And keep this trophy for our bridal bed!
The phantom then, or whatever it was, fiercely took up the dagger, and dashed it horribly against the mirror I held, which it shivered into pieces. Then the bloody instrument fell upon the floor, and the spectre vanished: while I fell into a dreadful trance, which lasted for hours, and from which I grieve that ever I did waken to witness this most wretched night! While the phantom vanished, the heavens loudly thundered, and the vivid lightning illumed this fatal chamber. Oh, the crash of the mirror I never can forget, nor the ominous fall of the blood-stained dagger as it fearfully trundled upon the oaken floor!—these two ominous circumstances too surely manifested that this was no dream! Oh no, they pierced my heart to conviction! That dread and awful moment of my life I never can forget!—only to be equalled, and only to be outdone, by the agonies which now I so severely undergo in this unhappy hour! Oh, Sir David, in pity at once kill me, and end my sorrow and my suffering together!—you hold the bloody instrument, oh then strike!—strike, there's my bosom!—I fear not to die—oh kill me, I beseech thee!—in mercy, at once destroy me! But, oh, do not—do not look thus again!—It was thus the awful spectre looked, while thus the fire flashed from his visage!—Thus! it was thus he frowned! and like thee he spoke! Oh—oh, I never saw thee look thus before!—never, never! Ah! THOU!—thou! thyself wert that spectre!!"
"No, no, Adelaide, no! I looked not thus; it was the infernal fiend, from the lowest depth of hell, that looked thus, and then assumed my shape and form! At that moment I was on ship-board, Dr. M'Kenzie was my fellow-voyager, who can vouch for the same; we had then left the Scottish shore, and the destination of the vessel was for Ireland. This weapon, which now I hold, I then flung into the hissing waves, when unearthly voices and unearthly music met mine ear, and smote my heart!—Oh, it was then that I suffered the deep-thrilling agonizing horrors of the damned. The arch-fiend, I felt, was working in my bosom; and strongly, desperately, was I tempted to fling myself into the same remorseless element into which I had flung this blood-besprent instrument—the damned testimony of my crime; and by so doing end at once my earthly misery! But even then I lifted up my humble supplication to heaven, although with crimsoned hands! I fell into a trance, and lay to all appearance lifeless upon the deck.——You seem to doubt!"
"Oh, yes, yes; I see it all!—that frown—that look! Oh, thou, thou, wert that horrible spectre!"
Having thus replied, poor Adelaide, with a piteous, heart-rending scream, and to all appearance as if life had fled, sunk down, pale and ghastly as a corse, upon her pillow. It was indeed some time before Sir David could bring her to herself. When the hapless Adelaide recovered from her faint, he said: "My reproaches now are at an end. For you now are the object of my compassion and of my pity, not of my wrath. It is however true, that although infernal agents have given you a husband, yet know they have not the power to cause me to remain with you one hour more!—There I am a free agent. No, no!—not Lucifer himself shall detain me here!—no, nor all thy witchery! Within a short hour, or less, I depart from hence, and never, never more to return; and I shall be no more seen!"
With a desperate grasp, then stooping, he seized and held up the fatal dagger, the deadly record of his grief—the sævi monumentum doloris—the bloody pledge of his crime—the avengeful instrument of his rage, stamped with the crimsoned tears of unabated and unabatable grief!... "Yet before I go, look, lady, upon that dagger!—whose blood, think you, it is with which it is imbued?—You shall hear!... That once was noble blood—it was valiant blood—the proudest blood of Caledon—the blood of her royal race of kings! And, oh, wretch that I am!—it was the blood of my brother—my only brother!—yea, and my elder born! rashly, madly, wickedly shed by me!—yes!... Oh, still gaze upon it—turn not thine eyes away. It was blood nearly, deeply, none nearer, allied to me, and beloved. But, but this—all this was forgot in the moment of delirium—of madness! It was the blood of my elder brother—yea, an only brother!... Oh, Adelaide, look not thus again!—my weary, sickening heart, condemns me enough——enough. Well, well, we lived in the same home, we partook of the same board, we slept in the same bed.... Oh, oh my brain, how it maddens! and my heart would fain burst!... Yet, yet, yet I slew him—in rage, madness, I did!—I did, I did—monster that I am!... Lady, behold I weep!—Ah, I did not weep when my poor brother died!—and when this I plunged into his beloved breast!—No, no, no! But it is just, it is truly just, that heaven's vengeance should make this base instrument of my crime, this fratricidal dagger, the fatal cause which now separates me from all happiness upon earth; and divorces me, body and soul, from thee—oh, whom I loved better—yea, beyond life itself! But time advances, and I must depart from hence—oh, and for ever! One parting look, and then I am gone. Oh, thou precious mischief!—so young, so fascinating, so beautiful! Oh, my very heart shall burst!... Yet, yet—oh, must it be!—and must we part?... Lady, from hence I go, and shall be no more seen; peradventure too no more be remembered. Well, well, let justice have its vengeance and its victim too! Yes, yes, let it be so."
Here, pallid as death, and woe-stricken, he gave one sad, one last, agonizing look upon that face that he had so well beloved—the face of one with whom to part were worse than death itself. Then sad and sorrowful, in a dejected tone, he said:—"Oh, Adelaide, we have loved as others yet have never loved; now heart-broken and sorrow-stricken I here must bid a sad and solemn farewell. Yet, oh, must we part?—Yes, we must part—oh, and for ever! Never, never again in this wide world to meet!—again, never! Oh, farewell—one sad, one sorrowful farewell, and hence I go.... Farewell! forgive and forget, if thou canst forget (to forgive were impossible) that such a wretched outcast exists as David Bruce!"
Here he sobbed like a child, while he slowly and silently withdrew, gently closing after him the chamber door. But suddenly he returned, and approaching the bed-side, he thus addressed Adelaide: "It were best that the mournful tale which now I have disclosed to thee, as well too as thine own, should be kept inviolably secret, and remain for ever unknown. Divulge not then thine own criminal weakness; neither expose the enormity of my guilt. Oh, how often and often have I wished, have I longed for, aye, and have courted death;—yea often too have I keenly sought him in flood and field. But in vain. It almost seemed as if I had borne a charmed life. Often I
"Have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone;