"Scoundrel! you have stabbed me in the arm; but the wound is slight; you shall not escape me."
"Your wound is mortal. It is the poisoned dagger of Cecily which has stabbed you; I always carried it about me; await the effects of the poison. Ah! you loosen your grasp; you are going to die. You should not have hindered me from going to find Cecily," added Jacques Ferrand, feeling in the dark for the door.
"Oh!" murmured Polidori, "my arm stiffens—a mortal coldness seizes me—my knees tremble under me—my blood thickens in my veins—my head turns. Help!" cried the accomplice of Ferrand, collecting all his strength for a last cry; "help! I die!"
And he sunk under his own weight upon the floor. The crash of a glass door, opened with so much violence that several panes were broken to pieces, the ringing voice of Rudolph, and a noise of hasty footsteps, seemed to respond to Polidori's cry of anguish. Jacques Ferrand, having at length found the lock in the dark, opened the door leading into an adjoining apartment, and rushed into it, his dangerous weapon in his hand. At the same moment, threatening and formidable as the genius of vengeance, the prince entered the room from the opposite side.
"Monster!" cried Rudolph, advancing toward Jacques Ferrand, "it is my daughter whom you have killed! You are going—"
The prince did not finish; he recoiled alarmed. One would have said that his words had pierced Jacques Ferrand. Throwing his poniard aside, and placing both his hands before his eyes, the wretch fell with his face to the floor, uttering a howl that was anything but human. In consequence of the phenomenon of which we have spoken, of which a profound darkness had suspended the action, when Jacques Ferrand entered this chamber brilliantly lighted, he was struck with a vertigo, similar to that which we have already described, more intolerable than if he had been exposed to a torrent of light as incandescent as that of the disk of the sun. And the agony of this man was a fearful spectacle; he writhed in frightful convulsions, tearing the floor with his nails, as if he wished to dig a hole to escape from the horrible tortures caused by this glaring light. Rudolph, one of his servants, and the porter of the house, who had been compelled to conduct the prince to this apartment, were transfixed with horror. Notwithstanding his just horror, Rudolph felt an emotion of pity for the unheard-of suffering of Jacques Ferrand; he ordered him to be laid on a sofa. This was not done without difficulty; for, fearing to be submitted again to the direct action of the light, the notary struggled violently, but when it streamed in his face he uttered another yell, which filled Rudolph with terror. After protracted torments, these attacks ceased, exhausted by their own violence. Arrived at the mortal period of his delirium, he remembered still the words of Cecily, who had called him her tiger; by degrees, his mind again wandered; he imagined himself a tiger! Crouched in one of the corners of the room, as in his den, his hoarse, furious cries, the grinding of his teeth, the spasmodic contortions of the muscles of his forehead and face, his glaring look, gave him a vague and frightful resemblance to this ferocious beast.
"Tiger—tiger—tiger I am," said he, in a broken voice, gathering himself up in a heap; "yes, tiger. How much blood! In my lair—corpses—torn to pieces! La Goualeuse—the brother of this widow—the child of Louise—here are corpses; my tigress Cecily shall take her share." Then looking at his bony fingers, of which the nails had grown very long during his illness, he added these words: "Oh! my sharp nails: an old tiger I am, but more active, and strong, and bold. No one shall dare dispute my tigress, Cecily. Ah! she calls! she calls!" said he, looking around, and seeming to listen. After a moment's pause, he groped his way along the wall, saying, "No; I thought I heard her; she is not there, but I see her, oh! always, always! Oh! there she is! She calls me—she roars—she roars there! I come, I come."
And Jacques Ferrand dragged himself toward the middle of the chamber on his hands and knees. Although his strength was exhausted, from time to time he advanced by a convulsive spring: then he would pause, seeming to listen attentively.
"Where is she? where is she? I approach, she flies. Ah! there; oh! she awaits me; go; go, Cecily, your old tiger is yours," cried he.
And with a desperate effort he succeeded in getting on his knees. But, suddenly, falling backward with alarm, his body crouched on his heels, his hair standing on end, his look wild, his mouth distorted with terror, his hands stretched out, he seemed to struggle with age against an invisible object, and cried, in a broken voice, "What a bite—help—my arms break—I cannot take it off—sharp teeth. No, no, oh! not the eyes—help—a black serpent—oh! its flat head—its burning eyeballs. It looks at me—it is the devil. Ah! he knows me—Jacques Ferrand—at the church—holy man—always at the church-avaunt!" And the notary, raising himself a little and sustaining himself with one hand on the floor, tried with the other to make the sign of the cross.