"Do you know me, villain? Do you know me?" shouted out Edward, first seizing him by the breast, and then dashing him from him with a violence that sent him reeling to the farther end of the apartment. "Do you know the brother of Fanny Rutherford, murderer? Did you think, ruffian, that you were safe from my vengeance, because the half of the globe lay between us? If you did, you mistook Edward Rutherford. But I will waste no more words on you, villain! The shade of my murdered sister--murdered by the cruellest of all deaths--is calling aloud for retribution, and, in her name, I am here to demand it! Here, dastard!" he said, taking up the other pistol, and presenting it to Raeburn--"here, take this, and stand to me like a man; for I would not imbrue my hands in your filthy blood but upon equal terms. Although you but little deserve it, I will give you a chance for your life! Come, sir," he went on, Raeburn declining to take the pistol, "take it--take it; for, by the heaven above us, one or other of us, or both, must die; and your only chance is in opposing me; for, if you do not fire, I will! By all that's sacred, I will!" At this moment, Raeburn rushed to the window, with the view of calling for assistance; and one supplicatory cry, which, however, was unattended to, he did emit. But, ere he could fully effect his object, Edward had him by the throat, and, holding his pistol within a few inches of his head, threatened, if he stirred or repeated his outcry, that that moment should be his last. Seeing the desperate situation in which he was placed, the trembling wretch now took the pistol from Rutherford's hand, being aware, as he had been told, that it was indeed his only chance for life. The parties now took their stations, one at each end of the room, and confronted each other. "Raise your weapon, Raeburn; raise your weapon!" exclaimed Rutherford, on observing that his antagonist was not proceeding to assume a hostile attitude. "Your not firing will not save you from mine. I give you fair warning!" Raeburn elevated, and levelled his pistol. "Are you ready?" said his terrible opponent. "Yes," replied Raeburn, faintly. "Then fire, villain!" exclaimed Rutherford; and both pistols went off at the same instant, but with very different effect. A retributive power had directed the fatal engines of destruction. Raeburn's bullet struck the wall wide of its mark, while Rutherford's passed through the heart of him at whom it was aimed, and he fell lifeless on the floor. Rutherford threw himself on his knees, and holding aloft the still reeking weapon of death, thanked Heaven that he had been permitted to be the avenger of his sister's wrongs.