252 A lovers' leap. 



before them. Having performed this duty I set open the door 

 of my hut, and retiring to a neighbouring cavity, there stretclied 

 myself on a heap of leaves and offered my prayers to Heaven. 



" A thousand fears, till this moment unknown, thronged into 

 my fancy. The shadow of leaves that chequered the entrance to 

 the grot, seemed to assume in my distempered imagination the 

 form of ugly reptiles, and I repeatedly shook my garments. The 

 flow of the distant surges was deepened by my apprehensions 

 into distant groans : in a word, I could not rest; but issuing 

 from the cavern as hastily as my trembling knees would allow, 

 paced along the edge of the precipice. An unaccountable impulse 

 would have hurried my steps, yet such was my terror and shiv- 

 ering, that unable to advance to ray imt or retreat to the cavern, 

 I was about to shield myself from the night in a sandy crevice, 

 when a loud shriek pierced my ear. My fears had confused me ; 

 I was in fact near my hovel and scarcely three paces from the 

 brink of the cavern : it was thence the cries proceeded. 



"Advancing in a cold shudder to its edge, part of which was 

 newly crumbled in, I discovered the form of a young man sus- 

 pended by one foot to a branch of juniper that grew several feet 

 down : thus dreadfully did he hang over the gulph from the 

 branch bending with his weight. His features were distorted, his 

 eye-balls glared with agony, and his screams became so shrill and 

 terrible that 1 lost all power of affording assistance. Fixed, I 

 stood with my eyes riveted upon the criminal, who incessantly 

 cried out, * O, God ! O, Father I save me if there be yet mercy ! 

 save me, or I sink into the abyss ! ' 



" I an) convinced he did not see me ; for not once did he im- 

 plore my help. His voice grew faint, and as I gazed intent upon 

 him, the loose thong of leather which had entangled itself in the 

 branches by which he hung suspended, gave way, and he fell into 

 utter darkness. I sank to the earth in a trance ; during which a 

 sound like the rush of pennons assaulted my ear : methought the 

 evil spirit was bearing off his soul ; but when I lifted up my eyes 

 nothing stirred; the stillness that prevailed was awful. 



" The moon hanging low over the waves afforded a sickly 

 light, by which I perceived some one coming down that white 

 cliff you see before you; and I soon heard the voice of the young 

 woman calling aloud on her guilty lover. She stopped. She 

 repeated again and again her exclamation ; but there was no reply. 

 Alarmed and frantic she iiurried along the path, and now I saw 

 her on the promontory, and now by yonder pine, devouring with 



