CHAPTER XXII.
NEXT MORNING.
"Between the enacting of a dreadful deed
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like the phantasma of a hideous dream."—SHAKESPEARE.
With blood on his hands, with horror, insanity, and wildest woe in his eyes; and worse, far worse! with the dreadful mark of Cain branded indelibly on his brow, the wretched man fled—hating himself, his crime, the earth, and heaven—only longing to fly far away, where human eyes would never more behold him, clutching his breast with his pale, talon-like fingers, as if to tear hence his insufferable agony and remorse.
On he went—flying over rocks, and chasms, and uprooted trees—on, on, still on, unable to stop. The waves were wildly, madly cannonading against the banks, as if they would tear their way to where he stood, and bodily ingulf him; but he heard nothing, save that unearthly cry of "Murder!" saw nothing but the cold, still face and lifeless form of his murdered wife.
Panting, tottering, exhausted, he fell heavily at last on the ground—shuddering, gasping, collapsed. The deafening roar of the waves still rising and booming on the beach, the crash of the thunder, the wild discord of the raging elements were serenest music, compared with the tumult, the terror of the unspeakable horror filling his soul.
"What have I done?—what have I done!" was the cry that still rived its way up through his tortured heart. And the wind and waves, in their terrific uproar, seemed answering the cry with "Murder! murder!"
Midnight approached, and the storm began to abate, the rain ceased to fall, and the mighty waters began sullenly retreating from the shore.
But still the stricken man lay prone on the ground, dead to everything above, around, about him, with that gnawing, unutterable remorse at his heart.
Another hour waned. The clouds rolled away, the lightning had ceased, the wind abated its fury, and the troubled, heaving waves were slowly calming down. And, suddenly, from behind a cloud, broke forth the moon—brightly, gloriously, grandly shedding her soft, silvery radiance over sea and land.
For the first time the murderer ventured to look up. Morning was near at hand, and must not find him at the scene of the tragedy.