of intercepting any fugitive from the bedroom above. Into that room the
elder M'Kean was ushered by the servant, who pointed to two beds--one of
which was already half occupied by the boy, and the other empty: in these,
she intimated that the two strangers must dispose of themselves for the
night, according to any arrangement that they might agree upon. Saying
this, she presented him with the candle, which he in a moment placed upon
the table; and, intercepting her retreat from the room threw his arm round
her neck with a gesture as though he meant to kiss her. This was evidently
what she herself anticipated, and endeavored to prevent. Her horror may be
imagined, when she felt the perfidious hand that clasped her neck armed
with a razor, and violently cutting her throat. She was hardly able to
utter one scream, before she sank powerless upon the floor. This dreadful
spectacle was witnessed by the boy, who was not asleep, but had presence
of mind enough instantly to close his eyes. The murderer advanced hastily
to the bed, and anxiously examined the expression of the boy's features:
satisfied he was not, and he then placed his hand upon the boy's heart, in
order to judge by its beatings whether he were agitated or not. This was a
dreadful trial: and no doubt the counterfeit sleep would immediately have
been detected, when suddenly a dreadful spectacle drew off the attention
of the murderer. Solemnly, and in ghostly silence, uprose in her dying
delirium the murdered girl; she stood upright, she walked steadily for a
moment or two, she bent her steps towards the door. The murderer turned
away to pursue her; and at that moment the boy, feeling that his one
solitary chance was to fly while this scene was in progress, bounded out
of bed. On the landing at the head of the stairs was one murderer, at the
foot of the stairs was the other: who could believe that the boy had the
shadow of a chance for escaping? And yet, in the most natural way, he
surmounted all hindrances. In the boy's horror, he laid his left hand on
the balustrade, and took a flying leap over it, which landed him at the
bottom of the stairs, without having touched a single stair. He had thus