'You are going to blow me to atoms, Doctor,' he with difficulty articulated, as a ghastly smile spread over his hideous features--'I thank you for it; although I hate and curse you in this my dying hour. Grant me a moment longer; if the spirits of the dead are allowed to re-visit the earth, _my_ spirit shall visit you! Ha, ha, ha! In a few seconds, I shall be free from the power of your torture--free to follow you like a shadow through life, free to preside in ghastly horror over your midnight slumbers and to breathe constantly in your ear, curses--curses--curses!' 'Miserable devil, your blood-polluted spirit will be too strongly bound to hell, to wander on earth,' said the Doctor, with a contempt not unmingled with pity. 'Farewell, thou man of many crimes; for the wrongs you have done me, I forgive you, but human and divine justice have demanded this sacrifice.' He ignited a match, touched it to the paper at the end of the straw, and hastily retreated to the further extremities of the room. It was an awful moment; slowly the paper burnt towards the straw--so slowly, that the victim of this awful sacrifice had time to vent his dying rage in malignant curses, on himself, his tormentor, and his Maker! The straw is reached--the fire runs down to the powder flask with a low hiss--and then-- Awful was the explosion that followed; the wretch was torn into a hundred pieces; his limbs, his brains, his blood were scattered all about. A portion of the mangled carcass struck the Doctor; the lamp was broken by the shock and darkness prevailed in the room. The inmates of the house, frightened at the noise, rushed to the scene of the catastrophe with lights. Frank Sydney, Sophia and Mrs. Franklin, as well as several other male and female domestics, entering the apartment, stood aghast at the shocking spectacle presented to their gaze. There stood the Doctor, with folded arms and his face stained with blood; here an arm, here, a blackened mass of flesh; and here, the most horrible object of all, the mutilated and ghastly head, with the same expression of malignant hate upon its hideous features as when those livid lips had last uttered curses! 'The deed is done,' said the Doctor, addressing Sydney, with a grim smile--'justice has its due at last, and the diabolical villain has gone to his final account. Summon some scavenger to collect the vile remains, and bury them in a dung-hill. To give them Christian, decent burial would be treason to man, sacrilege to the Church, and impiety to God!'