Two agonies have you undergone already, and I am inclined to mercy.

The end is at hand.

If you have prayers to say, say them, Master Ashburn, though I doubt me it will be wasted breath--you are over-ripe for hell." "You mean to kill me," he gasped, growing yet a shade more livid.
"Does the suspicion of it but occur to you ?" laughed Crispin, "and yet twice already have I given you a foretaste of death.

Think you I but jested ?" Joseph's teeth clicked together in a snap of determination.

That sneer of Crispin's acted upon him as a blow--but as a blow that arouses the desire to retaliate rather than lays low.