It was the work of the rushing gust --but then without
those doors there DID stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the
lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, and
the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her
emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to
and fro upon the threshold, then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily
inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now
final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to
the terrors he had anticipated.
From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The storm
was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the old
causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I
turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could wi have issued; for
the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance
was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon which now shone
vividly through that once barely-discernible fissure of which I have
before spoken as extending from the roof of the building, in a
zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly
widened --there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind --the entire orb
of the satellite burst at once upon my sight --my brain reeled as I
saw the mighty walls rushing asunder --there was a long tumultuous
shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters --and the deep
and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the
fragments of the "HOUSE OF USHER.
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