{"id":"01KG6YHB0QNDK923932QYKZZ6V","cid":"bafkreid3nnl44te5si6gouyr6g4zalmctzprmgguzoceuvdx5h7uydfn7i","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":8428,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:55.413Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 7","source_file":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","start_line":8363,"text":"his former associate, climbed the winding stairs. Half-way up, they\r\nstopped to listen. No sound. Mounting faster, they reached the belfry;\r\nbut, at the threshold, started at the spectacle disclosed. A spaniel,\r\nwhich, unbeknown to them, had followed them thus far, stood shivering\r\nas before some unknown monster in a brake: or, rather, as if it snuffed\r\nfootsteps leading to some other world.\r\n\r\nBannadonna lay, prostrate and bleeding, at the base of the bell which\r\nwas adorned with girls and garlands. He lay at the feet of the hour\r\nUna; his head coinciding, in a vertical line, with her left hand,\r\nclasped by the hour Dua. With downcast face impending over him, like\r\nJael over nailed Sisera in the tent, was the domino; now no more\r\nbecloaked.\r\n\r\nIt had limbs, and seemed clad in a scaly mail, lustrous as a\r\ndragon-beetle’s. It was manacled, and its clubbed arms were uplifted,\r\nas if, with its manacles, once more to smite its already smitten\r\nvictim. One advanced foot of it was inserted beneath the dead body, as\r\nif in the act of spurning it.\r\n\r\nUncertainty falls on what now followed.\r\n\r\nIt were but natural to suppose that the magistrates would, at first,\r\nshrink from immediate personal contact with what they saw. At the\r\nleast, for a time, they would stand in involuntary doubt; it may be, in\r\nmore or less of horrified alarm. Certain it is, that an arquebuss was\r\ncalled for from below. And some add, that its report, followed by a\r\nfierce whiz, as of the sudden snapping of a main-spring, with a steely\r\ndin, as if a stack of sword-blades should be dashed upon a pavement,\r\nthese blended sounds came ringing to the plain, attracting every eye\r\nfar upward to the belfry, whence, through the lattice-work, thin\r\nwreaths of smoke were curling.\r\n\r\nSome averred that it was the spaniel, gone mad by fear, which was shot.\r\nThis, others denied. True it was, the spaniel never more was seen; and,\r\nprobably, for some unknown reason, it shared the burial now to be\r\nrelated of the domino. For, whatever the preceding circumstances may\r\nhave been, the first instinctive panic over, or else all ground of\r\nreasonable fear removed, the two magistrates, by themselves, quickly\r\nrehooded the figure in the dropped cloak wherein it had been hoisted.\r\nThe same night, it was secretly lowered to the ground, smuggled to the\r\nbeach, pulled far out to sea, and sunk. Nor to any after urgency, even\r\nin free convivial hours, would the twain ever disclose the full secrets\r\nof the belfry.\r\n\r\nFrom the mystery unavoidably investing it, the popular solution of the\r\nfoundling’s fate involved more or less of supernatural agency. But some\r\nfew less unscientific minds pretended to find little difficulty in\r\notherwise accounting for it. In the chain of circumstantial inferences\r\ndrawn, there may, or may not, have been some absent or defective links.\r\nBut, as the explanation in question is the only one which tradition has\r\nexplicitly preserved, in dearth of better, it will here be given. But,\r\nin the first place, it is requisite to present the supposition\r\nentertained as to the entire motive and mode, with their origin, of the\r\nsecret design of Bannadonna; the minds above-mentioned assuming to\r\npenetrate as well into his soul as into the event. The disclosure will\r\nindirectly involve reference to peculiar matters, none of, the\r\nclearest, beyond the immediate subject.\r\n\r\nAt that period, no large bell was made to sound otherwise than as at\r\npresent, by agitation of a tongue within, by means of ropes, or\r\npercussion from without, either from cumbrous machinery, or stalwart\r\nwatchmen, armed with heavy hammers, stationed in the belfry, or in\r\nsentry-boxes on the open roof, according as the bell was sheltered or\r\nexposed.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 7"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGCCBQ15QDEM5CEG7CHSQ","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YHB0KHM05Q6D6B7WWQCSP","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YHB0MWD86M0FG3CYSRHGP","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:58.167Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:58:08.015Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}