he exclaimed, “and you shall be mine for ever and ever!” Immalee, shuddering at the grasp in which he held her, and trying in vain to watch the expression of his countenance, yet felt enough of her danger to tear herself from him. “Farewell for ever!” exclaimed the stranger, as he rushed from her.

Wed me by this light!

“Immalee, exhausted by emotion and terror, had fallen senseless on the sands that filled the path to the ruined pagoda. He returned—he raised her in his arms—her long dark hair streamed over them like the drooping banners of a defeated army—her arms sunk down as if declining the support they seemed to implore—her cold and colourless cheek rested on his shoulder.

“Is she dead?” he murmured. “Well, be it so—let her perish—let her be any thing but mine!” He flung his senseless burden on the sands, and departed—nor did he ever revisit the island.

CHAPTER XIX.

Magdaleniade

“Three years had elapsed since the parting of Immalee and the stranger, when one evening the attention of some Spanish gentlemen, who were walking in a public place in Madrid, was arrested by a figure that passed them, habited in the dress of the country, (only without a sword), and walking very slowly. They stopt by a kind of simultaneous movement, and seemed to ask each other, with silent looks, what had been the cause of the impression this person’s appearance had made on them. There was nothing remarkable in his figure,—his demeanour was quiet; it was the singular expression of his countenance which had struck them with a sensation they could neither define or account for.

“Three

“As they paused, the person returned alone, and walking slowly—and they again encountered that singular expression of the features, (the eyes particularly), which no human glance could meet unappalled. Accustomed to look on and converse with all things revolting to nature and to man,—for ever exploring the mad-house, the jail, or the Inquisition,—the den of famine, the dungeon of crime, or the death-bed of despair,—his eyes had acquired a light and a language of their own—a light that none could gaze on, and a language that few dare understand.

“As he passed slowly by them, they observed two others whose attention was apparently fixed on the same singular object, for they stood pointing after him, and speaking to each other with gestures of strong and obvious 

 Prev. P 77/133 next