He stood in the court-yard of an ancient castle, with the frown of the old walls glooming over his head, while the blaze of the festal lights thrown from the lofty windows gave a ruddy light to the scene.
Gladsome strains of music, the light-hearted laugh of the reveller, the gay carol of the minstrel came echoing to his ear.
He looked around the courtyard, and beheld ranged under the shadow of the ancient wall the chariots of the great and proud, extending in long and brilliant array, as far as eye could see, each chariot with its panels blazing with heraldic emblazonings boasting its gallant attendance of four noble steeds, decorated with gay housings and waving plumes, red, azure and snow-white in hue, while numerous servitors, attired in liveries of every color and gaudy device, ran to and fro, their shouts of boisterous merriment, mingling with the voices of their Lords, joining in the glee song of the banquet hall.
Ascending a massive stairway, with snow-white marble steps, and rare paintings adorning the wall, Adrian made his way through the crowds of feasters, passing to and fro, through the stream of servitors bearing dainty viands to the revellers above, and in a single moment stood within the glare and glitter of the Festival Hall.
It was in sooth, a grand and magnificent scene.
The pillars of a lofty hall swept away from the spot where he stood, in grand perspective, each lofty column bearing its burden of wild flowers, quaintly wreathed around sculptured frieze and capital, hanging in long festoons to the floor, or borne to and fro by the summer breeze.
The glare of ten thousand lamps, arranged amid the intricate ornaments of the ceiling, hung along the towering columns or pendant in the night air, gave a dazzling light to the scene.
The dancers went merrily over the bounding floor, each eye gleaming with revelry, each cheek glowing with the merriment of the hour, and the Spirit of the Dance giving life to every step, animation to every motion of the revellers.
Placed on the balcony above his head, the band of minstrels filled the air with music; pillar and column, ceiling-arch and obscure nook, gave the strains with redoubled echoes, until the air seemed animated with melody, and instinct with the life of joy.
Floating on the waves of sound, the forms of dame and damsel, lord and cavalier, seemed swimming in the atmosphere, their eyes flashing light, their hands gaily upraised, their voices mingling in a festal song, as they undulated to and fro, now circling here, now grouping there, now clustering in a crowd, and again darting away over the floor, like a flock of frightened birds scared by the swoop of the falcon.
Adrian gazed over the scene, until his eye grew sick with loveliness, his ears deafened by the sound of mirth, revelry and music, he gazed around and marked the forms of beauty swaying in the dance, here the blooming form of mature womanhood, bounding amid the dancers, there the blushing cheek of girlhood, receiving the warm blaze of the festal lights o’er the velvet skin, here soft lips and azure eyes, mingling their messages of love, there delicate hands pressed thrillingly together, on every side the form of a queenly dame revealed in the light, or the soft bosom of a princely damsel, heaving from the folds of her vestment—on all sides beauty and grace, music and motion, commingling their fascinations, while the heart filled with melody, and the pulse throbbed with joy.
And as Adrian looked, with a wild thrill of delight, he beheld one lovely form, standing apart from the dancers, while her face of dreamy beauty was gazing sadly over the scene, the deep blue eye gleaming with thought, and the swelling cheek paled by melancholy, as the strains of festival music came to her ear.
It was the Ladye Annabel!
With a wild cry of delight, Adrian sprang forward, and as he sprang, his bride turned, beheld his face, and came swimming into his arms.
Another moment and they joined the throng of dancers speeding gayly over the floor, their hands interlocked while their glances mingled, and the soft whispers of each voice, spoke of the dear memories of the olden time.
It was when the dance swelled gayest, when the minstrels gave forth their most joyous notes, when all around was life and music and the waters of joy came bubbling to the brim of every heart, that a strange voice, deep, and whispering in its tones, broke over the very heart of Adrian.
“Man, thou art full of joy, and around thee every cheek glows with health, every eye sparkles with life. Behold, I show thee the Mysterie of Life and Death! Thou art doomed to return to this Festal Hall, one hundred years from this night, when thou shalt behold the Festal Scene, which death will open to thy gaze!”
And at the very word, Adrian lost his bride in the throng of dancers, and all grew dark as midnight.
The music and the dancers, the forms and beauty and the pillared hall, all, all were gone, and a strange consciousness was impressed upon the brain of Adrian, that one hundred years from the festal night had passed away, and that he had been wrapt in slumber for a long and dreary century of time.
He stood in the court-yard of the ancient castle yet again.
A broad blaze of light poured from the windows of the festal hall, while the peals of strange and unknown music broke murmuringly on the air.
Adrian gazed around the court-yard, with a feeling of awe, gathering heavy and dark around his heart.
There was the castle yard, the same as in the olden time, yet not altogether the same.
Gleams of moonlight stole through the chinks in the tottering walls of the court-yard, wild vines threw their long branches from among the age-worn stones, and the owl, like a thing of evil omen disturbed the air with its sullen murmur.
Gazing along the court-yard, Adrian beheld a strange and ghastly spectacle.
Beneath the shadow of the dark gray walls, along the very space occupied by the array of chariots, one hundred years before, there extended a long line of death-cars, hearse succeeding hearse, all draped in folds of black, with four dark steeds, heavy with hangings of dark velvet, attached to each chariot of the grave, while the coachman’s seat was tenanted by a grisly skeleton, attired in the gay livery of the noble lord whom he served in life.
With maddened steps, Adrian hastened along the whole line of hearses, he beheld each death-car, with its four black steeds, their heads decorated with sable plumes, their bodies concealed by folds of black velvet, he beheld the skeleton driver seated on every hearse.
He saw the paraphernalia of death and the grave, and as the horror grew darker at his heart, he shouted aloud, asking in tones of wild amazement, the cause of this fearful panorama of woe and gloom.
There came no answer to his shout.
All was silent, save the murmur of the owl and the peals of strange music floating from the windows of the Festal Hall.
“What means this fearful scene?” whispered Adrian, as he seized the skeleton servitor of a gloomy hearse by the arm—“What means the long array of death cars?”
The skeleton extended his fleshless jaws, in a hideous grin, and with his skeleton hand, brushed the dust of the grave from his gay doublet of blue and silver, and arranged the tasteful knot of his silken sash.
Still no voice came from his bared teeth, no answer came from his fleshless visage.
“Fiend of hell,” shouted Adrian, “this sight will drive me mad.”
“Nay, nay, good youth,” exclaimed a soft and whispered voice at his very shoulder. “Be not alarmed, ’tis but a festal scene. One hundred years from this night we all thronged yonder dancing hall, ’tis our pleasure, or mayhap our doom to return to the scene of our former gaiety. I was master of ceremonies an hundred years ago, I am master of ceremonies, ha, ha, yet once again. Will it please ye to choose a partner?”
With a feeling of involuntary horror, Adrian turned and beheld a Figure, clad in a gay robe of purple, faced with snow-white ermine, holding the rod of office in his hand, while a group of rainbow-hued plumes, hung drooping over his brow.
Adrian dashed the plumes aside, he beheld, oh sight of mockery, the fleshless skull, the hollow eye sockets, the cavity of the nose, the grinning teeth, and the hanging jaw, while the hand grasping the wand of office, was a grisly skeleton hand.
He turned from the bowing skeleton, and was rushing away with horror, when a new wonder fixed his attention.
The master of ceremonies waved his wand, and each skeleton driver leaped from his hearse.
Another signal and the long line of skeletons, each attired in gay and contrasted livery, extended their skeleton hands, and lifting the pall on high disclosed the gloomy burden of each death car, the coffin draped in black, with the heraldic plate of gold, affixed to each coffin lid.
A third wave of the wand from the master of ceremonies, and the skeleton drivers, unscrewed each coffin lid, and Adrian beheld the occupant of every tenement of death, slowly rise from their last resting place, gazing beneath the shadow of the uplifted funeral pall, around upon the court-yard.
As they gazed, Adrian beheld each fleshless skull, wearing the horrible grimace of death, looking forth from beneath their gaudy head-gear, the plumed cap, or the jeweled coronet, while their skeleton hands, arranged the folds of their attire, brushing the coffin dust from the gay robe, or fixing the tarnished ruffle around the neck with a yet more dainty grace, while the skeleton drivers, slowly let down the steps of each hearse fashioned in its sable side. The last signal was given by the master of ceremonies.
And with a low bow, each skeleton servitor extended his hand, to receive his fair lord or ladye, his fair young mistress or his gallant young master, as arising from their coffin, they placed their feet on the steps of the hearse, and slowly descended into the court-yard of the ancient castle.
“Great God, they are thronging around me,” shouted Adrian, “skeleton after skeleton, clad in the gay costume of life, descend from the funeral hearse wending in one ghastly throng toward the hall door, on their way to the festal scene. Oh, ghastly mockery! here are the forms of those who died when young, and the trembling skeletons of those whom death summoned when bending with the weight of years. Here are the skeletons of warrior and courtier, knight and minstrel. All wear glittering costumes, all mimic the actions of life. Cavalier takes the hand of Damosel, and Lord supports the form of Ladye, while the fleshless jaws, extend and grimace but speak no word. They utter a low moaning sound like the deaf mute when he essays to speak. ’Tis horrible, most horrible, this ghastly array of mockery, and hark—strange peals of music, are floating from yon lofty windows of the banquet hall!”
And as he spoke, the spectral train disappeared within the shadow of the hall door, and he was left alone with the long line of hearses and the skeleton servitors.
“So please ye, gentle sir, wilt thou not trip a measure in the joyous dance?” spoke a voice at his shoulder, “Lo! the peals of merry music, lo! the hum of the dancers feet, moving merrily over the floor. Wilt please thee to take my arm?”
Adrian turned and beheld the bowing Skeleton-Master of Ceremonies.
“I’ll e’en secure thee a fair partner!” whispered the skeleton as he led Adrian through the hall door and along the massive stairway. “Look, good youth, the paintings are somewhat tarnished, very little tarnished since we beheld them last, and, ha, ha, well, well, such things will come to pass, the marble steps of the staircase are cracked by the footstep of time. This way, this way, my good youth. Lo! we are in the festal hall!”
With a gaze of horror, Adrian beheld the hall, whose floor he had trodden some hundred years agone. He beheld the lofty pillars, the magnificent arch, the balcony for the minstrels, all illumined by the glare of pendent lamps, all, all the same, yet still all sadly and fearfully changed.
The lofty columns were decorated with evergreens, but flowers gathered by the hand of beauty from the wild wood glade no more adorned capital and frieze.
The ivy, green companion of old time, clomb round the towering pillars, and swept its canopy of leaves along the arching ceiling, while the night-wind rustling through the worm-eaten tapestries agitated the long tendrils of the trailing vine with a gentle yet solemn motion.
“Lo! the dancers—ha, ha, the dancers!”
Circling and whirling, grouping and clustering, the skeleton-band went swaying over the floor, their gay dresses fluttering in the light, while the ruddy lamp-beams fell quivering over each bared brow, tinting the hollow sockets with a crimson glow, and giving a more ghastly grimace to the array of whitened teeth.
“Lo! the minstrels—a skeleton-band, whose fleshless skulls appear above the lattice-work of yon balcony. Merry music they make—clank, clank, clank! They beat the hollow skull with the cross-bone—clank, clank, clank! Each skeleton minstrel waves on high a human bone, striking it on the hollow skull—clank, clank. Clank, clank. Clank, clank, clank!”
And as the grinning skeleton, master of ceremonies, pointed above to the spectral minstrels, Adrian listened to the music that echoed round the hall.
A wild clanking sound assailed his ears, with a hollow mockery of music, while a deep, booming, rolling sound like the echo of a distant battle-drum broke on the air, maddening the skeleton-dancers with its weird melody.
The revel swelled fiercer, and the mirth grew louder, awaking the echoes of the ancient hall with one deafening murmur.
“Lo! the dancers divide—behold the spectacle! On yonder side extend the lords and cavaliers, on this the dames and damozels. They prepare for a merry dance—will it please thee chose a partner?”
And as the skeleton spoke, he pointed to the form of a maiden, clad in snow-white robes, who with her face turned from Adrian, seemed absorbed in watching the motions of the dancers. Adrian gazed upon this maidenly form with a beating heart, and advanced to her side.
“Behold thy partner!” cried the master of ceremonies.
The maiden turned her face to Adrian, and he stood spell-bound to the spot with sudden horror.
Looking from beneath a dropping plume, snow-white in hue, a skull stared him in the face, with the orbless sockets, the cavity of the nose, and the grinning teeth turned to glowing red by the light of the pendent lamps.
Adrian stood spell-bound but the form advanced, flinging her skeleton hands on high—
“Adrian, Adrian,” whispered a soft woman’s voice issuing from the fleshless skull; “Joy to me now, for I behold thee once again!”
“I know thee not” shrieked Adrian with a voice of fear—“I know thee not, thou thing of death! Wherefore whisper my name with the voice of her whom this heart loved a hundred years ago, and will love forever? Off—off—thou mockery, nor clutch thy skeleton arms around my neck, nor gather me in thy foul embrace!”
“And thou lovest me not!” spoke the sad and complaining voice of the skeleton—“Adrian, Adrian, gaze upon me, I am thine own, thine now and thine forever!”
“And this,” whispered Adrian, as the fearful consciousness gradually stole over his soul—“And this is my love—my Annabel! Death, oh ghastly and invisible Death, couldst thou not spare even—her!”
“Advance dames and damosels!” rung out the words of the master of ceremonies.
And at the word, the long line of skeleton-dames and damosels, arrayed in rarest silks, blazing with jewels and glittering with ornaments of gold, came swaying quickly forward, extending their skeleton hands to their partners, who half advanced from the opposite side of the hall, and then they all swept back to their places, with one sudden movement rattling their skeleton fingers with a gesture of boundless joy, as they stood beneath the glare of the dazzling lights.
“Advance lords and cavaliers!”
Quickly and with lightsome steps the skeletons arrayed in costly robe and glittering doublet advanced to the sound of the unearthly music, and gaining the centre of the hall, sprang nimbly in the air, performing the evolutions of the dance with the celerity of lightning, and having greeted their fair partners again retired to the opposite side of the hall, uttering a low and moaning sound of laughter as they regained their places.
“Minstrels strike up a merrier peal! Clank, clank. Clank, clank. Clank, clank—clank!—Merrier, merrier—louder, louder—let the old roof echo with your peals of melody! Now gentles advance, seize your fair partners and whirl them in the dance!”
With one wild bound the skeletons sprang forward from opposite sides of the hall, pairing off, two by two, lord and ladye, cavalier and damosel, and in a moment the whole array of revellers swept circling round the hall, moving forward to a merry measure, clanking their skeleton hands on high and uttering low peals of laughter as they whirled around the bounding floor.
Adrian gazed upon the scene in wild amazement, while the skeleton arms of her he loved, gathered closer round his neck, and as he gazed he became inspired with the wild excitement of the scene, he clapped his hands on high, he joined in the low muttered laughter, he mingled in the mad whirl of the spectral dance.
Faster and faster, whirling two by two, their fleshless skulls turned to glowing red by the glare of a thousand lights, their hands of bone clanking wildly above their heads, while the low moaning chorus of unreal laughter echoed around the hall, faster and faster circled the skeleton dancers, gay doublets glittering in the lamp-beams, robes of silk flung wavingly to the breeze.
On and on with the speed of wind they swept, these merry denizens of the grave, pacing their march of mockery, their dance of woe, with a ghastly mimicry of life, reality and joy.
And as Adrian flung his arms around the skeleton-form of his bride, gathering her to his bosom, while their voices joined in the moaning chaunt of unreal laughter, the voice which he had heard an hundred years before, again came whispering to his ear.
“Behold the Mysterie of Life and Death! To-day the children of men live and love, hate and destroy. Where are their lives, their loves, their hatreds, and their wars, in an hundred years? Behold—ha, ha, ha! Behold the Mysterie of their life and their death!”
All was dark. Not a ray of light, not even the gleaming of a distant star, but deep and utter darkness.
Adrian awoke from his dream. Did he awake to another dream, or to a reality yet more terrible?
He lay prostrate, and he felt his limbs confined as though they were bound with cords. He extended his hand, and it touched a smooth panel of wood, extending along his right side. A strange horror, to which the horrors of his late dream were joy and peace, gathered like a deadening weight around his heart. He threw forth his left hand, and felt a like panel of smooth wood extending along his other side. Raising himself slowly from his prostrate position, with every nerve and fibre of his frame stiffened and cramped by his hard resting place, he passed his quivering hands along the panels of wood, and with that insupportable horror deadening over his heart, he felt and examined the shape of his—Coffin.
Bowing his head between his hands, the wretched man essayed to weep, but the fountain of his tears was exhausted.
He could not weep.
And then, as with trembling hands he examined his emaciated face, with the cheek-bones pressing hard against the parched skin, he beheld rising before his soul, one ghastly idea, which would pale the cheek of the bravest man that ever went to battle, or chill with horror and despair, the heart of the holiest Priest that ever offered prayers to God, an idea to which all other horrors were as nothing, all terrors, all fears, all deaths trifling and insignificant.
And the nameless thought, his husky voice gave to the air in a hollow whisper.
“Buried-Alive!”
And a hollow echo returned the word “alive, alive!”
“It comes back to my soul,” he slowly murmured, “the scene in the chamber of the convent—the Monk—oh, curses on the traitor—the potion, all, all come back to me! Buried Alive! Devil in human shape—he did not drug the bowl with death, but with—sleep! This, this is the revenge of the Duke, and, and Albertine was the tool of the triple murderer! Buried Alive!”
He tried to arise from the coffin, but for a long time his efforts were in vain.
His frame was stiffened in every sinew, and his limbs were benumbed by his long repose.
At last he stood erect upon the floor of stone, and extending his hands, grasped the massive walls.
“There is yet one hope,” he murmured, “there may be some outlet from the funeral vault!”
With slow and leaden footsteps he passed along the wall, measuring its length. It was five paces long. The stones were all solid, massive, and firm. His upraised hand touched the ceiling, as it extended some three inches higher than his head.
Clutching the massive stones, he paced along the other walls or sides of the room, with weary and difficult footsteps, and at last traversed the three sides, and leaning against the wall, he endeavored to impress his wandering mind with some definite idea of the shape and dimensions of the vault.
“I stand in a small room, with floor and walls of massive stone,” he slowly muttered, “it is square in shape, and each side of the cell is five paces in length, and somewhat more than the stature of a man in height. The stones are solid, and to all appearance are some three feet thick. There is no outlet, no passage from the vault. I am indeed—Buried, and buried alive!”
He passed with difficult steps along the fourth wall of the vault, determined to repose his shattered frame awhile, even though his resting place was his coffin. In a moment measuring three paces, he arrived at the spot where he supposed he had left the coffin. Extending his foot to and fro, in search of his late tenement, he was struck with a new horror:
“It is gone—the coffin is gone!”
Words cannot picture the utter horror with which this was spoken.
All the despair that an Angel of God might feel, when toppled from the battlements of Heaven into the infernal abyss, then visited the breast of Adrian Di Albarone.
“It is a mere phantasy,” he exclaimed, “I have chanced upon the wrong side of the room.”
Again the sides of the vault were paced, and yet the coffin was not within his reach.
It was gone from its position near the wall, and his physical strength did not suffice to advance toward the centre of the room.
What invisible hand was it, that removed the Coffin?
As the question was asked by the heart of the wretched man, it found its answer in one fearful doubt.
“And am I, in truth, within the bounds of that fearful place, which wild Poets have fancied, and dark-robed Monks have preached? Am I in sooth lost, and lost forever? Is death a dream? or an eternal succession of realities that seem but dreams—horrors too fearful for even the damned to believe? And this, this is—hell! I could bear the tortures of the eternal fire, the lash of the fiends I might defy, the lightnings of wrath would inspire with me with some portion of the Awful Spirit who winged their bolts of vengeance—but this narrow cell, this eternal confinement in a place visited only by Dreams, while hunger tortures and thirst burns, hope animates, and despair holds but half the human heart—this, this is too horrible. God of vengeance, give me, oh give, the punishment of the undying worm, the torture of the eternal frame, but spare, oh spare me—this!”
He fell on his knees, and kissed the cold floor as he bent his forehead against his clenched hands, making the narrow cell all alive with his shriek—
“Spare; oh spare me—this!”
As he bowed low on the floor, a singular sound—most singular in such a place—met his ear. It was but a low sound, yet it was a fearful one.
He heard the deep breathing of a living creature.
It might be the echo of his own broken gasps, the thought flashed over the mind of Adrian, and for a moment he held his breath, and listened with all his soul absorbed in the result. Again the deep breathing of a human creature met his ear—
“Is it man or devil?” thus ran the thoughts of Adrian—“Mayhap he may give me water to quench my thirst, or mayhap he will—ha, ha,—take my accursed life. Could I but speak—for my voice does nought but murmur—I’d even ask him to plunge his poignard in my heart.”
A whizzing sound disturbed the air, and at the very instant the blow of a sword descended on the left arm of Adrian Di Albarone, while a heavy body fell to the floor, within two paces of the spot where he knelt.
“The blood flows from the wound,” the glad thought darted over the mind of the Buried-Alive, “Would I had strength to tear the doublet-sleeve from the arm, then I might drink my own blood. Yet hold—the blood oozes through the gash in the sleeve, and, and Great * * *! I may drink my own blood!”
He raised the wounded arm to his mouth and greedily drank the blood.
In a moment he felt the influence of the draught.
His veins seemed fired with new life, his brain became for the moment calm and clear, his heart regained its vigor, and gifted with temporary strength he arose on his feet, grasping the sword of the unknown in his good right hand.
Another moment passed, and with his right hand he wound a bandage of linen, torn from his bosom, around the wounded arm, securing it by a knot tied with the teeth and hand.
Meanwhile he heard the sound of panting breath, not two paces distant from the spot where he stood, and as he listened a deep-muttered groan broke on his ear.
Calling all his powers of mental and physical vigor to his aid he spoke in a faint yet determined voice—
“Who art thou?” he exclaimed.
“Thy murderer!” was the gasping response.
“How long hast thou been in this place of death?”
“Long—enough—to starve! Hell and devils! I burn—thirst—starve!”
“What wouldst thou have?”
“Bread, bread! Water—I’d sell my soul for water!”
“Wherefore didst thou strike me?”
“I thought ye a spirit—and—and—I wanted to test your quality. Kill me, an’ thou art a man of flesh and blood—kill me, kill me!”
“Thy voice is strange and hollow, yet methinks I remember your tones. Thy name is—Balvardo!”
“’Twas I that swore thy life away, ’twas I that brought thee to these vaults to bury thy corse beneath the earth—kill me, kill me!”
“Is there no opening to this vault?”
“A secret door—a passage—the spring, that opens on the other side—the spring that shuts—on this side. I—ha, ha, may hell seize my soul, I buried myself alive—and kill me!”
Adrian shuddered—and grew cold. He could hear the gasping of the poor wretch as he struggled for breath, he could hear the groans of his unseen assassin; well he knew that long absence from nourishment from food alone could lay the sworder helpless as an infant along the floor.
And as his mind struggled with the mighty horrors that gathered round him, his attention was arrested by a singular circumstance.
While the hushed and whispered conversation had been in progress between Adrian and Balvardo, the room had been gradually growing warmer and warmer, and at last the walls became heated, the ceiling emitting a warmth almost insupportable, while the confined air of the cell grew like the atmosphere of a furnace.
“What new horror is this!” faltered Adrian. “Tell me, how hast thou existed thus long in this vault of death, without air?”
“A well,” gasped the wretch, “centre of the stone-room—current of air from under the earth.”
Impressed by these incoherent words, Adrian advanced slowly along the floor, avoiding the prostrate body, and in a moment stood near the centre of the room.
He extended his foot—it touched a substance that gave back a slight sound; it was his coffin.
Another extension of his foot, and a whizzing sound assailed his ears, ploughing the air far, far below his feet, then the rebound of wood splinttered to pieces on a pointed rock came welling up from earth-hidden depths and echoed around the room.
He listened with hushed breath for a long and weary moment.
The sound of a pebble falling in water, far, far below, came dimly and faintly to his ear, like the pattering of the water-drop upon the age-worn rock.
“Ha! A well, deep as the fathomless abyss, sinks down from the centre of the room. Let me measure its width—two good paces. The coffin has whirled down into its bottomless depths—I hear the splintered pieces falling in the water far, far below. A slight current of air issues from the well—and the heat of this vault of death grows fiercer every moment—”
“Kill me, and then thank God thou hast strength left to hurl thee down the dark abyss—— I burn, oh, fiend of hell, with thirst and flame I burn!”
Adrian sate him down on the edge of the well, with his feet dangling in the abyss, and gave his very soul to one long and painful effort of thought.
Death clutched him with a thousand arms, death was in the heated air, death came gibbering and laughing in the form of famine, and from the very depths of the abyss the doomed lord could fancy he beheld the form of the Skeleton-God, with arms outstretched to grasp his victim as he fell.
There was no hope.
He must die. He must die afar from the voice of friend, afar from the sight of earth, or the vision of the blue sky, he must die by the slow gnawings of famine, the gradual withering of fire, or by one sudden plunge into the abyss below.
He sate him down to die—his arms were folded, and yet with an eager gesture he held his face over the darkness of the abyss in the nervous effort to inhale each breath of air.
He strove to compose his mind to prayer, but the gasping of the wretch lying near his side diverted his attention from thoughts of God and the better world.
“Why didst thou hate me?” he slowly asked.
“I was afraid—thou—wouldst—live to do me wrong. Thou art revenged—I die by inches!”
The wretch groaned in very agony, and Adrian could hear his fingers clutching convulsively along the floor of stone.
“My God, my God,” cried the doomed lord, as his very soul was wrung by the woe of the forsaken wretch; “would I had one cup of water to cool his burning tongue—”
“Ha—ha—ha! He mocks me with the name of water! Tell me, thou fiend, is he not revenged?”
“The heat grows fiercer—the air of this vault is turning to fire! He gasps for breath. Man give me thy hand. Let me drag thee near the well—the freshening air may cool the fire in thy heart and veins.”
And extending his hands through the darkness, with his body inclined to a level with the pavement, he sought the form of the famine stricken sworder.
He grasped the hands of the wretch; the fingers were thin and wasted, resembling the bones of a skeleton rather than the hands of a living man.
Slowly and with a careful motion Adrian dragged the dying man along the pavement, he laid his head on his knee, as he sat on the verge of the well, and passed his hand over the massive brow of his assassin.
He shuddered in the very act. Clear and distinct, the harsh outline of the withered brow, pressed against his hand, and he could feel the eye sunken far in its socket, and the cheeks hollowed by the touch of famine. It was more like a skull than the face of a living man.
“I feel the fresh air on my brow,” gasped Balvardo; “my feet are withering with heat, and mine hands burn! Oh fiend of hell—I see a fountain, a cool and showery fountain—the clear waters are streaming over pebbled stones, and the green moss is wet with the sparkling drops. Hist! I will crawl to the fountain side, I will bury my face in the waters—ha, ha, ha, I will drink, I will drink! Fiend, fiend—curses on thee, thou hast changed the waters to blood!”
He uttered a wild yell of horror, and the vault of the dead gave back the echo—“Blood, blood!” while Adrian passed his hands over the beetle-brow of the murderer, and parting the matted hair aside, held the famine-eaten face in the full current of the subterranean air.
All was dark as chaos ere the fiat of God spoke worlds into being, yet here was a spectacle that the angels of His throne, veiling their awful faces before the Presence, might gaze upon even through the darkness, and gaze with tears of joy. Here was the assassin, the sworder, the false-witness, and the sworn foe, resting in the arms of the man whose body his oath had given to the doomsman and the wheel; whose footsteps he had tracked like the bloodhound snuffing the footprints of his victim, fierce, unrelenting, and hungering after blood; here was the wretch who had borne him to this vault, placed his body in the house of death, consigned him to the famine and the fire, the nameless horror and the agony that the cheek grows livid to name; here was the man who had buried him alive, and yet he held him in his arms, fanned his withered face, and brought the fresh air to his parched lips and burning brow.
It was as the sworder had gaspingly uttered a fierce revenge, and yet such vengeance as the Man of the Cross, the God shrined in flesh, would have taken on his most blood-thirsty foe.
The end drew nigh.
The moments, those moments of horror, which seemed lengthened to years, dragged on with steps of lead, and the room grew like a furnace, the walls gave forth an intolerable heat. The ceiling rapidly became a canopy of invisible fire, as the air itself changed to unseen fire, began to burn into the flesh of Adrian, as the wretch in his arms writhed and writhed in helpless agony.
“Water—water—water!” gasped the Sworder.
A thought flashed over the mind of Adrian.
“There may be water in this well—a fountain may spring bubbling from its depths, while we perish on the brink! The way is deep and dark—a single misplaced grasp or foothold, and my body goes whirling to the abyss below; yet I am urged on by a power I cannot name—I will descend the well!”
A moment and the head of Balvardo lay on the pavement of the stone-room, while the body of Adrian hung swinging in the abyss, as, with his hands grasping the projecting stones, he began that fearful descent.
“I go to bring thee water!” he shouted in the ear of the famished wretch—“I go to bring thee water for thy burning tongue and brow.”
“Then, take this—this—” was the gasping response, and Adrian felt a substance of metal pressed against his brow by an extended hand; “’twill hold the—the water, or, ha, ha,—the blood!”
Hanging over the abyss by the grasp of one trembling hand, Adrian seized the metal substance with the other.
It was a goblet, a goblet of gold, embossed with strangely shapen flowers, and heraldic insignia, and as Adrian placed the vessel within the confines of his doublet, a shudder of horror caused his frame to quiver over the unknown void.
It was the goblet of the Red Chamber.
First grasping a pointed stone with one hand, then inserting his foot in a crevice of the masonry, then clutching another stone with the other hand, while his remaining foot rested in another crevice, he slowly began the fearful descent of the well.
“This then is the foul den of torture, built by the tyrants of Florence, long, long ago!” The thought crossed his brain. “The well hath been fashioned by the tools of the mason, yet the damp has worn deep hollows between the rugged stones. Hark!” he uttered the involuntary exclamation, “a stone has fallen from my grasp—I hear no sound—none, none! The abyss may be without bottom or depth. Hist! a hollow murmur breaks the silence of the air, far, far, below—the stone has sounded the depth of the well!”
“Water, water—men or devils, give me water!” the shrieking tones of the wretch in the stone-room came faintly to his ear. “Ha, ha! Thanks, thanks—they hand me a cup, a cup of good, clear water, and I drink—oh, horror, horror,—it turns to blood!”
With every nerve quivering, his hand trembling as he grasped the stones, his foot shaking with a nervous tremor as it sought the crevice which might give it momentary support, Adrian continued his terrible descent, until some twenty yards of the subterranean well rose above his head, while the low moans, the piercing shrieks, and the hollow laughter of the Sworder came fainter, and yet more faint to his ear.
Extending his foot in search of a crevice, he was astonished to find it resting on a solid rock, that hung jutting over the abyss, at a point where the well, diverging from its perpendicular course, made a slight inclination to the opposite side.
Grasping the rugged stones with the eager clutch of his trembling hands, Adrian hung swinging over the abyss, as with extended feet, he examined the formation of the well at this particular point, and tested the extent of the jutting rock.
He looked over his shoulder, and a wild thrill of surprise ran over his frame.
“Mine eyes burn with famine,” he slowly murmured; “they deceive me! Great God they mock me with a wild dream—I fancy the well grows lighter and lighter—but ’tis a dream, a mocking dream!”
As he spoke, a cold substance pressed against the palm of his right hand as it grasped the stone—it moved and writhed, while a hissing sound broke on the ear. Two points of flame, like minute yet intensely brilliant fire coals, glared before the very eyes of Adrian, and as the hissing grew louder, he found that a vile serpent wriggled between the fingers of his right hand.
With a sensation of unutterable disgust, he suspended his body by the left hand, and dashed the monster down the abyss with one quick motion of his hand.
The impulse with which he flung the serpent from his grasp, caused his body to quiver and tremble over the abyss, while the sinews of the left hand seemed bursting from the skin, as with the nervous grasp of despair, the doomed lord strove to recover the stone lately clutched by the other hand.
With one wild sweep he regained his grasp, springing heavily on the jutting rock in the action, while a deep rumbling sound disturbed the silence of the well. Another moment passed. Well was it for Adrian that he had refrained from trusting to the rock for support. The massive stone slowly swung to and fro, trembling over the depths of the well, and then with a crash like thunder, went whizzing down the abyss.
Up, up, from the fathomless depths, thundering and shrieking, arose the deafening echoes, yelling like spirit-voices in the ear of the trembling man, as he swayed to and fro over the blackness of the void.
It was a moment ere Adrian might recall his wandering thoughts.
He looked over his shoulder, he gazed upon the opposite side of the well. God of Mercy, was it a dream, a phantasmal creation of fancy, a mocking delusion of his crazed brain? There, before his very eyes, gilding the opposite side of the wall, a golden space, large as the human hand, shone in his very face.
“It is the light of day!” muttered Adrian, as his heart rose to his very throat; “it is, it is the light of day!”
“Ha, ha, ha! water!” the shriek came yelling from the room far, far, far above—“water, water!”
Grasping the stones below, Adrian descended another yard, when a ray of light shone on his face from a crevice in the wall to which he hung, trembling with a new joy, quivering in every nerve with a new life.
He thrust his right hand into the hollow of the crevice, and as a large flat stone fell echoing before him, a gush of light streamed through the wide aperture into the darkness of the abyss.
“I stand within a rock-bound passage!” exclaimed Adrian, “’tis narrow as the grave, narrow as a coffin, yet twenty yards beyond I see the light of day! Great God give me strength; do not, do not fail me now! Strength, a little strength, and I may yet be saved!”
Prostrate upon the floor of the narrow passage, which the falling stone had disclosed, he turned his body, and, thrusting his face into the gloom of the well, once more gazed far, far above.
“Murderer that he is, I will not desert him!” he cried; “he has been my comrade in the living tomb—he shall be my comrade in the light of God’s own day!”
No sooner did the words pass his lips, than a shriek of intense horror, came pealing down the abyss, a mass of red fire crowned the summit of the well, and hot cinders, and burning coals swept through the darkness of the void, hissing by the very face of Adrian, and marking their flight with long lines of streaming flame.
Adrian withdrew his head from the well and listened.
A low moan, a choking groan, and then a succession of yells, resounded through the void. Then the crackling of flames, then the falling of age-cemented masonry; then a wild shriek, and then a voice of horror—
“I burn, I burn! oh fiend of hell, I burn!”
The air was cloven by the rushing of a falling body, and thundering down the well, with arms outspread, with his face all crushed and blackened, stamped with a look of agony that might never be forgotten, Balvardo was for a moment disclosed by the light shining through the aperture, before the very eye of Adrian, and then there was a hissing noise, followed by a sullen rebound, and then all was still.
The soul of Balvardo, the Sworder, stood beside the soul of his master in the judgment halls of the Unknown.
“Away, away!” shouted Adrian, maddened by the memory of that despair-stricken face; “away from this earth-hidden hell! Strength, my God, oh give me strength, and I may yet be saved!”
Creeping on hands and knees, he advanced along the subterranean passage, the light growing brighter at every step, and at last the twenty paces were left behind, he crawled from the rock, he stood in the open air.
His voice failed him, he gazed around.
Far, far above him, ascended the gray steep on which the Convent was reared, far, far above him, he beheld the blue sky, tinted with the glow of the dying day, he beheld the platform rock and the frowning tower, wrapt in clouds of lurid smoke, while tongues of forked flame, swept up to the very azure, turning the glow of the setting sun to bloody red.
He stood on the side of a ravine, with the darkness of the abyss yawning beneath him, while the rugged ascent of rocks on the opposite side rose towering before his eye, veiling the mountain lake from his sight, and giving a faint glimpse of the eastern sky.
Dark and dreary, tangled with gnarled shrubs, rough with rifted rocks, a score of fathoms down, sunk the wild abyss, with the hills, or rather the overhanging cliff gathering around its blackness, like the sides of one vast death-bowl of ebony.
In truth it looked like the crater of an extinct volcano.
With a glance Adrian beheld the smoke and flame, the Convent and the blue sky above, the glimpse of the eastern horizon, the rocks ascending on the opposite side of the ravine, and the blackness of the abyss below, and then his soul was riveted to a spectacle of horror extended at his very feet.
There before his very eyes, a mangled carcass was thrown along the surface of a rugged rock, the trunk, the limbs, the arms, the garments and draperies of gold, all mingled in one foul mass of corruption, while the face was buried amid a cluster of stunted shrubs of laurel.
Adrian reached forth his hand, he raised the face, he beheld the blue tint of corruption, the eyes lolling from their sockets, the blackened tongue hanging from the mouth!—
“The Duke,” he shrieked, “the Duke of Florence!”
He turned from the sight with intolerable disgust, and as he turned, he beheld appearing from amid the shrubs, on the other side of the small platform of sand on which he stood, a bared arm laid along the earth grasping a keen and slender-bladed dagger, with a grasp that death and corruption could not unclose.
Adrian sprang forward, he unwound the dagger from the grasp of the hand, he beheld a parchment scroll secured around the haft of the glittering steel. He tore the scroll from the dagger, he flung it open to the light, and beheld these words written in a fair unwavering hand—
“Brothers of the Invisible! When this hand that writes these words is cold in death, the scroll of Albertine the Monk, will tell the story of his vengeance on the Tyrant-Duke.
“The midnight hour is now past—I go to plunge the dagger of the Holy Steel in the Heart of the Doomed. Ask ye for the Heir of Albarone! Three hours ago, ere the Duke arrived in the valley, I bade him farewell forever. Midnight came, and I learned that the Son of Lord Julian was about to meet his death in the vaults of the Convent.
“One way of rescue alone remained. Protected by my supposed love for the Duke, I blinded the eyes of the assassin, and offered to do his work of death. Then mingling a potion, which would minister sleep,—not death,—I gave it to Lord Adrian—even now his bride gathers his slumbering form to her embrace in the vaults of the Convent—even now the assassin waits to bear the body to the grave.
“One hour from this ye will arrive in the valley, and your eyes will behold the slumbering form of your Prince—the lifeless corse of the Tyrant! I go to finish—”
The scroll broke off abruptly, yet there was enough written to fill the heart of Adrian with an emotion of joy he had never felt before.
He sprang among the bushes, he dashed the laurel leaves aside, he turned the blackening face of the mangled corse to the light. He clasped his hands on high in silent prayer, while his burning tears fell streaming over the face of Albertine the Monk.
Meanwhile gathered along the green sward of a level meadow, extending from the Convent gates, to the south of the mountain lake, a band of gallant warriors, reined their war-steeds upon the turf, their upraised spears marking their numbers by long lines of glittering light.
A thousand banners waved in the sunset air, and the peal of bugle, and the stirring notes of the trumpet went echoing upward among the old convent walls wrapt in smoke, lighted by giant-pillars of blood red flame.
In front of the band of warriors, a group of noble lords and high-born dames, plumed cavaliers and gay-robed damsels,—all mounted on prancing steeds, swept circling around the figure of a fair and beautiful Ladye, whose jet-black barb, with its watchful groom, stood reined in their midst.
Every tongue was silent, and every eye was fixed upon the death-like paleness of the maiden’s countenance, contrasting strangely with the gorgeous robes of purple and gold that drooped round her young and lovely form.
Her head bowed slowly on the neck of her steed, and the tears of a never-dying grief came gushing between the fair and delicate fingers that strove to veil her face.
She wept, the fair Ladye Annabel, whose steed was about to spring forward in the triumphal procession, that would soon give Florence its lovely queen; the coronet was on her brow, the swords of a thousand warriors were at her beck, and yet she wept.
Suddenly a wild murmur ran through the warrior-throng.
Uprising in the light of the burning Convent—that dark haunt of blood and awe, now toppling to its foundation, a gray rock, its base concealed by stunted shrubs, while its brow was turned to the flame-beams, attracted the gaze of every eye, as a strange spectacle hushed the whispers of every voice.
A hand, white as marble, was thrust from behind the rock, lifting a goblet of gold in the light of the setting sun.
Deep muttered whispers broke along the warrior-throng, every voice spoke of some new omen crowning the horrors of the convent during the last hour of its existence, and the murmurs of the lords and ladies clustering at her side, attracted the attention of the Ladye Annabel.
She slowly turned, she gazed upon the uplifted hand with the goblet of gold rising above the verge of the gray rock—not more than twenty paces from her side—she gazed in wonder and in awe.
And as she gazed, a wan and haggard face appeared above the rock, and a wasted and trembling form, clad in garments of price all soiled and torn, stood on the verge of the massive stone, flinging the goblet wildly aloft, as a peal of maniac laughter came thrilling to the maiden’s ear.
It was a solemn and impressive scene!
There swept the knightly host along the green meadow, their spears gleaming on high, there darkened the smoke and lightened the blaze of the burning convent, there the calm lake extending ripples along its mountain-shores, gave its still bosom to the crimson glare of the flame, and there standing erect upon the brow of the gray rock, his slender form boldly and clearly relieved by the background of the convent walls, the light of the flame, the beams of the setting sun; Adrian Di Albarone, crazed by famine, and maddened with new-born joy, shook wildly aloft the Goblet of Gold, while his maniac laugh broke echoing on the evening air.