Page:Prose works, from the original editions (Volume 1).djvu/137

 My heart sank within me: unheeded the war Of the battling clouds, on the mountain-tops, broke; Unheeded the thunder-peal crash'd in mine ear— This heart, hard as iron, is stranger to fear; But conscience in low, noiseless whispering spoke.

'Twas then that her form on the whirlwind upholding, The ghost of the murder'd Victoria strode; In her right hand a shadowy shroud she was holding, She swiftly advanced to my lonesome abode. I wildly then call'd on the tempest to bear me

Overcome by the wild retrospection of ideal horror, which these swiftly-written lines excited in his soul, Wolfstein tore the paper, on which he had written them, to pieces, and scattered them about him. He arose from his recumbent posture, and again advanced through the forest. Not far had he proceeded, ere a mingled murmur broke upon the silence of night—it was the sound of human voices. An event so unusual in these solitudes, excited Wolfstein's momentary surprise; he started, and looking around him, essayed to discover whence those sounds proceeded. What was the astonishment of Wolfstein, when he found that a detached party, who had been sent in pursuit of the Count, had actually overtaken him, and, at this instant, were dragging from the carriage the almost lifeless form of a female, whose light symmetrical figure, as it leant on the muscular frame of the robber who supported it, afforded a most striking contrast. They had, before his arrival, plundered the Count of all his riches, and, enraged at the spirited defence which he had made, had inhumanly murdered him, and cast his lifeless body adown the yawning precipice. Transfixed by a jutting point of granite rock, it remained there to be devoured by the ravens. Wolfstein joined the banditti; and, although he could not recall the deed, lamented the wanton cruelty which had been practised upon the Count. As for the female, whose grace and loveliness