n me, if I complied not with
your desires."

"Have mercy upon me. I meant not to take your life; and, therefore, why
should you take mine?"

"You would have taken it, and, therefore, you shall die. Know, too, at
this is your last moment, that, vampyre as you are, and as I, of all
men, best know you to be, I will take especial care that you shall be
placed in some position after death where the revivifying moonbeams may
not touch you, so that this shall truly be your end, and you shall rot
away, leaving no trace behind of your existence, sufficient to contain
the vital principle."

"No--no! you cannot--will not. You will have mercy."

"Ask the famished tiger for mercy, when you intrude upon his den."

As he spoke the baron ground his tenth together with rage, and, in an
instant, buried the poniard in the throat of his victim. The blade went
through to the yellow sand beneath, and the murderer still knelt upon
the man's chest, while he who had thus received so fatal a blow tossed
his arms about with agony, and tried in vain to shriek.

The nature of the wound, however, prevented him from uttering anything
but a low gurgling sound, for he was nearly choked with his own blood,
and soon his eyes became fixed and of a glassy appearance; he stretched
out his two arms, and dug his fingers deep into the sand.

The baron drew forth the poniard, and a gush of blood immediately
followed it, and then one deep groan testified to the fact, that the
spirit, if there be a spirit, had left its mortal habitation, and winged
its flight to other realms, if there be other realms for it to wing its
flight to.

"He is dead," said the baron, and, at the same moment, a roll of the
advancing tide swept over the body, drenching the living, as well as the
dead, with the brine of the ocean.

The baron stooped and rinsed the dagger in the advancing tide from the
clotted blood which had clung to it, and then, wiping it carefully, he
returned it to its sheath, which was hidden within the folds of his
dress; and, rising from his kneeling posture upon the body, he stood by
its side, with folded arms, gazing upon it, for some minutes, in
silence, heedless of the still advancing water, which was already
considerably above his feet.

Then he spoke in his ordinary accents, and evidently caring nothing for
the fact that he had done such a deed.

"I must dispose of this carcase," he said, "which now seems so lifeless,
for the moon is up, and if i