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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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1008 ‘If you value your head,’ said Nicholas, taking up a position before the door, and speaking in the same low voice in which he had spoken before, and with no more outward passion than he had before displayed; ‘stay where you are!’ ‘Mind me, and not him, and call down Bray,’ said Ralph. ‘Mind yourself rather than either of us, and stay where you are!’ said Nicholas. ‘Will you call down Bray?’ cried Ralph. ‘Remember that you come near me at your peril,’ said Nicholas. Gride hesitated. Ralph being, by this time, as furious as a baffled tiger, made for the door, and, attempting to pass Kate, clasped her arm roughly with his hand. Nicholas, with his eyes darting fire, seized him by the collar. At that moment, a heavy body fell with great violence on the floor above, and, in an instant afterwards, was heard a most appalling and terrific scream. They all stood still, and gazed upon each other. Scream succeeded scream; a heavy pattering of feet succeeded; and many shrill voices clamouring together were heard to cry, ‘He is dead!’ ‘Stand off!’ cried Nicholas, letting loose all the passion he had restrained till now; ‘if this is what I scarcely dare to hope it is, you are caught, villains, in your own toils.’ He burst from the room, and, darting upstairs to the quarter from whence the noise proceeded, forced his way through a crowd of persons who quite filled a small bed-chamber, and found Bray lying on the floor quite dead; his daughter clinging to the body. ‘How did this happen?’ he cried, looking wildly about him. Several voices answered together, that he had been observed, through the half-opened door, reclining in a strange and uneasy position upon a chair; that he had been spoken to several times, |
