ich
partook of the mingled elements of pleasure and pain. The day was dark
and gloomy, and the wind sighed mournfully around the house, and through
the leafless branches of the trees which fronted it. Suddenly the door
of the chamber was opened, and the Dead Man entered. Julia shuddered,
for the presence of that terrible man inspired her with a nameless
dread. He seated himself familiarly at her side--and on glancing at him,
she perceived, to her alarm, that he was much intoxicated. His eyes
rolled wildly, and his loathsome features were convulsed and full of
dark and awful meaning.

'Well, my bird,' said he in an unsteady voice--'by Venus and by Cupid, I
swear thou art beautiful today! Nay, thou need'st not shrink from
me--for I have sworn by Satan to taste thy ripe charms within this very
hour!'

He attempted to clasp her in his arms, but she pushed him from her with
a look of such disgust, that he became enraged and furious. Drawing a
sharp knife from his pocket, he seized her by her arm, and hissed from
between his clenched teeth--

'Hark'ee, woman, I have borne with your d----d nonsense long enough, and
now if you resist me I'll cut that fair throat of yours from ear to
ear--I will by hell!'

She would have screamed with affright, but he grasped her by the throat,
and nearly strangled her.

'Silly wench,' he cried, as he released her and again placed himself at
her side--'why do you provoke me into enmity, when I would fain be your
lover and friend? Mine you must be--mine you shall be, if I have to
murder you!'

Miserable Julia! thy wickedness has met with a terrible retribution;
thou art a slave to the lust and fury of a monster more dreadful than
the venomous and deadly cobra di capello of the East!

Ye who revel in guilty joys, and drink deep of the nectar in the gilded
cup of unhallowed pleasures--beware! Though the draught be delicious as
the wines of Cypress, and though the goblet be crowned with flowers,
fragrant as the perfume of love's sighs--a coiled serpent lurks in the
dregs of the cup, whose deadly fang will strike deep in the heart and
leave there the cankering sores of remorse and dark despair. Ye who bask
in the smiles of beauty, and voluptuously repose on the soft couch of
licentiousness--beware! That beauty is but external; beneath the fair
surface lie corruption, disease, and death!

The ruffian, having accomplished his triumph, developed a new trait in
the fiendish malignity of his na