Part 53 (2/2)
”Who?” said Viola, sternly. ”Who was it made me a robber? Who was it that drove me forth, like a beast of the forest, while my wife and children were cast as beggars on the world? Say it was not you! Say it was not you who wrote my doom! Say it was not you who would have drunk my blood! Say it is not you who are my curse and my enemy!----”
”I'll give you my all,--I'll give you all I have! I've a couple of hundreds of Mr. Rety's money too, and you are welcome to them, though I shall have to refund them, and----”
”I don't want your money!” said Viola, scornfully. ”I want the papers you stole from the notary.”
”The papers?” said the attorney, with a look of profound astonishment; ”what papers does it please you to mean, my dear Mr. Viola?”
”I mean the papers which you took away when they bound me. If you don't give them up this minute, you'll never rise from this bed.”
The robber's tone showed Mr. Catspaw that it was dangerous to trifle with him. He replied,--
”Yes, I had them! You are right, I took them from you; but I lament to say I was rash enough to burn them on the spot. That's the truth of it.
I would not tell you a lie, no! not for the world; for you know all and everything.”
”If so, tell your lies to others. I know that you keep the papers in this room, and that you've offered them to Lady Rety for fifty thousand florins.”
”Who can have told you that?” cried Mr. Catspaw, as a suspicion flashed through his mind that Viola might possibly be hired by Lady Rety; ”who?
who?”
”Never you mind who it was?” said Viola, dryly; ”if you think your life of less value than fifty thousand florins, I'll show you in an instant how little _I_ care for it.”
”But do tell me!” cried the attorney, ”do tell me who told you that the papers are in my room?--who has sent you?”
”Silence!” and the robber flung his bunda back; ”get up! give me the papers, unless----”
Mr. Catspaw rose and walked to his desk. Viola stood quietly by, watching him.
The attorney's hands trembled as he produced the papers. They were in two bundles, and among them were some letters of Tengelyi's, which the Jew had abstracted with the rest.
”Here they are!” said Mr. Catspaw, with a hoa.r.s.e voice; ”you know their value. Ask whatever you please----”
”I don't want your money, keep it!” said the robber, advancing to seize the packet; when the attorney recollected that he kept a loaded pistol in the desk.
Yielding to an impulse of mad despair, he seized it and presented it at Viola.
The robber's eyes shot fire as he saw the weapon. He made a rush; the attorney fell, and the pistol was in Viola's hands.
That movement sealed Mr. Catspaw's doom. Viola was not cruel. He had an instinctive aversion to the shedding of blood. If Mr. Catspaw had given up the papers without resistance, he would have been safe; but the treachery of the action and the struggle inflamed the robber's wilder pa.s.sions.
”Pity!” screamed Mr. Catspaw, as Viola seized him by the throat.
”Did you pity _me_ when Susi begged for grace, when you wrote my death-warrant?”
The attorney's face grew black, his eyes started from his head; but his despair gave him strength. When he saw the robber's knife descending, he caught it in his hands.
There was a noise in the house. Steps were heard. The attorney's cries had roused the servants.
Viola made a violent movement. Again, and again, and again was the broad steel buried in the breast of his victim. Then, seizing the papers with his b.l.o.o.d.y hands, he rushed from the room and reached the yard, where he was met by the coachman and another servant. They pursued him.
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