"Hurrah!" cried the murderer, leaping from his hiding place, and
walking with rapid strides towards his victim, "hurrah! for liberty
and England!"

Scarce had he uttered those prostituted names, before the triumph of
misguided zeal faded suddenly and forever from his brow and soul.

The wounded man leaned back in the supporting arms of his chilled and
horror-stricken friend; who, kneeling on one knee to support him,
fixed his eager eyes upon the pale and changing countenance of his
burden, unconscious of the presence of the assassin.

"Speak, Mordaunt; speak! how is it with you?" he said. Recalled from
his torpor by the voice, Mordaunt opened his eyes, and muttering, "My
child, my child," sank back again; and Lord Ulswater (for it was he)
felt, by his increased weight, that death was hastening rapidly on its
victim.

"Oh!" said he, bitterly, and recalling their last conversation--"oh!
where, where, when this man--the wise, the kind, the innocent, almost
the perfect--falls thus in the very prime of existence, by a sudden
blow from an obscure hand, unblest in life, inglorious in death,--oh!
where, where is this boasted triumph of Virtue, or where is its
reward?"

True to his idol at the last, as these words fell upon his dizzy and
receding senses, Mordaunt raised himself by a sudden though momentary
exertion, and, fixing his eyes full upon Lord Ulswater, his moving
lips (for his voice was already gone) seemed to shape out the answer,
"It is here!"