he said, "but who
are you that speak in this awful strain--this warning voice?"

Again the thunder rolled, with crashing sound, above the cottage; and
once more the wind swept by, laden, as it seemed, with the shrieks and
groans of human beings in the agonies of death.

The stranger maintained a certain degree of composure only by means of a
desperate effort, but he could not altogether subdue a wild flashing of
the eyes and a ghastly change of the countenance--signs of a profoundly
felt terror.

"Again I say, ask me not who I am!" he exclaimed, when the thunder and
the gust had passed. "My soul recoils from the bare idea of pronouncing
my own accursed name! But--unhappy as you see me--crushed, overwhelmed
with deep affliction as you behold me--anxious, but unable to repent for
the past as I am, and filled with appalling dread for the future as I
now proclaim myself to be, still is my power far, far beyond that limit
which hems mortal energies within so small a sphere. Speak, old
man--wouldst thou change thy condition? For to me--and to me alone of
all human beings--belongs the means of giving thee new life--of
bestowing upon thee the vigor of youth, of rendering that stooping form
upright and strong, of restoring fire to those glazing eyes, and beauty
to that wrinkled, sunken, withered countenance--of endowing thee, in a
word, with a fresh tenure of existence and making that existence sweet
by the aid of treasures so vast that no extravagance can dissipate
them!"

A strong though indefinite dread assailed the old man as this astounding
proffer was rapidly opened, in all its alluring details, to his
mind;--and various images of terror presented themselves to his
imagination;--but these feelings were almost immediately dominated by a
wild and ardent hope, which became the more attractive and exciting in
proportion as a rapid glance at his helpless, wretched, deserted
condition led him to survey the contrast between what he then was, and
what, if the stranger spoke truly, he might so soon become.

The stranger saw that he had made the desired impression; and he
continued thus:

"Give but your assent, old man, and not only will I render thee young,
handsome, and wealthy; but I will endow thy mind with an intelligence to
match that proud position. Thou shalt go forth into the world to enjoy
all those pleasures, those delights, and those luxuries, the names of
which are even now scarcely known to thee!"

"And what i