With that look which filled him with involuntary horror, she glided backward step by step, she reached the small door of the cell, and flung it open with her outspread hands.
“He denies it, he denies it; and the blood—ha, ha, ha!—hark how it patters on the floor!”
With that low, muttered laugh which chilled his very blood, for it was the laugh of madness, the Ladye Annabel again awed the Duke of Florence—the ravisher in heart—with her gaze, and then springing through the cell door, her form, with its waving robes of snow, was lost to his sight.
He saw her form no more, but a low muttered laugh came whispering along the galleries of the monastery, and half-formed words broke on his ear.
“Where is now the ravisher, flushed with wine and maddened with lust; where is now the proud Duke, haughtily attired in robes of price, with dishonor on his heart, and the foul purpose on his soul?”
Crouching against the wall, trembling in every limb, his eyes vacant with terror, his whiskered jaw half dropped upon his heart, his hand still nervously grasping the iron lamp, he listens to the low, muttered laugh creeping to his ear from the far distant corridors; he listens and shakes with fear, but says no word.
Along the dark galleries she flees, filling the old arches with echoes of that low muttered laugh; through the midnight passages she winds, stairways she ascends, and her delicate feet descend the dampened steps of stone; alone, in darkness, and in nameless fear, she glides on her flight of terror.
The cool air sweeps over her fevered brow, the dampness of the atmosphere chills her bosom, and by slow degrees the flight of madness, caused by the drugged potion, passed from her soul, and the Ladye Annabel is restored to reason and to thought.
Oh! fearful reason, oh! terrible thought, to which madness were joy, insanity, in its wildest flight, happiness the most intense.
“The bride must be widowed, ere she weds a second time!”
She rushed on, never heeding the darkness; she rushed on, never heeding the cold. She might save him yet; oh! even yet she might save him.
And through the dark passages of that deserted part of the monastery she wound, until her hands, extended on either side, touched the opposite walls, wet with moisture, and crawling with vermin; when the echo of the arches, succeeded by a dead, deafening murmur, told Annabel that she strode along a confined corridor, far under ground, growing narrow and yet narrower at every step.
A moment passed, and her extended hands were met by waving folds of tapestry, that swept across her path, and terminated the narrow corridor. Thrusting her hands eagerly among the hangings, she turned them suddenly aside, and started back with surprise, as a broad belt of light was thrown along the gloomy passage. With hushed breath and a throbbing heart, she gazed beyond the hangings of dark leather, and while her blue eyes dilated with wonder and fear, she beheld a strange and startling scene.
Two figures were kneeling upon the floor of an apartment, narrow and confined, as regards dimensions, and square in shape, hung with gorgeous folds of embroidered tapestry, dark-green in hue, with matting of strange pattern and curious device, brought from the far Eastern lands, strewn over the pavement of the room. The only object that broke the uniformity of the place, was a dark robe flung over some massive body in an obscure corner.
The light, clear and brilliant in its flame, placed on the matting between the kneeling men, threw its vivid beams on each face and form, over every line of their features, over every point of their apparel.
The Ladye Annabel stifled an expression of surprise which rose to her lips at the vision of this luxuriously furnished cell, in the midst of gloom and damp, and then with a writhing heart took in the details of this strange picture.
One of the kneeling figures was a soldier, the other was a monk.
The soldier, with his muscular hand laid on his bent knee, grasped a massive sword; his beetle brow surmounted by stiff and matted hair, giving a darker expression to his small and ferret-like eyes; while his companion, robed in the dark attire of a monk, with a pale, solemn face, lighted by the glare of an eye that seemed to dilate and burn, looked upon the man-at-arms with a glance meant to read more than the rugged visage—meant to read his very soul.
The Ladye Annabel listened to their low and muttered conversation with her very heart mounting to her throat.
“Thou wilt do it—eh, Albertine? Thou knowest my orders, sir monk?”
“The steel or the bowl?”
“The same, by the fiend! The hour—when the clock of the tower strikes twelve. He said so—thou knowest whom I mean. Why that dark and bitter smile? Blood o’ th’ Turk, monk, that smile shows thy white teeth—I like it not!”
“Nay, good Balvardo, be not angered with me. I was but painting a quiet picture to my fancy. Our victim, his eyes rolling in the death-struggle, his blue lips whitened with foam, his arms outstretched with the last convulsive spasm, and then—ha, ha!—the music of the death rattle! ’Tis excellent, i’faith, the picture—ha, ha, ha!”
“Look ye, monk or devil, whate’er ye be, I’m your man, when a good deed of cut-and-thrust is to be done, and the wretch is despatched with a blow. But as for this merry-making over the dead, I like it not. Blood o’ Mahound, not a whit of it! I can wet my sword in a man’s blood as nicely as your next man, but it likes me not to wet my tusks with the vile puddle, and grin while the red drops fall from my lips. No more o’ your death grins, monk, or—’s death!—we quarrel!”
“Ho—ho—ho! so the humor suits ye not, honest Balvardo. Dost know the depth of the sea, or the number of the millions slain by old Death? Then know the hate I bear my victim; then count the lives I would crush in my revenge, had he as many as the millions trampled under the feet of Death! Is’t not cause for merriment, good Balvardo?”
“Look ye, sir monk, thou hast ever been known as the prime tool of his grace,—’s life! I should mention no names,—and therefore do I resign my part in this night’s work to thy hands. When ’tis done, thou knowest—”
“Where shall I place the body?”
“Here!” cried the hoarse voice of the soldier, and the Ladye Annabel saw him rise; she beheld him striding across the matted floor, toward an obscure corner of the apartment; she beheld him as he placed his rough hand upon the dark robe flung over the rising object.
“Here let him rest,” he cried, raising the robe, “and rest forever!”
The Ladye Annabel beheld a sight that gathered the big drops of sweat thick as the death dew on her forehead. Her heart was swelled to bursting, and she turned away from the sight for a single moment, with the impulse of overpowering horror.
When she looked again, the black cloth was again resting on that object of terror, while Balvardo was advancing toward the monk with his usual heavy and measured stride.
“Hast aught to hold the wine, good Balvardo?”
“In yonder closet thou wilt find the wine. Here is—curse this cloak, how its folds tangle about my body!—here is the goblet.”
The Ladye Annabel felt the death-like feeling of ice creeping around her heart; and as she looked, she thought she beheld the monk Albertine grow pale with horror, while his compressed lip seemed to tell a story of fearful yet hushed emotion.
The goblet held forth in the hand of the Sworder, was the goblet of gold with which the poisoner of the Red Chamber had administered death to the lips of Julian, Lord of Albarone.
“Man!” exclaimed Albertine, with a blazing eye and livid lip, “how came this goblet—this death-bowl—in thy possession?”
“‘Slife! Dost not know the story? One of the witnesses who gave testimony against that—that—I mean he who sleeps in yonder chamber—received this goblet as a mark of the accuser’s gratitude. I was that witness. Blood o’ th’ Turk, there goes the clock—one, two, three. Sir monk, to thy duty.”
“Father of mercy, he is false at last!”
And as the words broke from the Ladye Annabel’s lips, she beheld the monk take the goblet in his hands; she beheld him empty a paper filled with white powder into its depths.
She could look no more; a cold, icy feeling seemed to freeze the very blood around her heart; her limbs refused their support; she sank slowly down upon the damp floor, and yet the words spoken in the adjoining room came to her ear like the echo of far-off shouts.
“Four, five, six. Monk, wilt delay all night? To thy victim!”
The monk strode across the cell, holding the goblet under his robe; he approached a spot where the tapestried hangings, slightly swept aside, disclosed the entrance into another room.
“Adrian,” whispered the monk, “dost sleep?”
“Sleep!” echoed a hollow voice from the inner cell. “Sleep, when there is fever in my brain, and fire in my heart! Dost jest, good Albertine?”
“Nay nay, Adrian, I jest not. I have a sleeping potion which will give thee rest.”
“The rest of the grave, in the arms of the skeleton-god,” muttered Balvardo, with a low chuckle.
“Would that thy potion could minister sleep eternal,” spoke the hollow voice, and a hasty footstep was heard. “And yet I would not die yet—no, no! She still lives. I would not die, save in her arms, and by her side!”
And as the voice sounded strange and hollow through the cell, the tapestry rustled, and Adrian Di Albarone stood before the monk.
Adrian Di Albarone it was, but the manly form was bent with chains, the black velvet attire of the student was soiled and torn; while the faded countenance, the sunken cheek, the lips compressed, the hollow eye-sockets, and the quick and fiery eye, all told a tale of the agony of years endured within the compass of a single hour.
He stood before the monk, and his chains clanked as he stood, while his wild eye drank in each line of Albertine’s visage.
“You spoke of a soothing potion, good Albertine.”
“Seven, eight, nine,” muttered Balvardo.
The monk spoke not a word; he strode to the closet—he seized the flask of wine—he filled the goblet to the brim.
“Drink, Adrian,” he cried, “drink, and be refreshed!”
Adrian raised the goblet to his mouth with his chained right hand—he wet his lips with the ruddy wine; and then, as if seized by some fearful spell, he stood motionless as death, while his right arm straightened slowly out from his body, with the hand convulsively clutching the bowl of death.
“It is, it is!” he shrieked. “It is the goblet of the Red Chamber! God of Heaven, what means this mystery? Speak, Albertine. Wouldst thou betray me?”
“Ten!” meanwhile continued Balvardo, in the background.
“Adrian!” cried the monk, starting back with a solemn gesture, “I stand upon the verge of the cliff of Time; beneath me roll the surges of that shoreless ocean which men name Eternity! Ere the morrow’s dawn, I leap from the cliff; the surges of that awful sea will bear me on—on to the vast Unknown! Thinkest thou I would betray thee? Drink, and be refreshed.”
“Eleven, twelve! the time is up!” soliloquized the sworder.
“I drink,” cried Adrian, with a wild gesture, “I drink; for thy words are truth, and thine eye bears no falsehood in its glance! I drink the goblet of the Red Chamber to the dregs!”
A shriek that might never be forgotten rang through the corridor and chamber, and a slight form, arrayed in robes of white came rushing from the folds of the tapestry.
Adrian beheld the dreamy face of the Ladye Annabel, her cheek pale as the robes she wore, while, with glaring eye and voice of horror, she shrieked:
“Drink not—in God’s name do not drink—the bowl is drugged with death!”
He flung the bowl aside, but ere it left his hand it was received in the quick grasp of the monk; he raised his chained hands on high, and ere they were lowered, his Bride lay panting on his breast!
Oh, where is the magic of human words that may picture the deep and fearful interest of that meeting, the gush of contending feelings, the rapture sparkling in the eye and beaming from the lip, the heart all pulsation, the blood all fire, the arms flung convulsively round each other’s neck, the look of the Doomed, the long, last, lingering look upon the face of the beloved, her upturned eyes, her cheek now crimson and now snow, her tresses of gold waving over her robes of white, and her form of beauty flung over his bosom, with every vein swelling with delight, every nerve quivering with joy!
They meet as lovers meet, when, standing on the opposing rocks of Time and Destiny, they fling their arms across the chasm, nor heed the vast eternity that yawns below, ready to engulf and destroy.
“Drink not, oh, Adrian, drink not—the bowl is drugged with death!”
“The time is up,” muttered the hoarse voice of Balvardo—“The guards are within call, good monk, an’ he refuses the dose.”
“Adrian Di Albarone,” cried the monk, fixing his full and solemn eyes upon the chained knight, “drink the bowl, I implore thee! By the memory of the Cell of the Doomed, by the memory of the Chapel of the Rocks, by the memory of the perils we have shared, the deaths we dared together, in the name of thy father, whose ghost now looks down upon thee, in His name, most solemn and most dread, I adjure thee—drain the goblet to the dregs!”
“Dark and mysterious man,” cried Adrian, sharing the wild glance of Albertine, “give me the bowl, I drink——”
“Adrian, for my sake touch it not—poison nestles like a snake within its depths!”
“Hold me not, Annabel—grasp not my arm—”
“For the sake of God, oh, do not, do not drink!”
“I must, I must! It is not thy hand, Albertine, that gives the bowl—it is the hand of Fate, thrust from yon blackening cloud, which all my life has thrown its shadow over my path! Give me the bowl—though ten thousand deaths were darting from each sparkle of the wine, still—I drink, and drain the goblet to the dregs!”
In vain the upraised arm of the Ladye Annabel, in vain her look of fear, her voice of horror!
As she clung to his chained arms, he raised the goblet to his lips, he drained it to the dregs.
“He smiles,” muttered Balvardo, “the monk smiles as he gives the death-bowl! I see not his cloven foot, nor do I see his horns—not a whit o’ ’em. Else might I suspect the devil were lurking in yon monkish robe.”
Adrian handed the goblet to the monk.
Albertine received it with a deep and meaning smile.
Scarce had the hand of Adrian been extended in the act, than his arm fell like a weight of lead to his side, and Annabel felt her lover leaning heavily upon her shoulder, while her fair arms might scarce stay him in his fall to the floor.
“Monk,” cried Adrian, as, sinking upon one knee, he fixed his ghastly eyes upon the face of Albertine; “monk I trusted thee, and thou art false!”
“His brow is cold,” murmured the Ladye Annabel, as, sinking on her knees by his side, she supported Adrian’s head upon her virgin bosom. “See! the big drops of the death-dew stands out from his forehead—and this, monk, this is thy work!”
As the terrible look of the dying man met his eye, Albertine seemed struggling with some terrible pang, but when the words of Annabel and her look of intense agony came like a death-bolt to his heart, he hurriedly advanced, he looked at the group, he spoke in a voice tremulous with agitation, yet deep and solemn in its every accent—
“Ye scorn me now, fair Ladye, and raise your hands in a gesture of reproach most terrible to bear; yet the day will come, when the voice of scorn will be changed to the sound of pity, when those very hands will strew fresh flowers over my grave!”
“Has —— given up its model of devils!” muttered Balvardo, in the background. “‘Slife, I can murder a man in hot blood or cold blood, but as for this heaping taunt on taunt—I like it not—by the Blood o’ th’ Turk!”
“He is dead—cold and dead,” murmured the Ladye Annabel, as she gazed upon the pallid face of Adrian. “He does not breathe; Mother of Heaven, I cannot feel the beating of his heart!”
Ere the words had passed her lips, the dying man sprang with one bound to his feet; and while his bloodshot eyes rolled ghastlily from face to face, he flung his arms aloft, and tottered across the chamber, laughing wildly and with maniac glee, as he pointed to the dark object rising from the floor, covered with the folds of the dark robe, that swept over its surface like a pall of death.
“Monk, behold—behold the doom of Adrian of Albarone!” he shouted with a wild and husky voice, as he stooped, with a sudden movement, and tore the robe from the object which it concealed. “There, there stands the assassin, here the victim, and—ha, ha, ha!—behold the coffin!”
He swayed heavily from side to side; he flung his arms hurriedly aloft in the vain effort to preserve his balance, and then, with a fixed and staring eye, he gazed upon the face of Albertine with a look that froze his blood.
“Monk, I trusted thee, and thou art false!”
The sound of a falling body echoed around the room, and the lifeless form of Adrian Di Albarone lay extended across the coffin, while the out-spread hands clutched the dark panels with the convulsive grasp of death.
“Wait one hour,” muttered the monk to Balvardo; “wait one hour, ere thou bearest the corse to the grave. ’Tis now the midnight hour: an hour from this time, the Duke—ha, ha!—will wed his bride; an hour from this time, and thou mayst bear the corse to the grave!”
“Be it so,” growled Balvardo. “Then this pestilent Adrian will trouble me no more! Blood o’ Mahound, the grave is a wondrous sure prison; it needs nor bolt nor bar; old Death stands jailor at its door!”
“Ladye!” cried the monk, as he advanced to the side of the Ladye Annabel, raising the maiden, whose senses seemed stupified with horror, from the floor, “behold the corse of thy love! Advance, Ladye—rest thee by its side—gather the head of the corse to thy bosom! Watch beside the corse one hour—a single hour—and let nor man nor devil wrest the lifeless body from thy grasp!”
The Ladye Annabel opened her large blue eyes with a stare of vacant wander, and smiled as she gathered the head of the corpse to her bosom, twining her fair and delicate lingers in the golden hair of the dead.
A lamp of iron, all rusted and time-eaten, suspended from the arched ceiling of a small apartment of the convent of St. Benedict, reserved in especial for strangers, threw a dim light over the figure of his grace of Florence, reposing on a velvet couch, and upon the blazing armor of the attending men-at-arms, who waited beside their lord.
A smile, full of self-satisfaction, rested upon the lip of the Duke, and a glance full of agreeable fancies lit up his eye, as he contemplated the fulfillment of all his schemes.
“The forward boy punished for his insolence,”—thus ran his musings—“done to death for the treasonable act of lifting his hand against his liege lord—this accomplished, the fair Annabel is mine, and with her I acquire the rich domains of Albarone. A servitor but a moment since bears me intelligence that she has recovered from her madness. By’r Ladye, my exhausted coffers shall be replenished to the brim! Ha—ha ha! Then I shall war and conquer. Why not I as well as others of my rank and power? I shall war—I shall conquer—I shall—”
“My Lord Duke,” exclaimed a sentinel, thrusting his head from between the folds of a sable curtain that hung across the apartment, dividing it from an adjoining chamber, within whose walls were the followers of his grace. “My Lord Duke, a monk of the convent craves audience with your grace—shall I admit him?”
“Aye, let him enter.”
And in a moment, there stood before the Duke a monk attired in the dark robe of his order: his hood was drawn over his face, and, with depressed head and folded arms, he seemed to wait the commands of his grace of Florence.
“Thy errand, sir monk?”
“I come by the bidding of the Father Abbot, to lead thee to the cell of the blessed St. Areline.”
“Ah! I remember me. As I dismounted at the gate of the Monastery, the reverend abbot told me that it had been a custom, from time past memory, for all strangers visiting the holy house of St. Benedict, to pass an hour in the cell of this saint—St. Areline, methinks she is styled. Further, he told me the saint has the power of revealing future events. Is’t so, holy father?”
“Even so, my Lord Duke. When besought, on bended knee, in the silence of midnight, the form of the blessed saint appears fired with supernatural life: her eyes flash and her lips move, and the doom of the suppliant—whether for good or for evil—is revealed.”
“At midnight, say’st thou? ’Tis a lone hour. By’r our Ladye, but the evil one may have something to do with the matter.”
“That may not be, my Lord Duke. The holy Areline died in the odor of sanctity. The scorner and the outcast of heaven alone doubt her holiness and power. For three centuries hath the fame of St. Areline been sounded abroad, and now it were sin unpardonable to say aught against her sacred name.”
“Lead on, holy father; in God’s name, lead on: I’ll follow thee. Hugo! I say, Hugo!”
The face of the ill-looking sentinel with the squinting eye, appeared among the folds of the sable curtain.
“Hugo, where is Balvardo, thy comrade—eh? Speak quickly—where is Balvardo?”
The sinister eye of the sentinel squinted yet more fearfully; he looked confusedly round, and stammered forth:
“My Lord Duke, he is—he is—”
He paused suddenly, and finished the sentence by pointing downward with the forefinger of the right hand, with a sort of diving motion.
“Ah! I had forgotten that, good Hugo! Thou wilt attend me, vassals; and ye, sirs, shall also accompany me to this midnight ceremony.”
While he thus spoke, the monk threw open a door at the end of the apartment opposite the sable curtain, and, followed by the Duke, attended by Hugo and the two men-at-arms, with torches in their hands, he presently was traversing a long gallery, with his head still depressed and his arms still folded on his breast.
“By’r our Lady, but thou art wondrous chary of thy good looks!—eh, sir monk?”
“It becomes not a sinner like me to be otherwise than humble. It becomes not a poor brother of St. Benedict to assume an erect port and a bold countenance before—his grace of Florence!”
“Well said, by my troth! Whither art leading me, holy father? Ha! a stairway; it extends above us as though it had no end. Ugh! how those torches glare—how gloomy these arches seem! Lead on, sir monk!”
Ascending the stairway, they found themselves in a winding gallery, with floor of stone, low arching roof, and narrow walls. Through the mazes of this passage they swiftly wound, and presently they stood at the foot of another stairway.
“By St. Peter!” exclaimed the Duke, “but these passages are like the windings of a witch’s den. How runs the night, holy father?”
“When I left the halls of the convent, the sands of the hour glass had fallen to within an half hour of midnight.”
“Ah! we shall be just in time for the trial of St. Areline’s power. Another gallery! By’r Ladye, but this is wondrous! In the name of thy patron, St. Benedict, I adjure thee, monk, tell me are we not near our journey’s end?”
“See’st thou yon oaken door that terminates the gallery? The oaken door with large panels, and topped by arches of dark stone? There an’ it please thee, my Lord Duke, must thou leave thy attendants, and alone, and in the dark, we will enter the cell of the blessed St. Areline.”
“How? Leave my attendants? ‘Alone,’ sayst thou? ‘In the dark’? Beshrew me, sir monk, but this saint of thine is somewhat difficult of audience!”
“The reward she offereth is beyond price. A knowledge of the future—the dim and shadowy future! Thou shall behold thy coming deeds written in characters of light; thy future conquests shall spread themselves before thee like the varying beauties of a lovely landscape. Thou shall—”
“‘Slife! thou talkest well! Enough: we stand before the oaken door. Enter—I’ll follow thee!”
The monk passed his hand over one of the panels of the huge door, and pressing a secret spring, a narrow passage was opened, through which the brother of St. Benedict disappeared, followed by his grace of Florence.
“There they go,” Hugo exclaimed as the panel closed. “There they go upon their madcap adventure. The saints save me from all such folly!”
“And me, comrade,” cried the tallest of the men-at-arms, letting the sheath of his sword fall heavily upon the pavement of stone.
“I say amen to your prayers,” exclaimed the other, looking very wise in the torchlight.
“Ha! what noise is that?” cried Hugo, as he gave a sudden start.
“’Tis down in the court-yard,” exclaimed the tall man-at-arms. “Hark! ’tis the clashing of swords—the rattling of spears—the clashing of armor.”
“Shouts, too!” cried the other soldier, “Ha! war cries! ‘Slife! it sounds as if they were battering down the gates! Hark! again! and again!”
And thus, while the sounds waxed louder, and the cries grew fiercer in the court-yard below, the men-at-arms, and their companion, Hugo, waited, with the utmost impatience the coming of their lord.
An hour passed.
The Duke had not appeared. The tall man-at arms fixed his eyes upon the massive door, and struck the secret panel with his spear, urged by all the vigor of his stalwart arm. Another and another blow. The wood yielded, and the open space gave passage to the man-at-arms, who forced his way through, followed by his comrade and Hugo of the sinister eye.
Their torches flashed upon the walls of a square apartment, with floor and roof of stone. No living creature was there. A small, narrow door gave entrance to another apartment. Three pillars of time-worn stone supported the arched roof, and divided the place into three sides, with floor of variegated stone. One side of the apartment, was concealed by a curtain of sable velvet.
This Hugo hurriedly drew, and in an instant his ungainly figure was reflected in a vast mirror of dazzling steel, which, reaching to the arched ceiling above, twice the height of a man, extended on either side as wide as it was high. Around the apartment was no sign of passage way or secret door; all was bare and rugged stone, and the place was without bench, stool, couch, or furniture of any kind.
“By’r Ladye!” shouted Hugo, “that monk was the—devil, and he has run away with our lord! W-h-e-w!”
And the three fairly shook with mingled surprise and terror, which was presently increased to alarm and horror by the clashing of arms in the outer apartment.
No sooner had the oaken panel closed behind him, than the Duke found himself cautiously groping his way in utter darkness, being guided by the sound of the footsteps of the Monk.
Presently the Monk laid hand upon the Duke’s shoulder.
“Kneel, mortal, kneel,” he exclaimed in a voice which the Duke thought wondrously changed of a sudden, “kneel and behold the wonders of St. Areline! Speak not upon the peril of thy immortal soul!”
Upon the pavement of stone the Duke sank down, and the Monk began to murmur certain mysterious words, in a low, yet deep tone, and thus he continued for the space of the fourth part of an hour, when a light was seen dimly gleaming at one end of the place, and presently another and another, and gradually increasing in radiance they soon appeared to the wondering eyes of the Duke, dancing within the surface of a vast mirror of dazzling steel.
Strange it was that although the meteors,—for such they seemed—grew more brilliant every moment, and shed a more intense brightness along the surface of the mirror in which they shone, yet not a ray of light escaped to illumine the apartment, and the figures of the Duke and the Monk were wrapt in mid-night shadow.
And now soft clouds of feathery mist began to roll within the surface of the mirror, and the meteors gradually faded away into an universal brightness, which like the mellow beams that herald the coming day, poured a flood of rosy light over the tumultuous chaos within the dazzling steel.
“Behold!” cried the Monk, “behold the blessed St. Areline!”
A dim and ghastly form arose from amid the rolling clouds, far in the distance; nearer it drew and nearer, and presently the outlines of a nun, attired in the solemn hood, and sweeping robes of white, became clear and perceptible.
Advancing to the front of the mirror with a gliding motion, the hands of the spectre were folded upon its breast, and the hood of white, hung drooping over its face.
The Duke trembled with terror, and his brow was wet with large drops of moisture that oozed from his shivering skin.
“Mortal!” exclaimed a voice, soft as the tones of a spirit of light,—“mortal, what wouldst thou know?” The voice came from the shrouded face of the spectre.
With tremulous voice, and as if urged by some invisible power, the Duke shrieked forth—
“I would know my doom—I would know my fate!”
The hood fell back from the head of the Spectre, and its arms slowly extended!
“O Jesu!” shrieked the Duke,—“Look, look! the skeleton hands, the fleshless skull, the hollow eyes! One hand grasps a cross, and one a grinning skull.—Look, look!”
“Speak not!” whispered the Monk, “speak not upon pain of eternal doom!”
The voice again sounded through the cell.
“Dost thou seek in the name of the Holy One? Dost thou ask trusting in his Saints?”
“I do!”
“Thou art answered!” and the bare and hideous bones of the spectre head were covered, quick as a flash of light, with ruddy and healthy flesh, the hollow sockets gleamed with dark and brilliant orbs, and the skeleton hands glowed with life, as a skin of rosy loveliness shrouded the disjointed bones.
“Thou art answered!” and as the spectre whispered the words, a skeleton form came gliding along the mirror, holding an hour-glass in its fleshless hand.
“Behold!” exclaimed the vision pointing to the things of graves, “behold thy doom?”
A shriek of horror came from the lips of the Duke.
“O, horror of horrors!” he shouted, “It is the form of Death!—Look! look! Behold! He turns, he turns with a ghastly smile—he points to the hour glass!” The tyrant, assassin and betrayer started forward with every nerve quivering with the intensity of his terror. “O God of Heaven! The Sands of the glass are run!”
“Ha!” shrieked the Monk, with a wild yell, that sounded like the howl of a dying war-horse. “Heaven wills it, thy sands are run, thy doom is fixed!”
A stream of light poured around the cell, brighter than the blaze of the noon-day sun, and a clap of thunder shook the pillars to their very centre.
With his eyes rolling with affright, the Duke glanced upward, and beheld the Monk standing erect, his arms outstretched, and his hood cast backward from his face.
“O God! Thou here! Albertine—thou here!”
“Ha! It is I!—Thy fate—thy curse—thy doom!”
The Duke felt himself seized in a grasp of iron, and hurriedly dragged along the pavement of stone.
In a moment he heard the sharp spring of a door closing behind him, and brushing his hand over his eyes, to restore his fading vision, he looked around.
A spur of the whitened steep on which the convent was founded, arising some twenty feet above the body of the mass of rock, was imbedded in the darkened wall of the tower, with its summit extending in a platform some three feet square, toppling over the dark abyss below.
Level as the sun-dial and smooth as polished steel, the summit of the rock, projecting from the tower, might scarce afford a resting place for footstep of human thing. In silence and in awe the Duke gazed around.
Above was the moonlit sky, below far, far below, a hundred fathoms down sunk the dark and shadowy abyss, separated from the waters of the lake by a ridge of rocks, that arose along the shores of the mountain tarn, overlooking the sullen blackness of the impenetrable void, on one side, while on the other towered and frowned above the walls of the gloomy convent.
Gazing hurriedly around, the Duke beheld the walls of the Monastery, extending on either side of the tower, in whose stones the platform-rock was imbedded, all smooth, even and moss-grown; at his back leading into the cell of St. Areline, was the secret door, fashioned in complete resemblance to the wall around, fast closed and secured, while high overhead arose the dark and frowning fabric of the tower, its rugged outline, rising like a thing of omen into the dim blue of the midnight sky.
This platform of rock was never looked upon by the peasantry of the valley, save with wonder and with awe—a thousand dark traditions, named the tower as the scene of many a deed of murder, and a thousand legends dyed the platform stone with the crimson drops of innocent blood.
“Where am I,” shrieked the Duke with a low, murmured whisper. “It is a dream, a dream of horror!”
“Thou art in the temple of my vengeance!” the response came hissing between the clenched teeth of the monk. “Behold its roof, yon sky, the walls, the boundless horizon, the floor, the wide earth; and the place of sacrifice, yon bottomless abyss!”
“All—all is dark!” the voice broke wild and whisperingly through the midnight gloom of the place—“I have been dreaming—ah, me—a sad and darksome dream! Methought Adrian lay cold and dead in my arms, while my hand was entwined in the locks of his clustering hair, as they fell over his lifeless face. It was a dream, a fearful dream—yet—mother of heaven—do I still dream, or is this darkness real?”
She extended her hands, she passed them hurriedly along the floor, where her form lay prostrate, and as she thus wildly sought to grasp the form so lately reposing in her arms, she exclaimed with a murmured shriek—
“It flashes on me! All is real—The coffin and the corse, the assassin and the bowl of death—all is dark and terrible reality!”
Passing her cold and stiffened hands, slowly along her forehead, the Ladye Annabel endeavored to recall the tragedy of that fearful night, in all its details of horror, and as scene after scene, action after action, word succeeding word, came back to her memory, another fearful mystery passed like a shadow over her brain.
“The corse reposed in these arms—where is it now? Who hath stolen the body of the dead from my embrace? And the coffin—it is gone! They have borne him to the grave!”
And as the low whispers broke from her lips, this fair and gentle creature, whose nature was soft and yielding, as is ever the nature of a true woman, in moments of calm and sunshine, yet susceptible of deeds of the highest courage and noblest determination, in the hour of storm and cloud arose from the floor, her frame all chilled and stiffened by the hard repose of that fearful watch, and extending her hands she wandered slowly around the chamber, seeking with hushed breath, for the coffin and the corse.
All was darkness, thick and intense darkness.
Slowly and with cautious steps she paced around the room, passing her hands along the folds of the tapestry, or extending her small and delicate foot in the effort to touch the coffin, but her search was all in vain. She wandered around the chamber, until her recollection of the particular features of the room became vague and indistinct, and at last with trembling hands and a bewildered brain, she stood erect and motionless.
“All—all is vain!” she cried—“corse and coffin are all gone. They have borne him to the grave!”
While the weary moments dragged heavily on, she stood silent and unmovable, endeavoring to catch the faintest echo of a sound, or hear the slightest whisper of a voice, but all was silent as death.
At last a distant and moaning murmur reached her ears.
Gradually though slowly it deepened into a booming sound, and at last the subterranean arches of the old convent seemed alive with gathering echoes, and the long corridors gave back the tramp of footsteps and the hum of human voices.
“They come—they come”—whispered the Ladye Annabel—“They come to bear me to the bridal!”
The bell of the convent, deep-toned and booming, rang out the hour of—one—the fatal hour after midnight.
“Strike for the Winged Leopard—strike for Albarone!” the shout came echoing along the corridors.
“Strike for Albarone and Florence!” the mingling war-cry reached the ears of the maiden. And in a moment, the tapestry, concealing the entrance to the room from which Adrian had issued ere he drank the bowl, was hurriedly thrust aside, and amid the blaze of torches, the Ladye Annabel, beheld the glare of armor and the flash of upraised swords, while the stern visage of the warrior-band were gazing upon her pale countenance and trembling form.
“Saved, by St. Withold!” shouted a soldier, springing from the crowd—“Ladye tell us, in God’s name, where is the Lord Adrian?”
“They have borne him to the grave!” was the whispered and ghastly response.
The bluff soldier turned aside, and it might be noted that his blue eyes were wet with tears. In a moment he again faced the crowd of warriors.
“Behold the Queen!” he shouted, and the men-at-arms sank kneeling to the floor—“all hail the fair Ladye Annabel, Duchess of Florence!”
And the solitary chamber rung with the echo of the thunder shout—
“All hail the Fair Ladye Annabel, Duchess of Florence!”
Far beneath the Convent, down in the very bosom of the earth, far beneath the chamber of the death-bowl, alone and in darkness, rested the coffin and the corse for the space of an hour, awaiting the spade and the Sexton, the priest with his prayers, and the grave with its silence.
The sound of trampling feet, broke along the silence of the earth hidden passage, and presently, through the crevices of the dungeon door, thin rays of light streamed along the cell.
Then there was drawing of bolts, and rattling of chains, and in an instant the ruddy glare of torches, revealed the ill-looking form of Balvardo, standing in the doorway, and beside him stood a short, thin old man, with slight locks of gray hair, falling upon his coarse doublet.
There was a vacant and wandering expression in his eye, while his parched lips, hanging apart, gave an idiotic appearance to his countenance. The long, talon-like fingers of his withered right hand, grasped a spade covered with rust, and eaten by time.
“Ha—ha!” laughed Balvardo. “The potion which I gave her, some hours ago, wrapt her in a sleep, like the slumber of old death. Blood o’ the Turk, how her hands clutched the body o’ the dead, when I first tried to tear it from her arms—even in her sleep she clutched it! I have him at last—sound and sure! He escaped me in the cell of the Doomed, escaped this sword in the Cavern of the Dead, and—and—now, by the fiend I have him at last!”
The Sworder advanced to the Coffin, he gazed upon the pale face of the dead, with a long and anxious look.
“He, he, he,” chuckled the old man. “Why did thou hate him, noble Captain?”
“I know not,” muttered Balvardo, with an absent air, “yet I always had a sneaking suspicion that one day or other, this man, now a corse, would work my death! A queer feeling always haunted me, that made me feel like the felon walking to his doom, so long as this—father-murderer remained alive! Now he is dead, but I fear him yet, and will fear him till he is safely buried i’ the earth!”
“Thou wouldst cover his face with this rich, yellow earth?” sneered the ancient man,—“He, he, he! The grave hides all secrets!”
“To thy duty, Old Gibber-jabber,” exclaimed Balvardo, “Here’s thy man. Lay hold of him, and help me to drag the coffin to the other side of the dungeon. Pull him along—there—there!”
Throwing the coffin upon the damp earth, the old man placed a smoking lamp near the prostrate head of the corse, and then intently watched the motions of Balvardo, who was drawing the point of his sword along the surface of the earth.
“Let me do’t, let me do’t, most noble captain,” exclaimed the old man, pushing Balvardo aside,—“for years, and years, and years, man and boy, have I wielded this good spade, here in these nice, cozy, comfortable chambers! He—he—he! To think a fellow like thee, with that miserable tool, that is unworthy to be called a—spade—to think that a stranger like thee, should think to excel me—Old Glow-worm—in laying out a grave!—He—he—he!”
“Old Glow-worm!—Ha, ha, ha!—a choice name by my soul!”
“A very good name; they call me so—they who bring me food every day—they poke it through the big door through which thou didst pass, most noble captain. A merry time we’ve had of it here—a merry time!”
“We!—who dost thou mean?”
“Well! Thou art a fool, beshrew me!—we, I and my comrades, who always receive our food at the big iron door. Here, long, long, very long, we have lived in these nice cozy chambers.—Sometimes they fight and kill one another—then I dig their graves! See! how nicely the rich earth turns up! This is a spade!”
Prattling after this fashion, the poor old idiot turned up the earth till he stood in a square hole about a foot in depth, when a glance at the pale visage of Adrian arrested his attention.
“He, he, he! They always look so!—Queer,—eh, noble captain!”
“What! hast ever had any other business of this sort?”
“Why, bless ye, most noble captain, I’ve put scores and scores of them under the rich, yellow earth. They bring ’em to me—they at the big iron door. This is earth for ye! Look! how the spade sinks into the mould!—He, he, he!”
“What an old devil!” muttered Balvardo to himself. “How canst thou be merry in these gloomy pits! eh, Old One!”
“Merry?—He, he, he! Merry didst say, why bless ye, when I and my comrades gather round our food, I am as merry as is the sound of this spade, driving into the earth! Merry! why I sing, most noble captain, I sing!”
“Thou sing! Ha, ha, ha! Thou, indeed!”
“Why not I, eh? Beshrew me but thou art a fool! I can sing such a right mirthful song—but they never like it—they my comrades!”
“By Saint Peter, I’ll wager a stoup of wine, that thou didst never see the light of day—eh, old rat?”
“Day! what is that?—But for my song—here goes!”
And then busily plying the spade, in a cracked voice he sang the following words, in a sort of wild chaunt, which he occasionally varied by sounds that resembled the yell of a screech-owl.