HE WATCHED THE WOMAN TURNING AND RUNNING LIKE A MAD CREATURE ALONG THE DARK, DELUSIVE PATHS
From an Original Drawing by Arthur H. Ewer
"Stelio!"
He heard that cry full of anguish, and hastened his search along the winding paths that first seemed to lead him toward the tower and then away from it. The laughter had frozen in his heart. His whole soul shook to its foundation every time his name reached him, uttered by that invisible agony. And the gradual lessening of the light brought up an image of blood that is flowing away, of slowly fading life.
"I am here! I am here!"
One of the paths brought him at last to the open space where the tower stood. He ran furiously up the winding stairs, felt dizzy when he reached the top, closed his eyes while grasping the railing, opened them again, and saw a long zone of fire on the horizon, the disk of the rayless moon, the gray plain, and the labyrinth below him, black and spotted with box-bush and horn-beam, narrow in its endless convolutions, looking like a dismantled edifice covered with wild vines.
"Stop! Stop! Do not run like that! Some one has heard me. A man is coming. I can see him coming. Wait! Stop!"