You cannot dismiss me. Before
the commission of every great crime--and many great crimes you will
commit--I will always appear to you. And my last appearance shall he
three days before your end--ha! ha!"
"Darest thou say this to me!" cried Henry furiously.
"I laugh at thy menaces," rejoined Herne, amid another peal of
thunder--" but I have not yet done. Harry of England! your career shall
be stained in blood. Your wrath shall descend upon the heads of those
who love you, and your love shall be fatal. Better Anne Boleyn fled this
castle, and sought shelter in the lowliest hovel in the land, than
become your spouse. For you will slay her--and not her alone. Another
shall fall by your hand; and so, if you had your own will, would all!"
"What meanest thou by all?" demanded the king.
"You will learn in due season," laughed the fiend. "But now mark me,
Harry of England, thou fierce and bloody kin--thou shalt be drunken with
the blood of thy wives; and thy end shall be a fearful one. Thou shalt
linger out a living death--a mass of breathing corruption shalt thou
become--and when dead the very hounds with which thou huntedst me
shall lick thy blood!"
These awful words, involving a fearful prophecy, which was afterwards,
as will be shown, strangely fulfilled, were so mixed up with the rolling of
the thunder that Henry could scarcely distinguish one sound from the
other.
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