“Drink, Adrian,” he cried, “drink, and be refreshed!”
Adrian raised the goblet to his mouth with his chained right hand—he wet his lips with the ruddy wine; and then, as if seized by some fearful spell, he stood motionless as death, while his right arm straightened slowly out from his body, with the hand convulsively clutching the bowl of death.
“It is, it is!” he shrieked. “It is the goblet of the Red Chamber! God of Heaven, what means this mystery? Speak, Albertine. Wouldst thou betray me?”
“Ten!” meanwhile continued Balvardo, in the background.
“Adrian!” cried the monk, starting back with a solemn gesture, “I stand upon the verge of the cliff of Time; beneath me roll the surges of that shoreless ocean which men name Eternity! Ere the morrow’s dawn, I leap from the cliff; the surges of that awful sea will bear me on—on to the vast Unknown! Thinkest thou I would betray thee? Drink, and be refreshed.”
“Eleven, twelve! the time is up!” soliloquized the sworder.
“I drink,” cried Adrian, with a wild gesture, “I drink; for thy words are truth, and thine eye bears no falsehood in its glance! I drink the goblet of the Red Chamber to the dregs!”
A shriek that might never be forgotten rang through the corridor and chamber, and a slight form, arrayed in robes of white came rushing from the folds of the tapestry.
Adrian beheld the dreamy face of the Ladye Annabel, her cheek pale as the robes she wore, while, with glaring eye and voice of horror, she shrieked:
“Drink not—in God’s name do not drink—the bowl is drugged with death!”