The Secret Shot; Or, The Rivals Of Misty Mount — page 43: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A DOUBLE could you have to attempt the life of this innocent maiden ?” . “Ask him!” she cried, pointing to old Godfrey, who averted his face. “JT know nothing that could prompt such a hellish deed as this,’ he murmured. “You lie!” yelled Judith, from her rocky perch. “Who destroyed my mother ?— your sire! Who destroyed me? Who made »me what I am?—you and your brother, Rupert! Oh! did you think my vengeance would ever sleep? JI made old Gleason, my purchaser, follow you hither, for I wanted to be near the man who made me a slave! The grass is not yet green over your son’s corpse. It was through my influence that Wandalo shot him dead from the distant thicket, while he was sunning himself on your porch. It was I who hounded on Heartstead to carry off your Ida. I hada double doom for her. I was to kill her twice—in her happiness and in her life. The death of my instrument, Heartstead, prevented the former—you have torn her from the latter fate. I was in her room to take her life, when her absence and your entrance saved her. Farewell! my spirit will not brook a failure. You ask me to surrender ; see, I do so, but not to you!” As she spoke, she raised the glittering dagger with a strong, steady hand, and plunged it to the hilt into her own heart. She tottered for a moment on the edge of the high shelf, reeled, caught at the air with her hands, and pitched down on the rocky pavement, as dead as any of the loosened fragments of the wall that came rattling down after her. There was not a man of that hardy as- semblage who did not shudder at what he had heard and seen. Fortunately, Ida had again fainted when threatened by the mon- ster, so that she, at least, escaped the horri- ple recital and spectacle. Mr. Gwin now lost no time in bearing her out of the wed by one of his servants ; but a strange atmosphere of horror kept f the party glued to the. Se ee i k amazement, spot, eyeing each other in blank am thus they were startled by cavern, follo hile standing haais gavage war-whoop, and Wandalo stood before them. ; =f so ha!’ he laughed, dancing up to “Hal! ha! Wandalo not got Soon going down—down to f Misty Mountain. Wuoor ! fixed upon the ‘ifeless body He did not pause, but the party. long to wait. the bottom 0 His eyes were of the quadroon. TRAGEDY. gathered up the mangled body in his arms, as lightly as a feather’s weight, and contin- ued his wild dance. “The Passion-Flower has gone to sleep. Tll take her down to the bottom of the mountain. Sweet place down at the bottom of the mountain—down in the heart of the Misty Mountain !” He skipped out of the cave with the body in his arms, followed by the wondering throng. They saw him scale the steep sides—up and up—still holding the body, as if it was that of a little baby, wondering what would come next. At last they reached the fissure or gulf which Ida had noticed as running down through the lofty ridge at the back of the cave. It only averaged a width of about twelve or fifteen feet, ran irregularly up the stcep, in some places almost concealed, but was evidently of awful depth. Far up the mountain they beheld Wandalo, dancing with his burden on the edge of this fearful gulf. “Hal ha! We're going down!” he laughed. “ Lilies don’t grow there—only Passion-Flowers— bright, fierce Passion- Flowers! Ha!lha! We'll go down to the bottom of the mountain—down to the heart of the Misty Mountain !” He sprung from the edge with the quad- roon’s corpse in his arms, and disappeared. One more wild laugh they heard, and all was silent. The party looked at each other in speechless horror. But, at length, as they turned to descend the mountain, one of the riflemen loosened a great fragment from the edge of the gulf. All paused to listen. Boom! boom! clang! clang! crick1 crick! went the tumbling mass, the sound dying from a loud thunder to something like the tick of a watch, and then gradually melting away into silence. Then the party began to descend the mountain. > That was a deep, deep tomb for Wan- dalo and Judith ! CHAPTER XI. Winning the Heiress. Two months after the events which have just been recorded, in the early portion of December, Cleaveland again found himself in the Vicinity of Valleyton, he having been summoned away from that locality only a day or two after the recovery of Ida Gwin, He had never as yet dared to breathe his com (C@) Se eee SS ee eee (elOO|K