Albertine slowly advanced to the edge of the platform, and gazed into the void below.
With a fixed and glaring eye, with the dagger raised aloft in his right hand, he gazed below, and beheld the folds of a garment waving through the darkened air, while a yell most fearful and maddening to hear, came shrieking from the darkness of the void, resounding to the very heavens above, until the air grew animate with the sound of despair—unutterable despair.
Then came a crashing sound, as though a heavy body had fallen against the projecting points of the rugged rocks, and then all became silent.
Silence gathered over the universe, like one vast brooding shadow of omen and doom.
The wild flush of excitement vanished from the face of the monk.
With a calm brow, a compressed lip, a cheek pale as death, and a full dark eye, that seemed blazing forth from the shadow of the brow, he folded his arms silently on his breast, and looked up to the midnight heavens.
“She beckons me over the steep, she beckons me; and, with her burning eyes fixed upon my face, she waves her hands, and bids me—on, on! She points to the scenes of the past: God of my soul, how real, how vivid, how like the pictures of memory! The cottage in the vale; the sunshine sleeping on the roof sheltered by vines; the lordly hall and the friend—the friend—the outrage, the lifeless form, and then comes the spirit of my desolation, laughing with scorn as he points to the shadow blackening o’er the dial plate of destiny!
“Nay, nay, wave not thy hands with that slow and solemn motion—glide not so ghastly to and fro—thine eyes burn in my very soul! I come, I come! Albertine glides onward to his bride!”
With folded arms, with calm and immovable countenance, fixing his glance upon the vacant air, without a fear, a sorrow, or a sigh, the avenger stepped from the platform rock, and with the speed of an arrow driven home by the strong arm of the archer, he sank into the darkness of the abyss.
There was a low moaning exclamation of joy, and the setting moon looked on the falling form no more.