Page:Iron shroud, or, Italian revenge (1).pdf/12

 death! Oh fiend, devil—is this your revenge?”

He dashed himself upon the ground in agony; —tears burst from him, and the sweat stood in large drops upon his face—he sobbed aloud—he tore his hair—he rolled about like one suffering intolerable anguish of body, and would have bitten the iron floor beneath him ; he breathed fearful eursescurses [sic] upon Tolfi, and the next moment passionate prayers to heaven for immediate death. Then the violeneeviolence [sic] of his grief became exhausted, and he lay still, weeping as a child would weep. The twilight of departing day shed its gloom around him ere he arose from that posture of utter and h hopeless sorrow. He had taken no food. Not one drop of water had eooledcooled [sic] the fever of his parehedparched [sic] lips. Sleep had not visited his eyes for six and thirty hours. He was faint with hunger; weary with watching, and with the excess of his emotions. IIeHe [sic] tasted of his food ; he drank with avidity of the water ; and reeling like a drunken man to his straw, eastcast [sic] himself upon it to brood again over the appaling image that had fastened itself upon his almost frenzied thoughts.

He slept. But his slumbers were not tranquil. He resisted, as long as he could, their approaehapproach [sic]; and when, at last, enfeebled nature yielded to their influence, he found no oblivion from his cares. Terrible dreams haunted him—ghastly visions harrowed up his imagination—he shouted and screamed, as if he already felt.the dungeon’s ponderous roof descending on him—he breathed hard and thick, as though writhing between its iron walls. Then would he spring up—stare wildly about him—stretch forth his hands to be sure he yet had space enough to live—and, muttering some