If you will be mine, it must be amid a scene like this
for ever--amid fire and darkness--amid hatred and despair--amid----” and
his voice swelling to a demoniac shriek of rage and horror, and his arms
extended, as if to grapple with the fearful objects of some imaginary
struggle, he was rushing from the arch under which they stood, lost in
the picture which his guilt and despair had drawn, and whose images he
was for ever doomed to behold. “The slender form that had clung to him was, by this sudden movement,
prostrated at his feet; and, with a voice choaked with terror, yet with
that perfect devotedness which never issued but from the heart and lip
of woman, she answered his frightful questions with the simple demand,
“_Will you be there?_”--“Yes!--THERE I must be, and for ever! And _will_
you, and _dare_ you, be with me?” And a kind of wild and terrible energy
nerved his frame, and strengthened his voice, as he spoke and cowered
over pale and prostrate loveliness, that seemed in profound and reckless
humiliation to court its own destruction, as if a dove exposed its
breast, without flight or struggle, to the beak of a vulture. “Well,
then,” said the stranger, while a brief convulsion crossed his pale
visage, “amid thunder I wed thee--bride of perdition! mine shalt thou be
for ever! Come, and let us attest our nuptials before the reeling altar
of nature, with the lightnings of heaven for our bed-lights, and the
curse of nature for our marriage-benediction!” The Indian shrieked in
terror, not at his words, which she did not understand, but at the
expression which accompanied them. “Come,” he repeated, “while the
darkness yet is witness to our ineffable and eternal union.” Immalee,
pale, terrified, but resolute, retreated from him. “At this moment the storm, which had obscured the heavens and ravaged
the earth, passed away with the rapidity common in those climates, where
the visitation of an hour does its work of destruction unimpeded, and is
instantly succeeded by the smiling lights and brilliant skies of which
mortal curiosity in vain asks the question, Whether they gleam in
triumph or in consolation over the mischief they witness? “As the stranger spoke, the clouds passed away, carrying their
diminished burden of wrath and terror where sufferings were to be
inflicted, and terrors to be undergone, by the natives of other
climes--and the bright moon burst forth with a glory unknown in European
climes. The heavens were as blue as the waves of the ocean, which they
seemed to reflect; and the stars burst forth with a kind of indignant
and aggravated brilliancy, as if they resented the usurpation of the
storm, and asserted the eternal predominance of nature over the casual
influences of the storms that obscured her. Such, perhaps, will be the
developement of the moral world. We shall be told why we suffered, and
for what; but a bright and blessed lustre shall follow the storm, and
all shall yet be light. “The young Indian caught from this object an omen alike auspicious to
her imagination and her heart. She burst from him--she rushed into the
light of nature, whose glory seemed like the promise of redemption,
gleaming amid the darkness of the fall. She pointed to the moon, that
sun of the eastern nights, whose broad and brilliant light fell like a
mantle of glory over rock and ruin, over tree and flower. “Wed me by this light,” cried Immalee, “and I will be yours for ever!”
And her beautiful countenance reflected the full light of the glorious
planet that rode bright through the cloudless heaven--and her white and
naked arms, extended towards it, seemed like two pure attesting pledges
of the union. “Wed me by this light,” she repeated, sinking on her
knees, “and I will be yours for ever!”

“As she spoke, the stranger approached, moved with what feelings no
mortal thought can discover. At that moment a trifling phenomenon
interfered to alter her destiny. A darkened cloud at that moment covered
the moon--it seemed as if the departed storm collected in wrathful haste
the last dark fold of its tremendous drapery, and was about to pass away
for ever. “The eyes of the stranger flashed on Immalee the brightest rays of
mingled fondness and ferocity. He pointed to the darkness,--“WED ME BY
THIS LIGHT!” he exclaimed, “_and you shall be mine for ever and ever!_”
Immalee, shuddering at the grasp in which he held her, and trying in
vain to watch the expression of his countenance, yet felt enough of her
danger to tear herself from him. “Farewell for ever!” exclaimed the
stranger, as he rushed from her. “Immalee, exhausted by emotion and terror, had fallen senseless on the
sands that filled the path to the ruined pagoda. He returned--he raised
her in his arms--her long dark hair streamed over them like the drooping
banners of a defeated army--her arms sunk down as if declining the
support they seemed to implore--her cold and colourless cheek rested on
his shoulder. “Is she dead?” he murmured. “Well, be it so--let her perish--let her be
any thing _but mine_!” He flung his senseless burden on the sands, and
departed--nor did he ever revisit the island. CHAPTER XIX. Que donne le monde aux siens plus souvent,
                                    Echo _Vent_. Que dois-je vaincre ici, sans jamais relacher,
                                    Echo _la chair_. Qui fit le cause des maux, qui me sont survenus,
                                    Echo _Venus_. Que faut dire après d’une telle infidelle,
                                    Echo _Fi d’elle_. _MAGDALENIADE, by Father Pierre de St Louis._


“Three years had elapsed since the parting of Immalee and the stranger,
when one evening the attention of some Spanish gentlemen, who were
walking in a public place in Madrid, was arrested by a figure that
passed them, habited in the dress of the country, (only without a
sword), and walking very slowly. They stopt by a kind of simultaneous
movement, and seemed to ask each other, with silent looks, what had been
the cause of the impression this person’s appearance had made on them. There was nothing remarkable in his figure,--his demeanour was quiet; it
was the singular expression of his countenance which had struck them
with a sensation they could neither define or account for. “As they paused, the person returned alone, and walking slowly--and they
again encountered that singular expression of the features, (the eyes
particularly), which no human glance could meet unappalled. Accustomed
to look on and converse with all things revolting to nature and to
man,--for ever exploring the mad-house, the jail, or the
Inquisition,--the den of famine, the dungeon of crime, or the death-bed
of despair,--his eyes had acquired a light and a language of their
own--a light that none could gaze on, and a language that few dare
understand.