“Let me see, I’ll not suffer him to die so soon; perhaps a little reflection will induce him to persuade her to yield.  At all events I’ll try the experiment.  Ho!  Ramsey, cut him loose; we’ll adjourn the fun to another day.”

Having thus given a few snatches of the revelations made by the villain in his delirium, enough to show what were his intentions toward his prisoners, and the utter blackness of his heart, we will depict another phase of his madness, in which he imagines the swift feet of retribution to be on his track, while the future was uncurtained to his distempered gaze.

“Coming! coming! coming! and there is no escape! * * Away! ye grinning devils! out of my sight, ye imps of h—­l!  Begone! ye ghostly demons, forever pointing with your long fingers! what would you have me see?”

His eyes were wild with a horrible stare, as if fixed by the magic power of some ghastly sight, while large drops of perspiration oozed from every pore, and stood in cold beads upon his brow!  In fixed horror he thus remained for some moments, then fell back and covered his eyes with his hands, as if to shut out the dreadful scene!

Then rousing again, he exclaimed in another key: 

“No! no! no! not that!  I’ll not come to that!  Alive, and food for crawling worms!  No! no! no!  Then birds of prey feasting upon my flesh!  Oh, God! the curse! the curse!”

This last vision seemed to overpower him, and he lay moaning most piteously for a length of time.  Then the wilder phases of a distempered mind came on, and he again resumed his frenzied tone, manner, and language.

“Begone! ye lying fiends, avaunt!  I’ll not believe your hissing tongues!  ’Tis false! all false!  Back, or I’ll smite you to the earth!  Back! back!”

And he fought the air furiously, for a brief period, then sunk back exhausted on his pallet.  A troubled half hour’s sleep followed, from which he awoke much debilitated.  With his waning strength, the delirium took a milder form.  The vail of the future seemed still to be lifted, to give him a glimpse of coming events, but the scene that appeared was not dreadful like the ones which had preceded it.

“Happy at last, despite my oath, my vengeance unachieved!  All my deep-laid schemes of no avail!  Oh, Eliza! thou art indeed revenged!  Thy worst predictions are realized.”

The fever soon returned in violence, and once more his ravings were dreadful.

“Ho, Ramsey! keep them safe, on your life, keep them safe! do you hear?  Your life, if they escape!  I’ll not be thwarted in my wishes; I’ll move all h—­l but I’ll be revenged! ay, I’ll walk through fire, flood and storm to gain my ends and work their ruin!  They shall not escape my vengeance, I swear it in the face of earth and heaven!”