“Thanks! thanks! kind Inverawe!” said the man, in a state of extreme agitation and excitement,—“a thousand thanks! But, must you—must you leave me thus alone? Alone, for a whole night, on this wild mountain side, with that yawning hole for my place of rest, and with nothing but the roar of these eternal cataracts, mingled with the wild howl of the wind through the pass to lull me to repose! That cairn, too!—may not that be a cairn which marks the spot where—where—where some murder has been done? Can you assure me that no ghosts ever haunt this wild place?”
“The soul that is free from all consciousness of guilt may hold patient, solitary, and fearless converse with ghost or goblin, even on such a wild mountain side as this,” said Inverawe, somewhat impatiently. “But surely you cannot expect that my hospitality to you should require my sharing this mountain concealment with you? If you do, I must tell you, what common prudence ought to teach you, that if I were disposed to do so, nothing could be more unwise, as nothing could more certainly lead to your detection. My absence from home would create so much surprise and anxiety, that the whole country would turn out to seek for me, and their search for me, could not fail to produce your discovery. Even now, I may be risking it by thus delaying to return.”
“True, true, Inverawe!” said the stranger, in a desponding tone, and apparently making a strong effort to command his feelings. “There is too much truth in what you say. I must steel myself up to this night. My safety, as you say, demands it. Yet, ’tis a terrible trial! Would that the dawn were come! Is it far from day?”
“I hope it is, indeed,” replied Inverawe, “else might my absence and all be discovered. It cannot, as yet, as I suppose, be much after midnight; but even that is late enough for me. I must borrow the swiftness of the roebuck to carry me back. So again I say farewell till to-morrow-night.”
Inverawe tarried not for an answer, but, darting off through the wood, he rapidly descended among the rocks, and then bounded over all the obstacles in his way, with a swiftness almost rivaling that of the animal he had alluded to; and so he reached his own door, in a space of time so short, as to be almost incredible. The fire in the hall had now sunk into white ashes. The lamp, which he had left burning, was now flickering in its last expiring efforts. He swallowed a single draught of wine to restore his exhausted strength, and then he stole to his chamber, and crept into bed, happy in the conviction that his lady, who was in a deep sleep, had never discovered that he had been absent.
The sleep that immediately fell upon Inverawe himself was that of the most perfect unconsciousness of existence. He knew not, of course, how long it had lasted, nor was he, in the least degree, sensible of the cause or manner of its interruption. But he did awake, somehow or other; and then it was that he discovered, to his great wonder and astonishment, that the chamber which, on going to bed, he had left as dark as the most impenetrable night could make it, was now illuminated with a lambent light, of a bluish cast, which shone through the very curtains of his bed. A certain feeling of awe crept chillingly over him; for he was at once convinced that the light was something very different from the dawn of morning. It became gradually more and more intense, till, through the thick drapery that surrounded him, he distinctly beheld the shadow of a human figure approaching his bed. He was a brave man; but he felt that every nerve and muscle of his frame was paralysed, he knew not how. He watched the slow advance of the figure with motionless awe. The shadowy arm was extended, and the curtain was slowly and silently raised. The bluish light that so miraculously pervaded the chamber, then suddenly arose to a degree of splendour, that was dazzling to his sight, and clearly defined the appalling object that now presented itself to his eyes. The face and figure were those of the very man who had formerly entertained him in the hole in the cliff on the mountain side, in Lorn. He was wrapped in the same grey plaid, too. But those handsome features, which had made so deep an impression on the recollection of Inverawe, were now pale and fixed, as if all the pulses of life had ceased, and the raven locks, which hung curling around them, and the moustaches which once gave so much expression to his upper lip, now only served to increase the ghastliness of the hue of death that overspread his countenance, as well as that of the glaze of those immoveable eyes, which had then exhibited so much generous intelligence. Inverawe lay petrified, his expanded orbs devouring the spectacle before them. With noiseless action, the figure dropped one corner of the shadowy plaid in which it was enveloped, and displayed a gaping wound in its bosom, which appeared to pour out rivers of blood. Its lips moved not; yet it spoke—slowly, and in a hollow and sepulchral tone.
“Inverawe!—blood must flow for blood! Shield not the murderer!”
Slowly did the spectre drop the curtain; and its shadow, seen through it, gradually faded away in the waning light, ere Inverawe could well gather together his routed faculties to his aid. He rubbed his eyes, started up in bed, leaned on his pillow, and brushed the curtain hastily aside. All was again dark and silent. Again he rubbed his eyes, and looked; but again he looked into impenetrable night.
“It was a dream,” thought, rather than said, Inverawe; “a horrible dream—but nevertheless it was a dream—curious in its coincidences, but not unnatural. Nay, it was most natural, that the strangest adventure of my past life, should be recalled by the yet stranger occurrences of this night, and that both should thus link themselves confusedly and irrationally together during sleep. Pshaw! It is absurd for a rational man to think of this illusion more. I’ll to sleep again.”
But sleep is one of those blessed conditions of human nature, which cannot be controlled or commanded by the mere will. On the contrary, the very resolution to command it, is almost certain to put it to flight. The vision, or whatever else it might have been, haunted his imagination, and kept his thoughts so busily occupied, that he could not sleep. When his lady awaked in the morning, she found him lying fevered, restless, and unrefreshed. Her inquiries were anxious and affectionate; but, by carelessly attributing his indisposition to the prolonged revelry of the previous evening, he at last succeeded in ridding himself of farther question, and springing from his couch, he tried to banish all thought of the unpleasant dilemma into which he had been brought, by occupying himself actively in the business of the day.