“The princess had bowed her head, and the soft and plenteous waters of her eyes had dried like dew under the midsummer sun; yet still she closed her eyes, for her brain felt fixed and alight with a nameless awe, such as passion lends presentiment.

“Suddenly, in the words of Albericus, there burst overhead a noise like the roaring of ’enormous artificial golden lions,’—­that was the drum:  less, in this instance, like smitten parchment than the crackling roll of clouds that embrace in thunder.  The noise amazed himself,—­yet Rodomant exulted in it, his audacity expanded with it, broke down the last barrier of reason.  He added stop after stop,—­at the last and sixtieth stop, he unfettered the whole volume of the wind.  That instant was a blast, not to speak irreverently, which sounded like the crack of doom.  To her standing stricken underneath, it seemed to explode somewhere in the roof with a shock beyond all artillery,—­to tear up the ground under her feet, like the spasm of an earthquake,—­to rend the walls, like lightning’s electric finger; and to shriek in her ringing brain the advent of some implacable and dreadful judgment, but not the doom of all men,—­only one, which doom, alas! she felt might be also hers in his.

“All men and women within a mile had heard the shock, or rather felt it, and interpreted it in various ways.  Only the prince himself—­who was standing on the terrace, and had distinctly perceived the rich vibration of the strong, but calm, Hosanna—­interpreted it rightly and directly; more than that, his animal sagacity told him it was Rodomant, who, having amused himself, was now indulging the same individual....

“To Adelaida there was something more terrible in the succeeding silence than in the shock of sound; it had ceased directly, died first into a discordant groan, which, rising to a scream, was still.  She listened intensely:  there was no fall of rattling fragments, the vibration had been insufficient, or not prolonged enough, to injure the window,—­that had been her first, chief fear.  This removed, however, she felt doubly, desperately anxious.  Why did he not come down, or speak, or stir?  The men employed to feed the monstrous machine with wind had all rushed away together by the back-ladder through which they entered:  hence the cause of the shrieking groan and silence.  He was there alone,—­for he knew not that she was there.  Oh that he would give some sign!

“In a few minutes a sign was given, but not from him.  The princess heard the grinding of the immense door near the altar; it was opened; steps entered hurriedly.  She heard, next instant, her father’s voice,—­impregnated with icy ire, low with smothered hatred, distinct with the only purpose he ever entertained,—­punishment.  She flew, with feet that gave no echo, up the stair on her side of the lobby.  Rodomant was sitting dead-still, with his face in his hands; they looked rigid; the veins in his forehead, as it showed above