“Let not this awful warning, now given you for the second time, be neglected,” said she. “Send for the officers of justice without delay, and give up the murderer to be tried by the offended laws of his country. You know not what curse may fall upon you, for thus trying to arrest Heaven’s judgment on the guilty man. Oh, Inverawe, it is dreadful to think of it!”
“All this earnestness on your part, my love, is natural,” said Inverawe calmly. “But think of the solemn oath I have sworn;—you would not have Inverawe—you would not have your husband—break a pledge so solemnly given? Whatever may befal me here, I cannot so dishonour myself. Besides,” added he, “whilst, on the one hand, I know that he to whom I am so pledged is like myself, a man of flesh and blood, who, for anything I know to the contrary, may, after all, be really less guilty than unfortunate; I cannot even yet say with certainty, that I have not been the sport of dreams, naturally enough arising out of the strange circumstances to which I have been exposed. But were it otherwise, and that, contrary to all our accustomed rational belief, I have indeed been visited by a spirit, what proof have I that it is a spirit of health? What proof have I that it may not be a spirit wickedly commissioned by the Father of lies to take this form, in order to seduce me into that breach of my pledge, which would for ever blacken the high name of Campbell of Inverawe, and doom myself to ceaseless remorse during the rest of my days?—No, no, lady!—I must keep my solemn vow, whatever may befal me.”
The lady was silenced by these words from her husband, but her anxiety was not thereby allayed. It increased as night approached; and especially when Inverawe told her that he must again visit the man in the cave. During that day, various rumours had reached him, of people being afoot in search of a murderer, who was supposed to have found a place of concealment somewhere in that neighbourhood; and it was with some difficulty that he could suppress a hope that unconsciously arose within him, that he might be relieved from his pledge, and from his present most distressing and embarrassing position, by the accidental capture of him for whom they were searching. The duty of visiting the wretched man had now become oppressively painful to Inverawe,—and the painfulness of it was not decreased by the additional risk which he now ran of being detected. But Inverawe was not a man to abandon any duty for any such reasons. Having again privately made up his basket of provisions therefore, and put his otter-traps over its contents, as formerly, he left the castle as twilight came on, and making his circuit by the river side with yet more care and caution than before, he climbed along the side of Cruachan, and in due course of time reached the mouth of the cave. The light was burning as before, and on entering the place, its inmate was sitting with a countenance and expression if possible more haggard and terrific than he had exhibited on the previous night.
“Welcome!—welcome!” cried he, starting wildly up, and speaking in a frantic tone, as he rushed forward to seize Inverawe’s cold hand in both of his, that felt like heated iron,—“welcome, my guardian angel! All other good angels have fled from me now!—And the bad!—Oh!—But you will not leave me to-night?—Oh, say that you will not leave me to-night!”
“I grieve to say, that, for your own sake, I cannot gratify you,” replied Inverawe, withdrawing his hand involuntarily from the contamination of his touch, and shrinking back with horror from the glare of his phrenzied and blood-shot eyes, though with a heart almost moved to pity for the wretch before him, whose very manhood seemed to have abandoned him. “It is vain to ask me to stay with you, as I have already frequently explained to you; but much more so now, that I have learned that there are men out searching for you in this neighbourhood, brought hither by the strong conviction that you are concealed somewhere hereabouts. This circumstance renders it imperatively necessary that you should no longer persevere in the perilous practice of burning your lamp, which exposes you to tenfold danger.”
“Talk not to me of danger!” exclaimed the man, in a dreadful state of excitement, and in a tone and words that seemed more like those of a raving madman than anything else—“I must have light—I should go distracted if I had not light. Darkness would drive me to self-destruction! I tell you it is filled with horrible shapes. Even when I shut my eyes the horrible spectre appears. Have pity!—have mercy on me, and stay with me but this one single night!—for even the light of the lamp itself cannot always banish the terrific spectre from before me!”
“Spectre!” cried Inverawe, shuddering with horror,—“what spectre?”
“Aye, the horrible spectre,” replied the man. And then suddenly starting back, with his hands stretched forth, as if to keep off some terrific shape that had instantaneously risen before him, and with his eye-balls glaring towards the dark opening of the cave, he shrieked out—“Hell and torments! ’tis there again,—there—there—see there!”
“I see nothing,” said Inverawe, with some difficulty retaining a proper command of himself. “But this is madness—absolute insanity. See, here is your food;—I must leave you immediately.”
“Oh, do not go!” said the stranger, following Inverawe for a few steps towards the mouth of the cave, and entreating him in a subdued and abject tone. And then, just as his protector was about to make his exit, he again started back, and stood as if he had been transfixed, whilst, with his hands stretched out before him, and his eyes fearfully staring on the vacancy of the darkness that was beyond the cavern’s mouth, he again yelled out—“There! there!—see there!”