Pagina 435 de 483

Scoffing devil! Again do I vow vengeance; again do I devote thee,

miserable fiend, to torture and death. Never will I give up my

search until he or I perish; and then with what ecstasy shall I

join my Elizabeth and my departed friends, who even now prepare

for me the reward of my tedious toil and horrible pilgrimage!

As I still pursued my journey to the northward, the snows

thickened and the cold increased in a degree almost too severe to

support. The peasants were shut up in their hovels, and only a

few of the most hardy ventured forth to seize the animals whom

starvation had forced from their hiding-places to seek for prey.

The rivers were covered with ice, and no fish could be procured;

and thus I was cut off from my chief article of maintenance.