"Ask no questions! You will see!"
They did see. They were barely half-way to the yacht, when there came the sound of a low rumbling from the castle. Suddenly it broke into a roar. Belching sheets of flame burst out on every side. Huge cracks in that brilliant light were suddenly visible in the walls, creeping in a jagged line from the foundation to the turret. Fragments of the stone work flew outwards and upwards. It seemed as though some mighty internal force were splitting the place up. The men in the boat sat breathless and transfixed. Only Guiseppe whispered: "It is the old Count! He is the devil! He has blown the place up!"
There was another, and then a series of explosions. Fragments of the rock and stone fell hissing into the water scarcely a hundred feet away. Great waves rolled towards them. It seemed as though the earth underneath were shaking. Then it all died away, and there was silence. Only the blackened walls of the castle remained, with the dying flames still curling fitfully around them. The air grew darker, and the colour faded from the sea.
"It is the last of the Count of Cruta, and his castle of horrors!" cried Guiseppe. "God be thanked!"
CHAPTER XXXVI
"LOVE THAN DEATH ITSELF MORE STRONG"
I had no thought of writing in you again, my silent friend. Only a little while ago I said to myself, the time has gone by when solitude and heart hunger could drive me to your pages for consolation. Only a little while ago, it is true; and yet between the past and future is fixed a mighty gulf. As I write these words I stand upon the threshold of death! What death may mean, I know not! I have no religion to throw bright gleams of hope upon its dark mysteries. I have no hope of any other life, save the one I am quitting! If I am resigned and calm, it is because the lamp of my life has burnt out, and I am in darkness. I wait for death as a maiden waits for the first gleams of dawn on her marriage day.
Who said that love was everlasting? They lied! Love is a dream, a floating shadow full of golden lights, quenched by the first breath of morning! Who should know, if I do not know? Who has done more for love than I—I whose hands are red with blood, I who this night must die? It was for his sake, I struck—for his sake! and now that the hour of my punishment must come, I sit here alone and forsaken, waiting for the signal which must end my life! It was for his sake! A death-white face rises up before me, and a hoarse, dying cry sobs ever in my ears! I pass on my way through the Valley of the Shadow of Death with no hope to cheer me, forsaken, friendless, and shaken with dim fears! Am I alone! He for whom I struck has turned from me. Oh, the bitter cruelty of it! It was he who taught me what love was, and yet of love he knows nothing, else I would not be here to meet my doom alone! Oh! Paul, Paul! Oh, for one touch of your hand, for one kind look! My heart is sick and faint with longing! Am I indeed so low and vile a thing that you should turn away with never a single word of farewell? O! my love, you are hard indeed! If my hands are stained with blood—for whose sake was it? It was only a word I craved for, Paul! Only a word—a look, even! Was it too great a boon to grant?