Ellen Walton : $b or, The villain and his victimsAddison, Alvin
General
Ellen Walton : $b or, The villain and his victims
Addison, Alvin
Fiction
His eyes were wild with a horrible stare, as if fixed by the magic power of
some ghastly sight, while large drops of perspiration oozed from every
pore, and stood in cold beads upon his brow! In fixed horror he thus
remained for some moments, then fell back and covered his eyes with his
hands, as if to shut out the dreadful scene!
Then rousing again, he exclaimed in another key:
"No! no! no! not that! I'll not come to that! Alive, and food for crawling
worms! No! no! no! Then birds of prey feasting upon my flesh! Oh, God! the
curse! the curse!"
This last vision seemed to overpower him, and he lay moaning most piteously
for a length of time. Then the wilder phases of a distempered mind came on,
and he again resumed his frenzied tone, manner, and language.
"Begone! ye lying fiends, avaunt! I'll not believe your hissing tongues!
'Tis false! all false! Back, or I'll smite you to the earth! Back! back!"
And he fought the air furiously, for a brief period, then sunk back
exhausted on his pallet. A troubled half hour's sleep followed, from which
he awoke much debilitated. With his waning strength, the delirium took a
milder form. The vail of the future seemed still to be lifted, to give him
a glimpse of coming events, but the scene that appeared was not dreadful
like the ones which had preceded it.
"Happy at last, despite my oath, my vengeance unachieved! All my deep-laid
schemes of no avail! Oh, Eliza! thou art indeed revenged! Thy worst
predictions are realized."
The fever soon returned in violence, and once more his ravings were
dreadful.
"Ho, Ramsey! keep them safe, on your life, keep them safe! do you hear?
Your life, if they escape! I'll not be thwarted in my wishes; I'll move all
h--l but I'll be revenged! ay, I'll walk through fire, flood and storm to
gain my ends and work their ruin! They shall not escape my vengeance, I
swear it in the face of earth and heaven!"
But we will not dwell longer on this unpleasant picture of a wretched man
exposing his own dark soul to the eyes of others. All the night long he
continued to rave in this fever-crazed manner, Hamilton, and much of the
time Ellen, too, a witness of his madness. As morning drew near he fell
into a more tranquil slumber, and the violence of the fever seemed to have
passed. With the early dawn seizing a favorable moment, when all their
enemies were asleep, the lovers made their escape. Ramsey and the Indians
were so much occupied with Durant, they did not think of the prisoners as
they would have done under other circumstances, though they did not feel
desirous of seeing the deeds of the past day re-enacted. It was some time
before they noticed the escape, and then no pursuit was instituted until
after the morning meal was dispatched.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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