sion for blood!

My mind detected at a glance this avenue to safety. The recommendations
it possessed thronged as it were together, and made but one impression
on my intellect. Remoter effects and collateral dangers I saw not.
Perhaps the pause of an instant had sufficed to call them up. The
improbability that the influence which governed Wieland was external or
human; the tendency of this stratagem to sanction so fatal an error, or
substitute a more destructive rage in place of this; the sufficiency of
Carwin's mere muscular forces to counteract the efforts, and restrain
the fury of Wieland, might, at a second glance, have been discovered;
but no second glance was allowed. My first thought hurried me to action,
and, fixing my eyes upon Carwin I exclaimed--

"O wretch! once more hast thou come? Let it be to abjure thy malice; to
counterwork this hellish stratagem; to turn from me and from my brother,
this desolating rage!

"Testify thy innocence or thy remorse: exert the powers which pertain to
thee, whatever they be, to turn aside this ruin. Thou art the author
of these horrors! What have I done to deserve thus to die? How have I
merited this unrelenting persecution? I adjure thee, by that God whose
voice thou hast dared to counterfeit, to save my life!

"Wilt thou then go? leave me! Succourless!"

Carwin listened to my intreaties unmoved, and turned from me. He seemed
to hesitate a moment: then glided through the door. Rage and despair
stifled my utterance. The interval of respite was passed; the pangs
reserved for me by Wieland, were not to be endured; my thoughts rushed
again into anarchy. Having received the knife from his hand, I held it
loosely and without regard; but now it seized again my attention, and I
grasped it with force.

He seemed to notice not the entrance or exit of Carwin. My gesture and
the murderous weapon appeared to have escaped his notice. His silence
was unbroken; his eye, fixed upon the clock for a time, was now
withdrawn; fury kindled in every feature; all that was human in his face
gave way to an expression supernatural and tremendous. I felt my left
arm within his grasp.--

Even now I hesitated to strike. I shrunk from his assault, but in
vain.--

Here let me desist. Why should I rescue this event from oblivion? Why
should I paint this detestable conflict? Why not terminate at once this
series of horrors?--Hurry to the verge of the precipice, and cast myself
for ever beyond rememb