Page:The Necromancer, or, The Tale of the Black Forest Vol. 1.djvu/176

 The impression this letter made on us, resumed the Austrian, cannot be described. I read in the countenance of my friend the bitterest reproaches, for having seduced him to employ the infernal arts of Volkert to so shameless a purport.

The serious unhappy turn which this dark transaction began to take, made us apprehend that it would end with a most melancholy catastrophe, yet all our apprehensions were trifles light as air in comparison to the dreadful anxiety which poor. Volkert was overwhelmed with, when these said tidings were reported to him. We now plainly comprehended the tendency of the mysterious words he had uttered, when we had seen him last—I never saw a man in a more distressing situation than he was as he perused the Baron's letter. His agony rendered him almost distracted, when he came to the conclusion of that melancholy epistle. He wrung his hands in wild despair, was beating his breast, and tearing his hair, exclaiming in an accent