"M. Rodolph," said the Chourineur, pale and trembling, "M. Rodolph, what is going to be done? I never felt so frightened. Pray speak; I must be dreaming, surely. What have they done to the Schoolmaster? He does not cry out,--all is so silent; it makes me more fearful still!" At this moment David issued from the cabinet; his complexion had that livid hue peculiar to the negro countenance, while his lips were ashy pale. The men who had conveyed the Schoolmaster into the closet now replaced him, still bound in his chair, on the spot he had previously occupied in Rodolph's presence. "Unbind him, and remove the gag!" exclaimed David. There was a moment of fearful silence while the two attendants relieved the Schoolmaster of his gag and untied the cords which bound him to the chair. As the last ligature gave way, he sprang up, his hideous countenance expressing rage, horror, and alarm. He advanced one step with extended hands, then, falling back into the chair, he uttered a cry of unspeakable agony, and, raising his hands towards the ceiling, exclaimed, with maddened fury: "Blind, by heaven!" "Give him this pocketbook, David," said Rodolph. The negro placed a small pocketbook in the trembling hands of the Schoolmaster. "You will find in that pocketbook wherewithal to provide yourself with a home and the means of living for the remainder of your days. Go, seek out some safe and solitary dwelling, where, by humble repentance, you may seek to propitiate an offended God! You are free! Go and repent; the Lord is merciful, and his ears are ever open to such as truly repent." "Blind! quite blind!" repeated the Schoolmaster, mechanically grasping the pocketbook. "Open the doors,--let him depart!" said Rodolph. "Blind! blind!" repeated the bewildered and discomfited ruffian. "You are free; you have the means of providing for yourself; begone!" "And whither am I to go?" exclaimed he, with the most unbounded rage. "You have taken away my sight; how, then, do I know in which direction to go? Call you not this a crime thus to abuse your power over one unhappily in your hands? Thus to--" "To abuse my power!" repeated Rodolph, in a solemn voice. "And how have you employed the power granted to you? How used _your_ superior strength?" "O Death! how gladly would I now accept you!" cried the wretched man. "To be henceforward at every one's mercy,--to fear the weakest, the smallest object!--a child might now master me! Gracious God! what will become of me?" "You have plenty of money." "It will be taken from me!" cried the ruffian. "Mark those words,--'It will be taken from me!' See how they fill you with fear and dread! You have plundered so many, unmindful of their helpless, destitute condition,--begone!"