Willard Drummond paused, as if irresolute whether to reveal the rest or not; but Sibyl grasped his arm, and in a voice that was fairly hoarse with intense excitement, said:
"Go on."
"I saw," he continued, looking beyond her, as if describing something then passing before him, "the interior of a church thronged with people. Flowers were strewn along the aisles, and I seemed to hear faintly the grand cadences of a triumphal hymn. A clergyman, book in hand, stood before a bridal pair, performing the marriage ceremony. The features of the man of God are indelibly impressed on my memory, but the two who stood before him had their backs toward me. For about five seconds they remained thus stationary, then it began to grow more indistinct; the forms grew shadowy and undefined, and began to disappear. Just before they vanished altogether, the faces of the wedded pair turned for an instant toward me, and in the bridegroom, Sibyl, I beheld myself. The vapor lifted and lifted, until all was gone, and nothing was to be seen but the black walls of the room and the glowing, fiery coals in the caldron.
"Again the Egyptian threw the incense on the fire, and again mumbled his unintelligible jargon. Again the thick, black smoke arose, filling the room; and again became stationary, forming a shadowy panorama before me. This time I saw a prison-cell—dark, dismal, and noisome. A rough straw pallet stood on one side, and on the other a pitcher of water and a loaf—orthodox prison fare from time immemorial. On the ground, chained to the wall, groveled a woman, in shining bridal robes, her long midnight tresses trailing on the foul floor. No words can describe to you the utter despair and mortal anguish depicted in her crouching attitude. I stood spell-bound to the spot, unable to move, in breathless interest. Then the scene began to fade away; the prostrate figure lifted its head, and I beheld the face of her whom a moment before seemed to stand beside me at the altar. But no words of mine can describe to you the mortal woe, the unutterable despair, in that haggard but beautiful face. Sibyl! Sibyl! it will haunt me to my dying day. I put out my hand, as if to retain her, but in that instant all disappeared."
Once more Willard Drummond paused; this time he was deadly pale, and his eyes were wild and excited. Sibyl stood near him, her great black, mystic eyes dilated, every trace of color fading from her face, leaving even her lips as pale as death.
"The third time this strange enchanter went through the same ceremony as before," continued he; "and, as in the previous cases, a new scene appeared before me. Now, the time appeared to be night; and the place, a dark, lonesome wood. A furious storm of lightning, and thunder, and rain, was raging, and the trees creaked and bent in the fierce wind. On the ground lay the dead body of a man weltering in blood. A dark, crimson stream flowed from a great, frightful gash in his head, from which the life seemed just to have gone. As the white face of the murdered man was upturned to the light—cut, bloody, and disfigured as it was—Sibyl, I recognized myself once more, As Heaven hears me, I saw it as plainly as I see yonder pale, fair moon now. A white, ghostly form, whether of woman or spirit I know not, seemed hovering near, darting, as it were, in and out amid the trees. Even as I gazed, it grew thin and shadowy, until all was gone again.
"For the fourth and last time, the Egyptian threw a strange incense on the fire, and 'spoke the words of power," and a new vision met my horrified gaze. I seemed to behold an immense concourse of people, a vast mob, swaying to and fro in the wildest excitement. A low, hoarse growl, as of distant thunder, passed at intervals through the vast crowd, and every eye was raised to an object above them. I looked up, too, and beheld a sight that seemed freezing the very blood in my veins. It was a scaffold; and standing on it, with the ignominious halter round her white, beautiful neck, was she who had stood beside me at the altar, whom I had seen chained in her prison-cell, doomed to die by the hand of the public hangman now. Her beautiful hands were stretched out wildly, imploringly, to the crowd below, who only hooted her in her agony and despair. The executioner led her to the fatal drop, a great shout arose from the crowd, then all faded away; and looking up, as if from an appalling dream, I saw the interpreter beckoning me from the door. How I reeled from the room, with throbbing brow and feverish pulse, I know not. Everything seemed swimming around me; and, in a state of the wildest excitement, I was hurried home by my companions.
"The next day the Egyptian left the city, and where he went after, I never heard.
"Such was the glimpse of the future I beheld. It was many months after before I completely recovered from the shock I received. How to account for it I do not know. Certain I am that I beheld it, truly, as I have told it in every particular, for the impression it made upon me at the time was so powerful that everything connected with it is indelibly engraven on my memory. It may seem strange, absurd, impossible; but that I have nothing to do with; I only know I saw it, incredible as it seems. But, good heaven! Sibyl, dearest, are you ill—fainting!"
Pale, trembling, and excited, the once fearless Sibyl Campbell clung to his arm, white with vague, sickening horror. Superstitious to an unusual degree, an awful presentiment had clutched her heart; and, for a moment she seemed dying in his arms.