Burning with revenge at his late defeat, Anthony flew after the falling brand:  seizing it, he renewed the attack.  Michael fled towards the bridge.  With the bound of a bereaved tiger Anthony sprung upon his prey.  Just where the root of the trunk rested on the bank they closed, after a desperate lunge parried by the unprotected arm of Michael.  It was disabled—­but he still clung to his enemy.  Anthony strove to disengage himself; but the other, aware that life or death depended on the issue of that struggle, hung on him with a convulsive tightness that rendered the advantage he had gained of no avail.  The sword was useless.  Anthony threw it into the boiling gulf at his feet.  Both hands being now free, whilst one arm of his opponent hung powerless and bleeding at his side, he had greatly the advantage.  He wrenched the other arm of Michael from its hold, lifted him from his narrow footing-place, and with a malignant shout of triumph shook him over the abyss.  One startling plunge, and the wretch sank in the rolling waters.  An agonising yell, and but one, escaped him, as he hung quivering over that yawning portal to eternity; the next cry was choked by the seethe of the boiling foam.  The waves whirled him round for a moment like some huge leviathan tossing its prey.  He sank into its gorge, and the insatiate gulf swallowed him up for ever.  Anthony drew back.  He turned from the horrid scene, with some yet lingering tokens of compunction, in the expectation of rejoining his companions; but in vain—­the babes and his deliverer had disappeared!

Hildebrand Wentworth had passed the remainder of that day in his own chamber.  It was a dark lone room, leading out of the turret we have before described.  Often had he ascended the narrow stair communicating with the parapet, and often had he watched the dark woods beneath the distant mountain.  It was the road taken by his guilty emissaries; and, whether on the look-out for signals or for their return, he repeated his visits until the blue mists were gathering on the horizon, and day—­another day!—­had passed into the bosom of eternity.  It was an hour of holiness and peace, but heavy and disturbed was the current of his thoughts.  He sat near a projecting angle of the turret, his head bent over the parapet.  A female voice was heard beneath, chanting monotonously a low and melancholy psalm.  Soon the following words were distinguished:—­

    “Dark as the bounding waters
      When storm clouds o’er them roll,
    The face of Zion’s daughters
      Reveals the troubled soul.”

Hildebrand drew his breath, as if labouring under some violent emotion.  His whole frame was agitated.  His lip grew pale as she went on with a voice of exultation—­

    “But joy is sown in sadness,
      And hope with anxious fears;
    Yon clouds shall break in gladness. 
      And doubts dissolve in tears.”