Erik, Daland, and others seized the distraught maiden as she fled, full of horror at the sacrifice she was about to make for one whose evil doom affrighted them; and whilst they held her back, the Flying Dutchman, though utterly bereft of hope, nobly vowed that he would release her from her promise to him, and sail away at once.
But Senta was determined to share the sad doom of the hero of her dreams, and by her faithful love to break the cruel spell that had bound him so long; and struggling until she freed herself from those who so vainly tried to hold her back, she ran forward to the edge of an overhanging cliff close by, stretching out her arms, and crying wildly to the hopeless figure on the departing vessel:
"Well do I know thee—Well do I know thy doom!
I knew thy face when I beheld thee first!
The end of thine affliction comes:
My lore till death shall take thy curse away!
Here stand I, faithful, yea, till death!"
With these heroic words, the gentle, devoted maiden, in a transport of joy, cast herself into the sea; and, immediately afterwards, the phantom ship sank beneath the waves, which arose and receded again in a mighty whirlpool.
As the Norwegians gazed with awe and astonishment upon this wondrous sight, they saw, in the golden glow of the setting sun, two ethereal forms rising together from the sea over the wreck, and floating upward towards the heavens.
They were Senta and the Flying Dutchman, their arms entwined in a loving embrace, and a look of perfect peace and everlasting joy upon their radiant, upturned faces.
The ransom had been paid; and the Flying Dutchman was at rest for evermore, with the fair, sweet maiden who had loved him faithfully until death!