XXIX.
The night advances. Already the moon has commenced to decline. Some of the invited ones have retired; others, grouped here and there, seated or half-extended, are sleeping in the hot breath of the storm. There are two powers that watch—Paganina and the tempest, and the thunder rolls and shakes the mountains.
Silent and isolated, Paganina looks at the shadow of the Château Sarrasin. She sees it advance and recede. She thinks of the legend of this cursed place—so fatal to the honor of women. And yet fate has led her there—the gulf is yawning for her. She advances; she will enter never there.
A cry is heard; the sleepers, wakened suddenly, run to and fro, pale and frightened. They find Paganina fainting and covered with blood. A deep wound is found in her throat. The count sustains her, and in a voice thundering above the tempest orders his people to seize the assassin.
The assassin was André!
When they wished to carry the wounded one into the Château Sarrasin, she could not speak, but betrayed, in signs of such mortal terror, her repugnance to enter, that they were obliged to relinquish the idea.
She said since, at the moment that the doors opened to make way for her, she again saw the scene which, several years before, had so forcibly struck her. Nothing was wanting; the brightness of the light, or the luxury of the dress. All the actors were there, all—but they were hideous skeletons; they still made gestures of applause, while above them, the woman with the green diamond showed a livid face, the eyes extinct, and an open mouth, from which no sound proceeded.
Paganina was laid on a litter and carried to Arèse.
André followed her, chained, and guarded from sight. They arrived next morning.
It is said the infuriated crowd rushed upon the assassin and his guard, and obliged them to fly for their lives. Paganina had him brought to her, took him by the hand, and so passed through the moved and disarmed assemblage.