Owen was again bewildered in the chaos of thought, but for this time he determined to subdue his imagination, and, throwing himself upon his bed, again gave himself up to sleep; but the images of his former dreams still haunted him, and their hideous phantasms were more powerfully renewed; again he heard the solemn psalm of death, but unsung by mortals—it was pealed through earth up to the high heaven, by myriads of the viewless and the mighty: again he heard the execrations of millions for some unremembered sin, and the wrath and the hatred of a world was rushing upon him: “Come forth! come forth!” was the cry; and amid yells and howls they were darting upon him, when the pale form of the beautiful dead arose between them, and shielded him from their malice; but he heard her say aloud, “It is for this, that thou wilt not save me; arise, arise, and help!”
He sprung up as he was commanded; sleeping or waking he never knew; but he started from his bed to look down into the chamber, as he heard the voice of Ruth loud in terrific denunciation: he looked; she was standing, uttering yells of madness and rage, and close to her was a well-known form of appalling recollection—his father, as he had seen him last; he arose and darted to the door: “I am mad,” said he; “I am surely mad, or this is still a continuation of my dream:” he looked again; Ruth was still there, but alone.
But, though no visible form stood by the maniac, some fiend had entered her soul, and mastered her mighty spirit; she had armed herself with an axe, and shouting, “Liar, liar, hence!” was pursuing some imaginary foe to the darker side of the cottage: Owen strove hard to trace her motions, but as she had retreated under the space occupied by his bed, he could no longer see her, and his eyes involuntarily fastened themselves upon the coffin; there a new horror met them; the dead corpse had risen, and with wild and glaring eyes was watching the scene before her. Owen distrusted his senses till he heard the terrific voice of Ruth, as she marked the miracle he had witnessed; “The fiend, the robber!” she yelled, “it is he who hath entered the pure body of my child. Back to thy cave of blood, thou lost one! back to thine own dark hell!” Owen flew to the door; it was too late; he heard the shriek—the blow: he _fell_ into the room, but only in time to hear the second blow, and see the cleft hand of the hapless Rachel fall back upon its bloody pillow; his terrible cries brought in the sleepers from the barn, headed by the wretched Evan, and, for a time, the thunders of heaven were drowned in the clamorous grief of man. No one dared to approach the miserable Ruth, who now, in utter frenzy, strode around the room, brandishing, with diabolical grandeur, the bloody axe, and singing a wild song of triumph and joy. All fell back as she approached, and shrunk from the infernal majesty of her terrific form; and the thunders of heaven rolling above their heads, and the flashings of the fires of eternity in their eyes, were less terrible than the savage glare and desperate wrath of the maniac:—suddenly, the house rocked to its foundation; its inmates were blinded for a moment, and sunk, felled by a stunning blow, to the earth;—slowly each man recovered and arose, wondering he was yet alive;—all were unhurt, save one. Ruth Tudor was on the earth, her blackened limbs prostrate beneath the coffin of her child, and her dead cheek resting on the rent and bloody axe;—it had been the destroyer of both.