The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1905-07-29


"NoI swear
''Silence! You speak too loud; the
rope is around your neck; your hands
are tied; you are on the very brink of
a steep, beyond whose brink nearly
one-half Of your body is, already pro-
jecting, sidewise., Do not attempt to
move limb. The weight of pound
more of your body carried to your left
will carry you over, till the rope
brings you up suddenly"
Bashfort shuddered, and his heart
trembled in it's affrighted throbbings,
lest this uncomfortable shuddering
might carry from his right side to his
left that fatal pound of weight of
which his merciless victor had spol1
en-.
yesterday you murdered four men,
and aided in numbering the f1fth,' con-
tinued Clarence. CAS- l lay exhausted
upon this ledge yesterday I saw four
dark bodies shoot out into the mist
from above my head. I saw them, one
after another, but for an instant-the
bodies of falling men. I scarcely had
time to recognize that they were hui
man beings, SO suddenly did they ap-
pear and SO quickly did they vanish
amid the mist. Since then, from your
comrades speech, while you lay sense
less in the closet room, have learned
that you murdered those men. Their
dead bodies are two hundred feet be-
low you. You are to die, hanged, far
above those mangled corpses!"
mercy! / will tell you where you
can find those proofs of Zeno Sosia's
villainy and treachery toward your
father-those proofs of your mothers
innocence which your uncle was TAX
ing to your father" gasped Bashfort.
Il stole them from the bosom of
Claude de Lavet-when he was dead
but I did not give them to Zeno So
STA. I told Sosia that I had lost the
packet in which they were. I gave
him the child-you-but l hid the
packet. The old sexton of St. Nicho-
las church, in Galway-Michael Glenn
has the packet. I gave it to him
nearly twenty-five years ago, when I
quilted Sosia's service. saw the old
man few days ago, and he told me
he had that packet yet-had never
opened it-kept it in an old chest
showed it to me. I had no use for it.
I had nearly forgotten the long ago
past. I told him to keep the packet
till called for it, or sent for it, He
is Simple old man and will give it to
CT fnr in,
Your father lives-he is now Lord de
Lavet, and perhaps even now in Gal
way"
"And my mother?"
ooh, do not know! Mercy! Why
do you draw your dagger" gasped
Bashfort, for at this moment Clarence
was drawing his dagger
my mother went mad" replied
Clarence, in terrible tone," and wan
dered off to France, where she died.
You shared in the villainy that drove
her mad. I am going to punish one of
her murderers"'
AS Clarence spoke these words, his
left hand was grasped upon Bashfort's
breast to hold the man from rolling off
the brink of the ledge, while his
right hand, armed with his dagger,
was thrust under the assassin's back.
seeking the cord that bound the fell
lows wrists.
The rope which was held by the o.
reds was slack, and several feet of it's
. length lay in coils near Bashfort's
head as his neck was in the moose.
Clarence intended that the villain
should be hanged, and that by those
On the cliff it should be supposed that
Bashfort had hanged himself by acct
dent. To carry out this deceit it was
necessary that the body should not be
found with it's hands tied behind the
back, If. as was very probable. the Os-
reds should haul it up to the top of
the cliff.
"Mercy! Spare me-" shouted Bash
fort, appalled, by the cropping of the
armed hand under his back, end imag-
lining a horrible thrust was about to
pierce his backbone mercy! Spare
mel"
In his supreme terror he forgot the
warning Clarence had given him.
His shout, but not his words, was
heard by the Osreds. They supposed
he was giving the signal to haul on
the rope, and the coils of slack near
Bashfort's head began to move, then
began going upward, and at that in
slant Clarence severed with his dag
ger the cord that bound Bashfort's
wrist, and at the same moment shov-
ed the man over the brink of the
ledge, head and breast downward. ,
Mother, I avenge thee upon one
the other is dead!" cried Clarence. as
he thrust the noosed ruffian from him.
Precipitate and swift in it's descent,
downward went the body of Neil Bash
fort, full thirty feet e'er the rope drew
taut upon it's fastened end above-the
moose swapping the ruftian's head as
instantly from his shoulders as if the
scimitar of Turk had smitten it off,
so great was the body's weight, so
steep and heep the fall