“Behold!” exclaimed the vision pointing to the things of graves, “behold thy doom?”
A shriek of horror came from the lips of the Duke.
“O, horror of horrors!” he shouted, “It is the form of Death!—Look! look! Behold! He turns, he turns with a ghastly smile—he points to the hour glass!” The tyrant, assassin and betrayer started forward with every nerve quivering with the intensity of his terror. “O God of Heaven! The Sands of the glass are run!”
“Ha!” shrieked the Monk, with a wild yell, that sounded like the howl of a dying war-horse. “Heaven wills it, thy sands are run, thy doom is fixed!”
A stream of light poured around the cell, brighter than the blaze of the noon-day sun, and a clap of thunder shook the pillars to their very centre.
With his eyes rolling with affright, the Duke glanced upward, and beheld the Monk standing erect, his arms outstretched, and his hood cast backward from his face.
“O God! Thou here! Albertine—thou here!”
“Ha! It is I!—Thy fate—thy curse—thy doom!”
The Duke felt himself seized in a grasp of iron, and hurriedly dragged along the pavement of stone.
In a moment he heard the sharp spring of a door closing behind him, and brushing his hand over his eyes, to restore his fading vision, he looked around.