then--then what? Ha! ha!
As a reward for her condescensions, _I'll burn him alive_! Ha! ha! Fool,
she'll be to think I'd let a _rival_ live, when _her_ heart was
_his_!" * * *

"How pale she is! the charm works! she'll bend to my will at last. * * Not
yet? Look at his agony, have you the heart to see him suffer so? Ah, how
dearly you must love him, to stand by and see him burn to ashes when a word
from your lips would rescue him from the flames!" * * * * * * * *

"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