San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1893-04-07

He staggered and fen.
Enter through the dining room win
dow Ike Van Wart, old Sam Gals
worthy and Hendrecus Canady.
At the same moment Mrs Brother
lofts cry for help rang through the
house. Jierck Dewitt in the cellar
heard it. Lucy in her turret heard it,
Plato in the hall could not but hear it
close at his ears.
Plato was still on guard, playing
pantOmime with the weapons. He
stood. with pistol outstretched, pointing
at an imaginary foe. 1t was a duello
he was fancying. He had received the
other party's fire unscathed. Now his
turn was come. He proudly covered
his invisible antagonist with his pistol
at full cock.
"Apologize, SIR whispered Plato,
.'Or"-
Here came his mistress loud scream
for help. Plato was petritied
Mrs. BrOthertOft rushed into the hall
There was the negro, standing like a
statue holding forth a weapon to her
hand. She seized it. Her sudden fright
reacted into sharp fury. She was
fearless enough, this cruel virago. The
touch of IA deadly weapon made her
long to be dealing death. She heard the
scuffie in the dining room.
Come whispered her old comrades,
the furies, closing in. and becoming
again body of her body, spirit of her
spirit. Come, take your chance! Here
are marauders-rebels. Shoot one of
them! Practice here! Then you will
get over any scruples against blood, and
can kill the people you hate, if they ever
come in your way. Now, madam
Such Il command ran swiftly through
her brain. She opened the dining room
door.
Her scream told the assaulting party
they We're discovered. They We're pin
ioning Major Kerr in double quick time.
He sat i'll tipsy bewilderment, mumbling
vain protests and vainer threats.
Not one of the group about the captive
observed the mistress of the house as
she softly opened the door.
But another did.
Edwin Brothertoft, tardily following
his party, was clambering through the
window.
He saw his wife at the door. She
must be kept from the danger of any
chance shot or chance blow i'll the scuffie.
This was his impulse. He sprang for
ward to put her away gently.
She instantly fired at the approaching
figure.
He staggered and fell. His head struck
the claw foot of the table and he lay
there mOtiOnless, with face upturned
and temple bleeding.
Her husband! She knew him at once.
His thin, gray hair drawn back from
his mild, dreamy face, with the old par
doning look she remembered so we'll and
hated so fiercely-there lay the man she
had wronged and ruined, dead; yes, as
it seemed, dead at last by her own hand.
any husband"
She said it with strange, quiet salts
faction.
Every one paused an instant, while she
stood looking at her work, with smile.
She had done we'll to wait. Those i'm
palpable weapons she used to see in the
air had become palpable at last. Yes,
she had waited wisely. This was self
defense, not murder. She had the tri-
umph without the name of crime.
80 you must come prowling, about
here and be shot" she said to him, as If
they were alone together.
And she spurned him with her foot.
AS by this indignity she touched and
broke down the last limit of womanli-
ness, she felt great exulting thrill of
liberty, mad sense Of power. Nothing
could offer itself now that she was not
willing to do. Any future cruelty was
a trifie to this. Her joy in this homicide
promoted it to a murder.
She looked up. The group about Kerr
We're all regarding her She laughed
triumphantly in dreadful bedlam tone
and flung her pistol at Major Skerrett.
He caught the missile with his hand.
Are you mad?" said he. do you
know that you have killed your husband?
Take her into the next room, mem"
Come, madam" said Galsworthy
gently. You did not know it. We are
sorry it was not one of us. We are
manor men, come to take this Britisher
prisoner, not to harm anybody or any
thing here
Curse you all" she cried, and she
m oda q clutch OF Sans honest faoA ~