All else is as ever, and soon likely to be worse. For he feels as one who has only had a respite, believing it will be but short. Darke will soon recover from his scare. For he will now go to the rendezvous, and there, getting an explanation of what has caused it, come back to glut his delayed vengeance, more terrible from long accumulation.
Will the wolves wait for him?
“Ha! there they are again!”
So exclaims the wretched man, as he sees them once more making approach.
And now they draw nigh with increased audacity, their ravenous instincts but strengthened by the check. The enemy late dreaded has not molested them, but gone off, leaving their prey unprotected. They are again free to assail, and this time will surely devour it.
Once more their melancholy whine breaks the stillness of the night, as they come loping up one after another. Soon all are re-assembled round the strange thing, which through their fears has long defied them. More familiar, they fear it less now.
Renewing their hostile demonstration, they circle about it, gliding from side to side in chassez-croissez, as through the mazes of a cotillon. With forms magnified under the moonlight, they look like werewolves dancing around a “Death’s Head,”—their long-drawn lugubrious wails making appropriate music to the measure!
Horror for him who hears, hearing it without hope. Of this not a ray left now, its last lingering spark extinguished, and before him but the darkness of death in all its dread certainty—a death horrible, appalling!
Putting forth all his moral strength, exerting it to the utmost, he tries to resign himself to the inevitable.
In vain. Life is too sweet to be so surrendered. He cannot calmly resign it, and again instinctively makes an effort to fright off his hideous assailants. His eyes rolling, scintillating in their sockets—his lips moving—his cries sent from between them—are all to no purpose now. The coyotes come nearer and nearer. They are within three feet of his face. He can see their wolfish eyes, the white serrature of their teeth, the red panting tongues; can feel their fetid breath blown against his brow. Their jaws are agape. Each instant he expects them to close around his skull!