door, and Ellinor still clinging to her, passed the landing-place, and hastened to her father’s room; he slept at the opposite corner of the staircase. Aram’s chamber was at the extreme end of the house. Before she reached the door of Lester’s apartment, the noise below grew loud and distinct--a scuffle--voices--curses--and now--the sound of a pistol!--in a moment more the whole house was stirring. Lester in his night robe, his broadsword in his hand, and his long grey hair floating behind, was the first to appear; the servants, old and young, male and female, now came thronging simultaneously round; and in a general body, Lester several paces at their head, his daughters following next to him, they rushed to the apartment whence the noise, now suddenly stilled, had proceeded.
The window was opened, evidently by force; an instrument like a wedge was fixed in the bureau containing Lester’s money, and seemed to have been left there, as if the person using it had been disturbed before the design for which it was introduced had been accomplished, and, (the only evidence of life,) Aram stood, dressed, in the centre of the room, a pistol in his left hand, a sword in his right; a bludgeon severed in two lay at his feet, and on the floor within two yards of him, towards the window, drops of blood yet warm, showed that the pistol had not been discharged in vain.
“And is it you, my brave friend, that I have to thank for our safety?” cried Lester in great emotion.
“You, Eugene!” repeated Madeline, sinking on his breast.
“But thanks hereafter,” continued Lester; “let us now to the pursuit,--perhaps the villain may have perished beneath your bullet?”
“Ha!” muttered Aram, who had hitherto seemed unconscious of all around him; so fixed had been his eye, so colourless his cheek, so motionless his posture. “Ha! say you so?--think you I have slain him?--no, it cannot be--the ball did not slay, I saw him stagger; but he rallied--not so one who receives a mortal wound!--ha! ha!--there is blood, you say, that is true; but what then!--it is not the first wound that kills, you must strike again--pooh, pooh, what is a little blood!”
