you, and that power I will
exercise; a power that shall grind you into atoms. I condescend to no more
expostulation. I know what I am, and what I can be! I know what you are, and
what fate is reserved for you!
    Saying this, he quitted the room.
    Such were the particulars of this memorable scene. The impression it has
left upon my understanding is indelible. The figure and appearance of Mr.
Falkland, his death-like weakness and decay, his more than mortal energy and
rage, the words that he spoke, the motives that animated him, produced one
compounded effect upon my mind that nothing of the same nature could ever
parallel. The idea of his misery thrilled through my frame. How weak in
comparison of it is the imaginary hell, which the great enemy of mankind is
represented as carrying every where about with him!
    From this consideration my mind presently turned to the menaces he had
vented against myself. They were all mysterious and undefined. He had talked of
power, but had given no hint from which I could collect in what he imagined it
to consist. He had talked of misery, but had not dropped a syllable respecting
the nature of the misery to be inflicted.
    I sat still for some time ruminating on these thoughts. Neither Mr.
Falkland, nor any other person appeared, to disturb my meditations. I rose, went
out of the room, and from the inn into the street. No one offered to molest me.
It was strange! What was the nature of this power from which I was to apprehend
so much, yet which seemed to leave me at perfect liberty? I began to imagine
that all I had heard from this dreadful adversary was mere madness and
extravagance, that he was at length deprived of the use of reason, which had
long served him only as a medium of torment. Yet was it likely in that case that
he should be able to employ Gines and his associate, who had just been his
instruments of violence upon my person?
    I proceeded along the streets with considerable caution. I looked before me
and behind me, as well as the darkness would allow me to do, that I might not
again be hunted in sight by some man of stratagem and violence without my
perceiving it. I was not as before beyond the limits of the town, but considered
the streets, the houses and the inhabitants as affording some degree of
security. I was still walking with my mind thus full of suspicion and forecast,
when I discovered Thomas, that servant of Mr. Falkland whom I have