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death! Oh fiend, devil—is this your revenge ?”
He dashed himself upon the ground in agony ;
—tears burst from him, and the sweat stood in
large drops upon his face—he sobbed aloud—he
tore his hair—he rolled about like one suffering
intolerable anguish of body, and would have bitten
the iron floor beneath him ; he breathed fearful
curses upon Tolfi, and the next moment passionate
prayer’s to heaven for immediate death. Then the
violence of his grief became exhausted, and he lay
still, weeping as a child would weep. The twilight
of departing day shed its gloom around him ere he
arose from that posture of utter and hopeless
sorrow. He had taken no food. Not one drop of
water had cooled the fever of his parched lips.
Sleep had not visited his eyes for six and thirty
hours. He was faint with hunger; weary with
watching, and with the excess of his emotions.
He tasted of his food ; he drank with avidity of the
water ; and reeling like a drunken man to his straw,
cast himself upon it to brood again over the appaling
image that had fastened itself upon his almost
frenzied thoughts.
He slept. But his slumbers were not tranquil.
He resisted, as long as he could, their approach ;
and when, at last, enfeebled nature yielded to their
influence, he found no oblivion from his cares.
Terrible dreams haunted him—ghastly visions
harrowed up his imagination—he shouted and
screamed, as if he already felt the dungeon’s ponderous
roof descending on him—he breathed hard
and thick, as though writhing between its iron
walls. Then would he spring up—stare wildly
about him—stretch forth his hands to be sure he
yet had space enough to live—and, muttering some