Страница 429 из 483

I had begun my adjuration with solemnity and an awe which almost

assured me that the shades of my murdered friends heard and

approved my devotion, but the furies possessed me as I concluded,

and rage choked my utterance.

I was answered through the stillness of night by a loud and

fiendish laugh. It rang on my ears long and heavily; the

mountains re-echoed it, and I felt as if all hell surrounded me

with mockery and laughter. Surely in that moment I should have

been possessed by frenzy and have destroyed my miserable

existence but that my vow was heard and that I was reserved for

vengeance. The laughter died away, when a well-known and abhorred

voice, apparently close to my ear, addressed me in an audible

whisper, "I am satisfied, miserable wretch! You have determined

to live, and I am satisfied."