'Who touches the body that is mine?'
shrieked the deformed wretch, rising from his victim, and threatening
with his blood-stained hands Vetranio and Marcus, as they stood
bewildered, and uncertain for the moment whether first to avenge their
comrade or to barricade the door--'The son shall rescue the mother! I
go to bury her! Atonement! Atonement!'
He leaped upon the table as he spoke, tore asunder with resistless
strength the cords which fastened the corpse to the throne, seized it in
his arms, and the next instant gained the door. Uttering fierce,
inarticulate cries, partly of anguish and partly of defiance, he threw
it open, and stepped forward to descend, when he was met at the head of
the stairs by the band of assassins hurrying up, with drawn swords and
blazing torches, to their work of pillage and death. He stood before
them--his deformed limbs set as firmly on the ground as if he were
preparing to descend the stairs at one leap--with the corpse raised high
on his breast; its unearthly features were turned towards them, its bare
arms were still stretched forth as they had been extended over the
banqueting-table, its grey hair streamed back and mingled with his own:
under the fitful illumination of the torches, which played red and wild
over him and his fearful burden, the dead and the living looked joined
to each other in one monstrous form.
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