Page:Peterson's Magazine 1842, Volume I.pdf/364

. will be the penance, that I shall sin again to weep for mercy at thy feet !"

" Fiend !" cried Isandra, her eyes flashing with indignation, as she struggled violently to free herself from his grasp. "Is your soul so steeped in iniquity, that not one thought of the awful doom which awaits you can startle you from your foul purpose ?" and the maiden, by a convulsive effort, tore herself from his embraces, and with the speed of lightning fled from the apartment to the reception room.

The Count roused all his energies for the pursuit, determined not to lose his prey a second time. Nearer and nearer came her hated pursuer. Already had his fingers touched the extremities of her long curls, as they waved from her neck in wild disorder ; a moment more, his hand rested upon her shoulder, when a female form glided swiftly from behind the arras of the window, and before the Count could check his forward movement, she plunged a dagger into his side. With a yell of agony he bounded a few paces into the air, and then fell heavily upon the floor. Isandra, unconscious of this new diversion in her favor, so noiseless and silent had been the movements of her almost unseen ally, with the frenzy of desperation, still imagining her persecutor to be upon her, flung herself down the stairs, swept through the hall, and at length she sunk exhausted upon the pavement of the narrow lane upon which the court-yard of the mansion opened.

Beside the body of the Count, as he writhed in torture, stood his executioner, the moonbeams painting her death-wan features and loose robes as, with the fire of delirium in her eye, she seemed to count with vengeful accuracy each throe of mortal torture that palsied his quivering frame ; and then she burst into a loud strain of triumphant rhapsody, as she addressed the dying soldier : " Adolphe Count St. Croix, dost thou know me ? 'Twas the arm of Adelè, the earliest victim of thy falsehood and treachery, that struck the blow that rids the world of a monster. A moment more, and another name had been added to the dark catalogue of thy crimes." And she continued in a strain of mocking, as his limbs moved with pain, " aye, spurn me now, as of old, from your feet, when I knelt and prayed, as the dying sinner to his God, for one tender look, one short word of kindness from your lips . Yes, writhe on in your torment till your guilty soul oozes from your finger ends. Each pang is a thrill of delight that stirs anew the pulses of this withered heart. For years did you escape my vengeance ; and my ceaseless cry to Heaven was, that no hand but mine should antedate your doom, and I shall die contented since my prayer was heard. I searched among the stark and ghastly dead of many a bloody field, that I might tear from its mangled casement your treacherous heart, and feed the vulture with it. But kind fate guarded thee for this hour to make vengeance more complete by the manner of your death. Aye, let it make hell of your last moments here, that the soldier's honored death shall not be yours, nor martial tread or the cannon's roar your funeral dirge ; nor yet shall you rest in the ancestral tomb, but unknelled and uncoffined, the vulture's maw and the mongrel throat shall be your sepulchre." Then, as the purple tide gushed from the wound, she shrieked, "not yet, Death- not yet rob me of my victim ! one more mortal throe of agony to quench this burning thirst within. Oh, that this bubbling stream of life would filter thy soul away drop by drop through centuries of torture." But the Count's last breath was breathed ; his whole . frame shook with nature's last convulsive effort- one flutter more of the pulse of life and all was done. When Adele saw that the spirit had gone to its reckoning, she flung herself upon her knees and again screamed at the highest pitch of her voice—“ vengeance -more vengeance, Heaven ! -he shall not die yet. Can'st thou not bring the monster back again to life, and chain him to existence ? There is the one spell that bound me to this earth broken. Adolphe, I will be thy accusing spirit." So saying, she plunged the dagger, yet warm with his blood, into her heart. At that moment the building shook to its very foundation, and the bodies of the seducer and his victim were blown into a thousand fragments by the explosion of a barrel of gunpowder in the vaults, ignited by the bursting of a shell. But little more remains to be told. The garrison of Saragossa, exhausted by fatigue, famine, and the sword, capitulated, Pallafox, their heroic leader, having become delirious from over exertion. Isandra, with her father and Raymond de Beauvoir, escaped that night to Tarragona, from whence, after a lapse of a few days, they sailed for England, and were subsequently united in the holy bonds of matrimony.

A REMEMBERED SCENE. BY EDWARD J. PORTER. AND years have fled since I have lingered o'er The silvery waters of that moonlit baySo beautifully still as if it lay Hushed o'er its spirit's dreams- and yet before My vision it springs up, bright as of yore ; I gaze upon its loveliness, and stray Listless where sweeps my shallop's noiseless way, While joyous tones of sweetness steal from shore, Where happy groups are dancing to the sound Of flute or castanet ; and some beneath A bending olive, flowers and song enwreathe, While all the air seems passion-fraught around ; "Till, 'mid the gush of splendor bursting free, The soul awakens.-Could it dream eternally!