"The Voice! The Voice!" he whispered. "Thou shalt not kill! Thou
shalt not kill! You lie!" he cried in a sudden outburst of terrible
fierceness. "He was not a fool. He loved men more than the mockery
and cant of courts. He loved--he trusted me--and I betrayed him. Who
knew when he fled wildly away from the pomp and inequalities he hated?
I! Who watched for his secret letters? I! Who came to America when
his letter of homesick pleading came? I! I! I! Who killed him when
conscience and duty would have sent him back to the court of his
father? I, his cousin whom he loved above all men. You lie. I did
love him. I was drunk with the royal glitter ahead. I craved it even
as he hated it. Thou shalt not kill! Thou shalt not kill! Mercy!
Mercy! I can not bear it."
He fell groveling upon the floor and crawled to Mic-co's feet.
"The Voice bids me tell!" he whispered, clutching fearfully at Mic-co's
hand. "Twice, since, I would have killed to keep this thing of the
candlestick from creeping back and back until that thing of long ago
lay uncovered and I disgraced! . . . Theodomir hid in the Seminole
village. No--no, you must listen--the Voice bids me tell or lose my
reason. I came there at his bidding--his marriage to the Indian girl
had been unhappy.
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