God!--I am damned! Here is a viper twined about my limbs trying to
dart its fangs into my heart! Hah!--there are feet pacing in the
room, too, and I hear voices! I am surrounded by evil spirits! Who's
there?--What are you?--Speak!--They are silent!--There is no answer!
Again comes the thunder! But perchance this is not my place of
punishment, and I will try to leave these horrible spirits!"
[Illustration: PAGE 975-- Who's there?--What are you?--Speak!]
He opened the door, and passed out into a small green field that lay
behind the house. The night was calm, and the silence profound as death.
Not a cloud obscured the heavens; the light of the moon fell upon the
stillness of the scene around him, with all the touching beauty of a
moonlit midnight in summer. Here he paused a moment, felt his brow,
then his heart, the palpitations of which fell audibly upon his ear. He
became somewhat cooler; the images of madness which had swept through
his stormy brain disappeared, and were succeeded by a lethargic vacancy
of thought, which almost deprived him of the consciousness of his own
identity. From the green field he descended mechanically to a little
glen which opened beside it. It was one of those delightful spots to
which the heart clingeth. Its sloping sides were clothed with patches of
wood, on the leaves of which the moonlight glanced with a soft lustre,
rendered more beautiful by their stillness.
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