ore plaintive--the moan of a strong man in the
death-throe.

We know that voice very well; we have heard it many times, calm and
regal, above the wrangle of councils and the roar of battle; often it
prayed for victory or for the people's weal, but it never yet called on
earth or heaven to help Agamemnon. The Chorus hear it too; but they
linger and palter, while each gives his grave sentence deliberately in
his proper turn. One or two advise action and interference, and stand
perfectly still. At last we hear a heavy, choking groan, and a great
stillness follows. We know that all is over--we know that there is a
stir already down there in Hades--we seem to catch a far-off murmur
raised by a thousand weak, tremulous voices--the very ghost of a
wail--as the shadows of those who died gallantly in their harness before
Troy gather to meet their old leader, the mightiest Atride.

In the background of all we fancy a hideous Eidolon, from whose side
even the damned recoil in loathing. There is a grin on the lips yet red
and wet with the traces of the unholy banquet. Thyestes exalts over the
fulfillment of another chapter in the inevitable curse.

Who has not grown savage over that scene? We hate the old drivelers less
when, a few minutes later, they truckle and temporize with the awful
shape, who comes forth with a splash of blood on her slender wrist, and
a speck or two on her white, lofty forehead.

Just so helpless and useless I felt at that moment. I was standing by
while a foul wrong was being wrought. I saw nothing but ruin for Guy,
and desolate misery for Constance, in the black future. Yet I could
think of no argument or counsel that would in the least avail. I felt
sick at heart. It was some minutes before I answered his last question.
At last the words broke from me almost unconsciously: "Ah! how will you
answer to God and man for last night's work?"

I forgot that I was quoting the cry of the Covenanter's widow when she
knelt by her husband's corpse, and looked up into Claverhouse's face
with those sad eyes that were ever dim and cloudy after the carbines
flashed across them. But Guy remembered it, and answered instantly in
the words of his favorite hero,

"I can answer it to man well enough, and I will take God in my own
hand."

Years afterward we both recalled that fatal defiance, when the speaker
lay helpless, at the mercy of the Omnipotence whose might he challenged.
Just then his servant, who was busily pr