Rush after rush of the trooping winds went by—each succeeding onset wilder and more impetuous than the last, until at length the sullen distant roar—and then the low, surging murmurs announced that the greatest danger had overblown, and that the hurricane was winding its tortuous pathway through the forests many miles away to the right.
Gradually the devastations of the awful skies became mellowed down; the wheeling clouds began to dispart, and a gush of heavy drops came pattering from above. Moaning pitifully, the prostrate and bowed trees and undergrowth lifted their mangled boughs from the compressed state into which they had been forced—those which had survived the tempest, seemingly with a painful effort, regaining their upright and natural position.
Soon the heavy and dank air grew fresher; the wrathful clouds separated, and the moon once more gleamed forth in resplendent beauty and brightness. By degrees the gloom retired from the face of the heavens, the stars looked down gloriously from their sapphire thrones, and a silvery gush played amidst the swaying foliage, where the rain-drops glistened on their leaflet platforms like so many diamonds. Then the lucid milky-way, whose loveliness flushes the firmament, bent itself across the concave above, one broad flame of pure transparent white, as if some burning orb had fled along the sky with so swift a flight, that, for a moment, it had left its lustre in the vault of heaven. Gradually all was lulled into stillness, and nature became as one great solitude.
Awe-stricken and bewildered, David White remounted his quivering steed, and slowly wound his way along the ruin-covered road. One by one the appearances which told a near approach to his destination came into view; and finally he stood before the home of his childhood, which was now to be the scene of a great and heinous crime. Carefully hitching his horse in the dark shadows of some ancient oaks at the head of the lane, he softly opened the gate, and glided round the house until he stood at a little window which looked out from his mother's chamber, and next the old stone chimney. For the night, she was absent at a distant neighbor's, which circumstance, together with that of her having withdrawn a large amount of funds from the possession of the village minister, had induced the present visit. But when he saw the shutter open, a thing wholly unexpected, it flashed through his mind that he was watched—that this was an allurement to ensnare him; so he shrunk back into the dense shadows of the maples, and glanced hurriedly around him. Satisfied with his investigation, he ventured to the window, and peered cautiously into the chamber, but seeing nothing to excite his fears, gently raised the sash, and leaped into the apartment. The moon shone so brightly that he had no occasion to strike a light, but its silver disc was fast verging toward the horizon, and warned him to haste, else be left to return in darkness. Fumbling in his coat-pocket, he at length produced a large bunch of keys, and stooping down, applied one to the heavy oaken chest beneath the window-sill. Fortunately it suited the lock; the bolt turned without difficulty, and he lifted the massive lid, which he upheld with one hand, while he rummaged the till with the other. At this moment a slight rustling reached his ears from the furthest corner of the apartment from the window.
"What the deuce is that?" exclaimed he, starling up from his kneeling posture, and turning anxiously in the direction whence the disturbance had proceeded, at the same time thoughtlessly relinquishing his grasp of the lid, which fell with a heavy crash upon the arm still resting beneath.
"Furies!" shouted he, writhing in agony, and releasing the bruised member from its painful position.
At these words a faint scream of terror issued from the bed which stood only a few feet distant. Mary White had been awakened by his outcry, and starting up in alarm, beheld a man standing by the window, which occasioned the involuntary exclamation that had just burst from her lips. She had sat up until quite late, every moment expecting the young lady who was to have been her companion for the night; and then the convulsions of the tempest had kept her wakeful, and prevented her retiring. The tedium of the hours becoming irksome, she had sauntered into her mother's chamber, and opened the window to gaze out upon the lulling war of the elements; but growing wearied of this employment, and a drowsiness stealing over her, she had flung herself upon the bed, and almost immediately sunk into a refreshing slumber, from which the late disturbances in the apartment had just awakened her. The first impulse that entered her mind was to gain the door and escape, but her nature was one on which fear acts as a sudden paralysis. All power of volition deserted her; and she stood motionless as carved marble, with her eyes glaring, and her finger pointed toward the spot where was the object of her terrors.
"Who's there? stand back!" burst from his lips in nervous agitation as the shriek rung out upon the air, and turning round, he rushed to the bedside, but started back; and there was the confusion of cowardice in his manner as he exclaimed, "You here, Mary! what in the world brought you into this room at such a time of night as this?"
"David White!" exclaimed she, shrinking back, when the moonlight fell upon his features, and she recognized the intruder.
"No one else, my pretty lass," replied the vile man, becoming emboldened by the time and situation; and with a graceful bend of his fine form, he threw his arm around her waist, and attempted to press his lips to her cheek; but fear gave her an almost preternatural strength, and she thrust him forcibly from her.