How tenacious of life is the dying
man! He grasps the leg of a desk, raises himself to his feet, and,
as if goaded with the thoughts of hell, in his last struggles
staggers to the door,--discharges a second shot, vaults, as it were,
into the street, and falls prostrate upon the pavement, surrounded
by a crowd of eager lookers-on. He is dead! The career of Mr.
M'Fadden is ended; his spirit is summoned for trial before a just
God.
The murderer (perhaps we abuse the word, and should apply the more
southern, term of renconterist), sits in a chair, calling for water,
as a few among the crowd prepare to carry the dead body into
Graspum's slave-pen, a few squares below.
Southern sensibility may call these scenes by whatever name it will;
we have no desire to change the appropriateness, nor to lessen the
moral tenor of southern society. It nurtures a frail democracy, and
from its bastard offspring we have a tyrant dying by the hand of a
tyrant, and the spoils of tyranny serving the good growth of the
Christian church. Money constructs opinions, pious as well as
political, and even changes the feelings of good men, who invoke
heaven's aid against the bondage of the souls of men.
Romescos will not flee to escape the terrible award of earthly
justice. Nay, that, in our atmosphere of probity, would be
dishonourable; nor would it aid the purpose he seeks to gain.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
A COMMON INCIDENT SHORTLY TOLD.
THE dead body of Mr.
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