Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 3).djvu/266

 then turning to the gentlemen, "this is the conclusion of a life short as to years—but an eternity in vice and wickedness.

"I am Count Wolfran—Louisa Hautweitzer is my lawful wife—she must inherit. I die by the hand of a vile Turk, cut off when projecting the death of others. This is retribution.—Women—passion, vile principles, have destroyed me.—I have a house, servants, wretches in the ."

Here his articulation failed; he struggled violently to speak, which occasioned his wounds to bleed afresh, and carried him off in a few moments.

Heli viewed this scene with a gloomy ferocity, but spoke not. Ferdinand and his friends were equally shocked and surprised.

"Unhappy man," cried the Count, 'this is indeed a terrible conclusion of an ill-spent life."

"Do you then know the gentleman?" asked the surgeon; "I understood he was a stranger."