ps were
about to murmur the fatal assent to her prayer--about to announce his
readiness to summon the enemy of mankind and conclude the awful
compact--when suddenly there passed before his eyes the image of the
guardian angel whom he had seen in his vision, dim and transparent as
the thinnest vapor, yet still perceptible and with an expression of
countenance profoundly mournful. The apparition vanished in a moment;
but its evanescent presence was fraught with salvation. Tearing himself
wildly and abruptly from Nisida's embrace, Wagner exclaimed in a tone
indicative of the horror produced by the revulsion of feeling in his
mind, "No--never--never!" and, fleet as the startled deer he ran--he
flew toward the mountains. Frightened and amazed by his sudden cry and
simultaneous flight, Nisida cast her eyes rapidly around to ascertain
the cause of his alarm, thinking that some dreadful spectacle had
stricken terror to his soul. But ah--what sees she? Why do her glances
settle fixedly in one direction? What beholds she in the horizon? For a
few moments she is motionless, speechless, she cannot believe her eyes.
Then her countenance, which has already experienced the transition from
an expression of grief and alarm to one of suspense and mingled hope and
fear, becomes animated with the wildest joy; and forgetting the late
exciting scene as completely as if it had never taken place, but with
all her thoughts and feelings absorbed in the new--the one idea which
now engrosses her--she turns her eyes rapidly round toward the
mountains, exclaiming, "Fernand, dearest Fernand! a sail--a sail."

But Wagner hears her not: she stamps her foot with impatient rage upon
the sand; and in another moment the groves conceal her lover from view.

Yes; Wagner looked not round; heard not the voice of Nisida invoking him
to return, but continued his rapid flight toward the mountains, as if
hurrying in anguish and in horror from the meshes which had been spread
to ensnare his mortal soul. And now Nisida became all selfishness; there
was at length a hope, a sudden hope that she should be speedily enabled
to quit the hated monotonous island, and her fine, large dark eyes were
fixed intently upon the white sails which gradually grew more and more
palpable in the azure horizon. She was not deceived; there was no doubt,
no uncertainty, as to the nature of the object which now engrossed all
her thoughts, and filled her heart with the wildest joy. It was in