der
rolled onward, darting its vain fury upon the rushing cataract, and the
tortured breast of the gulf that raved below low. And the sounds that
filled the air were even more fraught with terror and menace than the
scene;--the waving, the groans, the crash of the pines on the hill, the
impetuous force of the rain upon the whirling river, and the everlasting
roar of the cataract, answered anon by the yet more awful voice that
burst above it from the clouds.

They halted while yet sufficiently distant from the cataract to be heard
by each other. "My path," said Aram, as the lightning now paused upon
the scene, and seemed literally to wrap in a lurid shroud the dark
figure of the Student, as he stood, with his hand calmly raised, and his
cheek pale, but dauntless and composed; "My path now lies yonder: in a
week we shall meet again."

"By the fiend," said Houseman, shuddering, "I would not, for a full
hundred, ride alone through the moor you will pass. There stands a
gibbet by the road, on which a parricide was hanged in chains. Pray
Heaven this night be no omen of the success of our present compact!"

"A steady heart, Houseman," answered Aram, striking into the separate
path, "is its own omen."

The Student soon gained the spot in which he had left his horse; the
animal had not attempted to break the bridle, but stood trembling from
limb to limb, and testified by a quick short neigh the satisfaction with
which it hailed the approach of its master, and found itself no longer
alone.

Aram remounted, and hastened once more into the main road. He scarcely
felt the rain, though the fierce wind drove it right against his path;
he scarcely marked the lightning, though at times it seemed to dart its
arrows on his very form; his heart was absorbed in the success of his
schemes.

"Let the storm without howl on," thought he, "that within hath a respite
at last. Amidst the winds and rains I can breathe more freely than I
have done on the smoothest summer day. By the charm of a deeper mind
and a subtler tongue, I have then conquered this desperate foe; I have
silenced this inveterate spy: and, Heaven be praised, he too has human
ties; and by those ties I hold him! Now, then, I hasten to London--I
arrange this annuity--see that the law tightens every cord of the
compact; and when all is done, and this dangerous man fairly departed on
his exile, I return to Madeline, and devote to her a life no longer the
vassal of accident and