Page:The Literary Magnet 1826 vol 2.djvu/184

 clenched teeth. He had been in a swoon of anguish, not of death; and his soul soon found itself alive under the ruins of its shattered tabernacle. The refreshing breezes which played on the water brought him to himself, and enabled him to see and feel every pang his torturer had prepared for him. His first look was to his maimed limbs, where he saw his blood and marrow soaking through his vestments. Pain had infixed her viper tooth in the seat of sensibility, and insinuated therein her subtle venom. He sought to approach the edge of the rock, but could not stir himself; death had bound him for execution on the stage of torture, where he lay immoveable. A burning fever, kindled by anguish, raged in his blood, to which the heat of the meridian sun, reflected from the rocks and water, gave additional violence. In the green mirror that encompassed him, he saw the wall of rocks reflected that cut him off from the land; he heard the waves dashing against their base, and the horrors of his situation opened upon him. As the objects disengaged themselves from darkness, when the orient morn shone effulgently on the eastern hills, the miserable and guilty Francesco saw his deeds rise up before him, and at first his too precipitate suicide appeared the most obnoxious of his offences. He lamented that he had left that dearly-purchased wealth unenjoyed, which had lured nymphs to his arms, before whose beauties the charms of Enemonde had veiled their diminished lustre in shame and envy, and who would have richly consoled him for the loss of his ungrateful fair one. Regret stimulated him to vain struggles for escape; loud were his cries for assistance, but none heard them: no vessel, however small, approached the dangerous shoal in which he had involved himself. Flies, wasps, and hornets swarmed about his battered visage, from which he had no means of driving them, inserted their suckers into his torn flesh, and sated themselves with his blood and juices. The loose spray of the sea was cast over him by the breeze, and wherever the briny drops fell into his wounds, they gave a keener edge to his torments. He cried to heaven and to man for rescue; justified and cursed his deed; called Pietro and Enemonde his murderers; besought the All-gracious to terminate his misery, to open an abyss beneath him, to draw down the rocks on his head. He strained his nerves by vain efforts, and, stung with agony, cut new wounds in his flesh by useless struggles. The torrid sun blistered and peeled the skin from his face and neck, and burning thirst seared his palate. He lay on the most excruciating engine on which hell ever martyred its victims, until evening; and morning returned again, without sleep, without any mitigation of his anguish, which redoubled with every fresh pang. His strength was annihilated, and did not suffice to the faintest motion or groan. A cormorant alighted on him and ate out both his eyes.

Towards the evening of the second day the rising winds howled a note of comfort to the wretched sufferer; the sea curled into higher waves, and the distant thunder growled in hoarse murmurs. The miserable object of such accumulated tortures implored heaven to bury him beneath the ocean, or to hurl its flaming bolts at his head. The tempest grew more obstreperous; the winds raised the waters mountains high, and heaved them far over the rock where he lay. One of the waves in its return bore his mangled body into the sea, and completed and terminated his punishment!