Murder me by numbers you possibly may; but I am an armed man--I am a desperate man, and I will nto die without ample vengeance.

This is my resolution, take it as you may.

I WILL hear her determination from her own mouth; from her own mouth, alone, and without witnesses, will I hear it.

Now, choose," he said, drawing his sword with the right hand, and, with the left, by the same motion taking a pistol from his belt and cocking it, but turning the point of one weapon and the muzzle of the other to the ground--"choose if you will have this hall floated with blood, or if you will grant me the decisive interview with my affianced bride which the laws of God and the country alike entitle me to demand." All recoiled at the sound of his voice and the determined action by which it was accompanied; for the ecstasy of real desperation seldom fails to overpower the less energetic passions by which it may be opposed.

The clergyman was the first to speak.