"Dr. Dunlap has shot me," he said to her. "I don't know why he did it." And his face fell against her bosom as he died. PART FOURTH. THE FLOOD. The moonlight shone in through both windows and the lantern glimmered. The choking smell of gunpowder spread from room to room. Two of the slave men sprung across the sill to pursue Dr. Dunlap, but they could do nothing. They could see him paddling away from the house, and giving himself up to the current; a desperate man, whose fate was from that hour unknown. Night and the paralysis which the flood laid upon human action favored him. Did a still pitying soul bend above his wild-eyed and reckless plunging through whirls of water, comprehending that he had been startled into assassination; that the deed was, like the result of his marriage, a tragedy he did not foresee? Some men are made for strong domestic ties, yet run with brutal precipitation into the loneliness of evil. A desire to get out of the flood-bound tavern, an unreasonable impulse to see Angelique Saucier and perhaps be of use to her, a mistakenly silent entering of the house which he hardly knew how to approach,--these were the conditions which put him in the way of his crime. The old journey of Cain was already begun while Angelique was robbing her great-grand-aunt's bed of pillows to put under Rice Jones. The aged woman had gone into her shell of sleep, and the muffled shot, the confusion and wailing, did not wake her. Wachique and another slave lifted the body and laid it on the quickly spread couch of pillows. Nobody thought of Maria. She lay quite still, and made no sound in that flurry of terror. "He is badly hurt," said Angelique. "Lizette, bring linen, the first your hand touches; and you, Achille, open his vest and find the wound quickly." "But it's no use, ma'amselle," whispered Wachique, lifting her eyes. "Do not be afraid, poor Achille. I will show you how myself. We cannot wait for any one to help us. What would my father and Colonel Menard say, if they found Monsieur Reece Zhone killed in our house?" In her panic Angelique tore the vest wide, and found the great stain over the place where the heart should be. She was kneeling, and she turned back to Peggy, who stood behind her. Death is great or it is a piteous change, like the slaughter of brutes, according as we bear ourselves in its presence. How mighty an experience it is to wait where world overlaps the edge of world, and feel the vastness of eternity around us! A moment ago--or was it many ages?--he spoke. Now he is gone, leaving a strange visible image lying there to awe us. The dead take sudden majesty. They become as gods. We think they hear us when we speak of them, and their good becomes sacred. A dead face has all human faults wiped from it; and that Shape, that Presence, whose passiveness seems infinite, how it fills the house, the town, the whole world, while it stays!