The Rift in Hell Gate.
The first hole pierced, his head grew sick and faint.
To pray he tried; no word
Escaped his lips.
Yet sure he felt his spirit's groanings heard,
As prone he lay and gasped the air by sips;
For that he'd breathed so long, was foul with dead men's taint.
His strength now grew with every stroke he plied.
At sound of sea and men,
Death's clammy sweat
Was changed for drops that told of health again,
While through his languid frame life's current swept,
It only made him feel how nearly he had died.
At last his living tomb of rock was rent;
Though but a narrow rift
He yet had made
Enough; it did a horrid monster lift,
That clutched him close and held aloft a blade;
He felt himself undone, when, lo! God had deliv'rance sent.
The Crucified One.
So wildly beat his heart and throbbed his veins,
As morn's first struggling gleam.
His rift net caught,
He e'en must follow its meandering beam,
Till something on the walls his footsteps brought
To rest. He shuddered as he saw the death-throe stains
Of some whose hands and ankles, staple-bound,
Had graved thereon the sign
Of crucified.
"My God!" he cried, "such fate may yet be mine!"
He turned and lo! close at his feet he spied
A note. A piercing wail then woke the echoes round.
"To-morrow, Eric, will decide your fate.
Confess and you are free;
Else will you die
A death of torture, marks of which you'll see
Upon the walls around. Fly, Eric, fly,
This night, this very night, or it will be too late!"