at the corners. She set the box on a dressing-table beside the candle,
unlocked it and turned back the lid. Marie was repelled by a faint odor
aside from its breath of dead spices.

Antonia unfolded a linen cloth and showed a pallid human hand, its stump
concealed by a napkin. It was cunningly preserved, and shrunken only by
the countless lines which denote approaching age. It was the right hand
of a man who must have had imagination. The fingers were sensitively
slim, with shapely blue nails, and without knobs or swollen joints. It
was a crafty, firm-possessing hand, ready to spring from its nest to
seize and eternally hold you.

The lady of St. John had seen human fragments scattered by cannon, and
sword and bullet had done their work before her sight. But a faintness
beyond the touch of peril made her grasp the table and turn from that
ghastly hand.

"It cannot be, Antonia"--

"Yes, it is Mynheer Bronck's hand," whispered Antonia, subduing herself
to take admonition from the grim digits.

"Lock it up; and come directly away from it. Come out of this room. You
have opened a grave here."




VI.