"That oath! it was a great mistake, this worst blunder I have made. In spite of myself it will haunt me. And the curse! that awful curse! Gods! will it never cease ringing in my ears! night and day, sleeping and waking it never leaves me! I see her now! How weird-like her prophetic looks! How like the sentence of doom are her words, as, with flashing eye and quivering lip, she says: 'As you have wilfully, voluntarily, and wickedly called it down upon your own head, may the curse of God rest upon you in this world and the world to come.' Gods and demons! if their should be 'a world to come!'--How her words burn into my heart! and, worst of all, they are proving a reality! I am accused! my 'plans of villainy' do fail, and I _am_ a 'vagabond upon the face of the earth!' But I'll not endure it longer! I'll shake myself from these haunting fears! aye, and I'll prove them false! I'll do it if all the curses of the universe rise up before me! Avaunt, ye specters! I'll be a man despite your efforts to frighten me by your grim presence!" Again, in another strain, he broke forth with this development of his inward thoughts. "Heigh, ho! I am on the track now, and nothing can save her! Oh, but I'll be sweetly revenged! I'll teach the proud minx to insult a Durant! Won't she be humbled, though! ha! ha! ha! How she will struggle and beg for mercy! But will I pity her? Yes, 'as the wolf the lamb!' Oh, if I but possessed her now!" And again: "Proud as ever! Never mind, I'll bring her down! I'll wreathe that lofty brow with shame! I'll strike her through her lover! To save _him_ at the stake she'll yield! I'll revel in her charms, and then--then what? Ha! ha! As a reward for her condescensions, _I'll burn him alive_! Ha! ha! Fool, she'll be to think I'd let a _rival_ live, when _her_ heart was _his_!" * * * "How pale she is! the charm works! she'll bend to my will at last. * * Not yet? Look at his agony, have you the heart to see him suffer so? Ah, how dearly you must love him, to stand by and see him burn to ashes when a word from your lips would rescue him from the flames!" * * * * * * * * "Let me see, I'll not suffer him to die so soon; perhaps a little reflection will induce him to persuade her to yield. At all events I'll try the experiment. Ho! Ramsey, cut him loose; we'll adjourn the fun to another day." Having thus given a few snatches of the revelations made by the villain in his delirium, enough to show what were his intentions toward his prisoners, and the utter blackness of his heart, we will depict another phase of his madness, in which he imagines the swift feet of retribution to be on his track, while the future was uncurtained to his distempered gaze. "Coming! coming! coming! and there is no escape! * * Away! ye grinning devils! out of my sight, ye imps of h--l! Begone! ye ghostly demons, forever pointing with your long fingers! what would you have me see?"