revenge, and yet bewildered, he sets off at full speed, through back
lanes, over fields, passing in his course the astonished guardmen. He
looks neither to the right nor the left, but speeds on toward the
grove. Now he reaches the bridge that crosses the millpond, pauses for
breath, then proceeds on. Suddenly a light from the villa Anna occupies
flashes out. He has crossed the bridge, bounds over the little
hedge-grown avenue, through the garden, and in another minute stands
before her, a pistol pointed at her breast, and all the terrible
passions of an enraged fiend darkening his countenance. Her implorings
for mercy bring an old servant rushing into the room, the report of a
pistol rings out upon the still air, shriek after shriek follows,
mingled with piercing moans, and death-struggles. “Ha, ha!” says the
avenger, looking on with a sardonic smile upon his face, and a curl of
hate upon his lip, “I have taken the life to which I gave my own-yes, I
have taken it-I have taken it!” And she writhes her body, and sets her
eyes fixedly upon him, as he hastens out of the room.
“Quick! quick!” he says to himself. “There, then! I am pursued!” He
recrosses the millpond over another bridge, and in his confusion turns
a short angle into a lane leading to the city. The yelping of dogs, the
deep, dull tramp of hoofs, the echoing of voices, the ominous baying
and scenting of blood-hounds-all break upon his ear in one terrible
chaos. Not a moment is to be lost. The sight at the villa will attract
the attention of his pursuers, and give him time to make a distance!
The thought of what he has done, and the terrible death that awaits
him, crowds upon his mind, and rises up before him like a fierce
monster of retribution. He rushes at full speed down the lane, vaults
across a field into the main road, only to find his pursuers close upon
him. The patrol along the streets have caught the alarm, which he finds
spreading with lightning-speed. The clank of side-arms, the scenting
and baying of the hounds, coming louder and louder, nearer and nearer,
warns him of the approaching danger. A gate at the head of a wharf
stands open, the hounds are fast gaining upon him, a few jumps more and
they will have him fast in their ferocious grasp. He rushes through the
gate, down the wharf, the tumultuous cry of his pursuers striking
terror into his very heart. Another instant and the hounds are at his
feet, he stands on the capsill at the end, gives one wild, despairing
look into the abyss beneath—“I die revenged,” he shouts, discharges a
pistol into his breast, and with one wild plunge, is buried forever in
the water beneath. The dark stream of an unhappy life has run out. Upon
whom does the responsibility of this terrible closing rest? In the
words of Thomson, the avenger left behind him only “Gaunt Beggary, and
Scorn, with many hell-hounds more.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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