As the magician pronounced these words, he advanced towards his captive, and endeavoured to seize her in his arms. But she thrust him from her with the warmest indignation; and contemplating him with an eye of infinite disdain, “Base unworthy swain!”—she cried—“Insidious traitor!—abhorred destroyer!—And is it thus that you would approach me?—Is it thus that you would creep into the weakness of my heart?—But fly—I know you not—One mark of compassion I will yet exhibit, which you little deserve—Fly—I will not deliver you into the hands of your rival, whom yet my soul does not so much loath and abhor—Fly—Live to be pointed at as an example of degeneracy—Live to blush for and repent of that crime, which, Edwin!—cannot be expiated.”
Roderic had advanced too far to be thus deterred. He did not wish to manage the character under which he appeared. His passions by this interview, more private, and in which his captive had beheld him with an eye of greater complacency than ever, were inflamed to the extremest degree. The charms of Imogen had been in turn heightened with joy, and mellowed with distress. Even the conscious dignity, and haughty air she now assumed, gave new attractions to her form, and new grace to her manner. Her muscles trembled with horror and disdain. Her eloquent blood wrought distinctly in her veins, and spoke in a tone, not more dignified than enchanting. Her whole figure had a life, an expression, a loveliness, that it is impossible to conceive.
Roderic rushed forward unappalled, and unsubdued. He had already seized his unwilling victim. In vain she resisted his violence; in vain she strove to escape from her betrayer. “For pity’s sake—for mercy’s sake—for the sake of all our past endearments—spare me!—relent—and spare me—spare me!—” For a time she struggled; but her tender frame was soon overcome by the strength of her destroyer. She became cold and insensible in his arms.
At this moment a flood of splendid lightning filled the apartment. The air was rent with the hoarse and deafening roar of the thunder, the door flew open, and the form of that spectre that he most abhorred stood before Roderic. “Go on,” cried the phantom, “complete thy heroic purpose. Scorn the tremendous sounds that now appal thee. They are but the prelude of that scene that shall shortly feast my eyes. Perceivest thou not the earth to tremble beneath thy feet? Hearest thou not the walls of thy hated mansion cracking to their ruin? Confusion is at hand. Chaos is come again. Go on then, Roderic. Complete thy heroic purpose.” The spectre vanished, and all was uninterrupted silence.
The whole mind of Roderic was transformed from what it was. For the impotence of lust, and the cruelty of inexorable triumph, he felt the terrors of annihilation, and all the cold, damp tremblings of despair. But the victory of innocence was not yet complete.
Imogen had sunk for a moment under the horrors that threatened her, but she had not been so far impercipient as not to hear the murmuring of the thunder, and to see the gleam of the lightning. The form however that terrified Roderic, and the voice that addressed him, were perceived by him alone.
The shepherdess opened her eyes, and beheld the degenerate ravisher pale, aghast, and trembling. “It is well, Edwin. The Gods have declared themselves. The Gods have suspended their thunder over the head of the apostate. Rut, oh Edwin, could I have imagined it! Desolate and oppressed as I have been, could I have supposed, that that form was destined to fill up the measure of my woes! I once beheld it as the harbinger of happiness, as the temple of integrity and innocence. Oh, how wretched you have made me! How you have shaken all my most rooted opinions of the residence of virtue among mankind! Am I alone, and unsupported in her cause? How forlorn and solitary do I seem to myself! I suffered—once I suffered the thought of Edwin to mix with the love of rectitude, and the obedience of heaven. They all together confirmed me in the path I had chalked out for myself. Mistake not these reproaches for the weakness of returning passion. And yet, Edwin, though I loath, I pity you! Go, and repent! Go, and blot from the records of your memory the cold insinuation, the aggravated guilt that you have this day practised! Go, and let me never, never see you more!”
As she uttered these words, congratulation, reproach, wretchedness, abhorrence and pity succeeded each other in her countenance. Rut they were all accompanied with an ineffable dignity, and an angelic purity. The savage and the satyr might have beheld, and been awed into reverence. Roderic slunk away, guilty, mortified, and confounded. And such was the success of this other attempt upon the virtue of Imogen.
BOOK THE SIXTH
IMOGEN ENDEAVOURS TO SUBDUE THE ATTENDANTS OF RODERIC.—THE SUPPER OF THE HALL.—JOURNEY AND ARRIVAL OF EDWIN.—SUBTLETY OF THE MAGICIAN.—HE IS DEFEATED.—END OF THE SECOND DAY.