And
then that blood-written oath--oh, so literally fulfilled and obeyed! But
the thought was evanescent from very fear. Nor was his nervousness
unjustified; for, even as he turned his head, he saw a figure wrapped up
in a dark cloak, and surmounted by a white coil of pure linen, as he
thought, emerging from the clump of thick trees that stood on the north
end of the burying-ground. The figure, having run as it were in fear so
far forward, no sooner saw the projecting head of Aminadab, than it
turned and retreated. At the same instant Ady rose, as if disturbed, and
ran to the house. Yet the moaning did not cease. It seemed interminable;
or, if to be terminated by the absence of Ady, the sufferer did not know
she was gone. And oh, these wails!--Aminadab fled and took them along
with him, nor did they ever leave him.
Even when he went to bed they were fresh upon his ear, claiming
precedence to the vision of his eye; though that, too, asserted its
authority as something miraculous--whether the Eastern mystery itself,
or some tutelary genius brought from heaven by the shriek of man's
cruelty. Nor could he rest for the thought that, humble as he was, he
was surely taken there that he might go to the powers of earth to ask
them to aid the powers of heaven.
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