Page:Glenarvon (Volume 3).djvu/330

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His brain was burning. His eye, darting forward, lost not for one breathing moment sight of that terrific vision.

Madness to phrenzy came upon him. In vain his friends, and many of the brave companions in his ship, held him struggling in their arms. He seized his opportunity. "Bear on," he cried: "pursue, till death and vengeance—" and throwing himself from the helm, plunged headlong into the waters. They rescued him; but it was too late. In the struggles of ebbing life, even as the spirit of flame rushed from the bands of mortality, visions of punishment and hell pursued him. Down, down, he seemed to sink with horrid precipitance from gulf to gulf, till immured in darkness; and as he closed his eyes in death, a voice, loud and terrible, from beneath, thus seemed to address him:

"Hardened and impenitent sinner! the measure of your iniquity is full: the