In an instant a frightful
change passed over him, the manuscript dropped from his hand, his
deformed frame shrank and tottered, a shrill cry of recognition burst
from his lips, more like the yell of a wild beast than the voice of a
man.
The next moment, when the guests started up to question or deride him,
he turned slowly and faced them. Desperate and drunken as they were,
his look awed them into utter silence. His face was deathlike in hue,
as the face of the corpse above him--thick drops of perspiration
trickled down it like rain--his dry glaring eyes wandered fiercely over
the startled countenances before him, and, as he extended towards them
his clenched hands, he muttered in a deep gasping whisper: 'Who has
done this? MY MOTHER! MY MOTHER!'
As these few words--of awful import though of simple form--fell upon the
ears of those whom he addressed, such of them as were not already sunk
in insensibility looked round on each other almost sobered for the
moment, and all speechless alike. Not even the clash of the wine-cups
was now heard at the banqueting-table--nothing was audible but the
sound, still fitfully rising and falling, of the voices of terror,
ribaldry, and anguish from the street; and the hoarse convulsive accents
of the hunchback, still uttering at intervals his fearful identification
of the dead body above him: 'MY MOTHER! MY MOTHER!'
At length Vetranio, who was the first to recover himself, addressed the
terrified and degraded wretch before him, in tones which, in spite of
himself, betrayed, as he began, an unwonted tremulousness and restraint.
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