After life's fitful fever, the Major did not sleep well. He had left
Carlota comfortably established at the inn; and he now lay nervously
thinking how his embarrassment with regard to her was to terminate,
especially if Owen did not shortly make his appearance. Then he
was worried by doubts as to the fate of the Fair Unknown and her
passengers. They might have been recaptured, as escaped smugglers, by
a guarda costa--they might be detained in the Straits by adverse winds
or calms--they might have run ashore into some bay, and come on
overland. This last supposition haunted him most pertinaciously, and
he resolved to go up the rock as soon as it should be daylight, to
look out for them along the road from Spain. He lay tossing restlessly
till the morning gun gave the signal of the approach of dawn, and
before the echoes died away he had his breeches on.
Night was at odds with morning when my grandfather, with a telescope
under his arm, sallied forth and began the ascent. Silence was over
the rock, except an occasional sighing of a remnant of night wind that
had lost itself among the crags. At first, the only clear outline
visible was that of the rugged edge of the rock above against the
colourless sky; but as he toiled up the steep zigzag path, the
day kept pace with him--each moment threw a broader light on the
scene--blots of shadow became bushes or deep fissures, and new shapes
of stone glided into view. The only symptoms of animal life that he
beheld were a rabbit that fled silently to his hole, and a great white
vulture that, startled from his perch on a grey crag, sailed slowly
upward on his black-tipped wings, circling higher and higher, till his
breast was crimsoned by the yet unrisen sun.
The path led diagonally to the summit; and, turning a sharp level
corner, my grandfather looked perpendicularly down on the XXXX
Mediterranean, whose lazy waves, sending up a gentle murmur, rippled
far below him. On his left, also steep down below him, was the
Neutral Ground, level as the sea itself, extending northward into
sandy plains, abruptly crossed by tumbled heaps of brown mountains. A
reddening of the sky showed that the sun was at hand; and presently
the glowing disk came swiftly up from behind the eastern hills; the
pale earth shared in the ruddiness of the sky, and a long rosy gleam
swept gradually over the breadth of the grey sea, like an unwilling
smile spreading itself from a man's lips to his eyes and forehead.
Conspicuous on the highest point in the landscape stood my
grandfather, panting with his exertions as he wiped his forehead.
After standing for a moment, bronzed in front like a smith at the
furnace, face to face with the sun, he turned and swept with his
telescope the road into Spain. Early peasants, microscopic as ants,
were bringing their fruits and vegetables into the fortress--a laden
mule or two advanced along the beach over which the Major had last
night galloped--but nothing resembling what he sought was in sight.
Then turning completely round, with his face to the path he had just
ascended, he gave a long look towards the Straits; and as he did so,
the wind, which had shifted to the south-west towards morning, blew
gently on his face. A sail or two was discernible in the distance,
outward bound, but nothing resembling the cutter. As the Major
looked, a signal was made from Cabrita, and directly two feluccas
left their station at Algeciras, and swooped out, like two white
birds, as if to intercept some bark yet hidden by the Point. Again my
grandfather looked out to the Strait, and presently a small white
sail came in sight near Cabrita. For a quarter of an hour he stood
steadily, with levelled telescope, and then he was almost sure--yes,
he could swear--that he saw the small English ensign relieved against
the sail; and above, at the masthead, the yellow-striped flag that
Francisco hoisted before as the mark of a yacht. It was the Fair
Unknown--and my grandfather at once comprehended that the pursuers,
whom he had escaped the night before, had, on returning to Algeciras,
made arrangements for her capture as soon as she should appear.
The breeze was on her beam, and much fresher with her than farther in
the bay, so that the feluccas steered slantingly across her course as
she made for the rock. They held on thus, the pursuers and pursued,
till within a mile of each other, when the cutter suddenly altered her
course to one nearly parallel with that of the feluccas. The latter,
however, now gained fast upon her, and presently a puff of smoke from
the bow of the foremost was followed by the report of a gun. My
grandfather could look no longer through his glass, for his hand shook
like a reed, but began, with huge strides, more resembling those of
a kangaroo than a quiet middle-aged gentleman, to descend the rock.
Breathless, he reached his quarters, had his horse saddled and brought
out, and galloped off towards Europa.
Europa Point is at the southern extremity of the rock, and commands at
once the entrance of the bay and the passage of the Straits. The road
to it from the north, where the Major was quartered, affords, for the
most part, a view of the bay. Many an anxious glance did he cast, as
he sped along, at the state of affairs on the water. The feluccas
fired several shots, but all seemed to fall wide, and were probably
intended only to frighten the chase, out of consideration for her fair
freight. Still, however, the English colours floated, and still the
cutter held her course.
Some artillerymen and an officer were assembled at the Point as the
Major galloped up.
"Can't you fire at 'em?" said he, as he drew up beside the battery.
"Too far off," said the Lieutenant, rising from the parapet on which
he was leaning, and showing a drowsy unshaven countenance; "we should
only frighten them."
"By heavens!" said my grandfather, "'tis horrible. I shall see the boy
taken before my eyes!"
"Boy!" quoth the Lieutenant, wondering what particular interest the
Major could take in the smuggler. "What boy?"
"Why, Owen of ours--he's running away with a Spanish lady."
"The devil!" cried the Lieutenant, jumping down. "What, Garry
Owen!--we must try a long shot. Pull those quoins out" (to a gunner).
"Corporal, lay that gun; a dollar if you hit the felucca. I'll try a
shot with this one." So saying, he laid the thirty-two pounder next
him with great care.
"Fire!" said he, jumping on the parapet to see the effect of the shot.
At the second rebound it splashed under the bows of the leading
felucca, which still held on. She was now scarcely three hundred yards
from the cutter.
"Why, d--n their impudence!" muttered the Lieutenant, on seeing his
warning pass unheeded, "they won't take a hint. Corporal, let drive at
'em."
The Corporal earned his dollar. The shot went through the side of the
felucca, on board of which all was presently confusion; in a few
minutes it was apparent she was sinking. The other, abandoning the
chase, went to the assistance of her consort, lifting the crew out,
some of whom were evidently hurt.
"A blessed shot!" cried my grandfather, giving the lucky Corporal a
bit of gold; "but I'm glad they're picking up the crew."
The cutter instantly stood in for the harbour, and half an hour
afterwards the Major bade his young friend and Juana welcome to
Gibraltar.
Carlota was beside herself with joy at seeing the wanderers safe. She
first cast herself upon Juana, and cried over her; then embraced the
Ensign, who made no scruple of kissing her; lastly, threw herself
tenderly upon the Major, who gazed over her head as it lay on his
shoulder with a dismayed expression, moving his arms uneasily, as if
he didn't know what he was expected to do with them. Every moment it
was becoming clearer to him that he was a compromised man, no longer
his own property. On his way through the streets that morning he had
passed a knot of officers, one of whom he overheard describing "Old
Flinders" as "a sly old boy," for that he "had run away with a
devilish handsome Spaniard--who would have thought it?" "Ay, who
indeed!" groaned the Major, internally. But the seal was put to his
doom by the Colonel, who, when he went to report himself, slapped him
on the shoulder, and congratulated him on his happiness. "Fine woman,
I hear, Flinders--didn't give you credit for such spirit--hope you'll
be happy together." The Major, muttering an inarticulate denial,
hastily retreated, and from that moment surrendered himself to his
fate an unresisting victim.
About dusk that night, Owen came to him.
"By heavens!" the Ensign began, throwing himself into a chair, "I'm
the most unlucky scoundrel! Nothing goes right with me. I promised
myself that this should be my wedding-night--and here I am, as
forlorn a bachelor as ever."
"What has gone wrong?" inquired my grandfather, removing his pipe from
his mouth.
"I pressed her with all my eloquence," said Owen; "reminded her of her
promise to marry me the day we should arrive here--of the necessity of
caring for her reputation, after leaving her father's house and coming
here under my protection" (here my grandfather winced;) "talked, in
fact, like an angel who had been bred a special pleader--yet it was
all of no use."
"Deliberating about marriage!" said the Major, "after leaving her
father and lover for you! What gnat can she be straining at, after
swallowing a camel of such magnitude?"
"A piece of female Quixotry," returned Owen. "She says she can't think
of such selfishness as being comfortably married herself, while
Carlota is so unhappy, and her fate so unsettled." Here he made a
significant pause; but my grandfather was immovably silent, only
glancing nervously at him, and smoking very hard.
"In fact, she protests she won't hear of marrying me, till you have
settled when you will marry Carlota."
"Marry Carlota!" gasped the Major in an agonised whisper.
"Why, you don't mean to say you're not going to marry her!" exclaimed
the Ensign, throwing a vast quantity of surprise into his expressive
countenance.
"Why--why, what should I marry her for?" stammered the Major.
"Oh, Lord!" said Garry, "here will be pleasant news for her! Curse me
if I break it to her."
"But really now, Frank," the Major repeated--"marriage, you know--why,
I never thought of such a thing."
"You're the only person that hasn't, then," rejoined Owen. "Why, what
can the garrison think, after the way you smuggled her in; what can
she herself think, after all your attentions?"
"Attentions, my dear boy;--the merest civility."
"Oh,--ah! 'twas civility, I suppose, to squeeze her hand in the inn at
Algeciras, in the way she told Juana of--and heaven knows what else
you may have done during the flight. Juana is outrageous against
you--actually called you a vile deceiver; but Carlota's feeling is
more of sorrow than of anger. She is persuaded that nothing but your
ignorance of Spanish has prevented your tongue from confirming what
your looks have so faithfully promised. I was really quite affected
to-day at the appealing look she cast on me after you left the room;
she evidently expected me to communicate her destiny."
My grandfather smoked hard.
"Lots of fellows would give their ears for such a wife," pursued the
Ensign. "Lovelace, the Governor's aide-de-camp, bribed the waiter of
the hotel to lend him his apron to-day, at dinner, that he might come
in and look at her--swears she's a splendid woman, and that he'd run
away with such another to-morrow."
Still my grandfather smoked hard, but said nothing, though there was a
slight gleam of pride in his countenance.
"Poor thing!" sighed Garry. "All her prospects blighted for ever.
Swears she never can love another."
At this my grandfather's eyes grew moist, and he coughed as if he had
swallowed some tobacco-smoke.
"And as for me, to have Juana at my lips, as it were, and yet not
mine--for she's as inflexible as if she'd been born a Mede or
Persian--to know that you are coming between me and happiness as
surely as if you were an inexorable father or a cruel guardian--worse,
indeed; for those might be evaded. Major, major, have you no
compassion!--two days of this will drive me crazy."
The Major changed his pipe from his right hand to his left, and,
stretching the former across the table, sympathetically pressed that
of the Ensign.
"Do, Major," quoth Garry, changing his flank movement for a direct
attack--"do consent to make yourself and me happy; do empower me to
negotiate for our all going to church to-morrow." (My grandfather gave
a little jump in his chair at this, as if he were sitting on a pin.)
"I'll manage it all, you shan't have the least trouble in the matter."
My grandfather spoke not.
"Silence gives consent," said the Ensign, rising. "Come, now, if you
don't forbid me, I'll depart on my embassy at once; you needn't speak,
I'll spare your blushes. I see this delay has only been from modesty,
or perhaps a little ruse on your part. Once, twice, thrice,--I go."
And he vanished.
The Major remained in his chair, in the same posture. His pipe was
smoked out, but he continued to suck absently at the empty tube. His
bewilderment and perturbation were so great that, though he sat up
till two in the morning, during which time he smoked eleven pipes, and
increased the two glasses of grog with which he was accustomed to
prepare for his pillow to four, he was still, when he went to bed,
as agitated as ever.
In this state of mind he went to the altar, for next day a double
ceremony was performed, making Owen happy with Juana, and giving
Carlota a husband and me a grandfather. The Major was more like a
proxy than a principal in the affair; for Owen, taking the entire
management upon himself, left him little more to do than to make the
necessary responses.
Carlota made a very good-tempered, quiet, inobtrusive helpmate, and
continued to be fond of her spouse even after he was a grey-headed
colonel. My grandfather, though credulous in most matters, could with
difficulty be brought to consider himself married. He would sometimes
seem to forget the circumstance for a whole day together, till it came
to be forced on his recollection at bed-time. And when, about a year
after his marriage, a new-born female Flinders (now my venerable aunt)
was brought one morning by the nurse for his inspection and approval,
he gazed at it with a puzzled air, and could not be convinced that he
was actually in the presence of his own flesh and blood, till he
had touched the cheek of his first-born with the point of his
tobacco-pipe, removed from his mouth for that purpose, making on
the infant's countenance a small indentation.
The little Governor, Don Pablo, was subsequently induced to forgive
his relatives, and frequent visits and attentions were interchanged,
till the commencement of the siege put a stop to all intercourse
between Gibraltar and Spain.
I have often, on a summer's evening, sat looking across the bay at a
gorgeous sunset, and retracing in imagination the incidents I have
related. My grandfather's establishment was broken up during the siege
by the enemy's shells, but a similar one now stands on what I think
must have been about the site of it. The world has changed since
then; but Spain is no land of change; and, looking on the imperishable
outline of the Andalucian hills, unaltered, probably, since a time to
which the period of my tale is but as yesterday, it is easy for me to
"daff aside" the noisy world without, and, dropping quietly behind the
age, to picture to myself my old-fashioned grandfather issuing forth
from yonder white-walled town of Algeciras with his future bride.
THE IRON SHROUD.
BY WILLIAM MUDFORD.
[_MAGA._ AUGUST 1830.]
The castle of the Prince of Tolfi was built on the summit of the
towering and precipitous rock of Scylla, and commanded a magnificent
view of Sicily in all its grandeur. Here, during the wars of the
middle ages, when the fertile plains of Italy were devastated by
hostile factions, those prisoners were confined, for whose ransom a
costly price was demanded. Here, too, in a dungeon, excavated deep in
the solid rock, the miserable victim was immured, whom revenge
pursued,--the dark, fierce, and unpitying revenge of an Italian heart.
VIVENZIO--the noble and the generous, the fearless in battle, and the
pride of Naples in her sunny hours of peace--the young, the brave, the
proud Vivenzio, fell beneath this subtle and remorseless spirit. He
was the prisoner of Tolfi, and he languished in that rock-encircled
dungeon, which stood alone, and whose portals never opened twice upon
a living captive.
It had the semblance of a vast cage, for the roof, and floor, and
sides, were of iron, solidly wrought, and spaciously constructed. High
above there ran a range of seven grated windows, guarded with massy
bars of the same metal, which admitted light and air. Save these, and
the tall folding-doors beneath them which occupied the centre, no
chink, or chasm, or projection, broke the smooth black surface of the
walls. An iron bedstead, littered with straw, stood in one corner: and
beside it, a vessel with water, and a coarse dish filled with coarser
food.
Even the intrepid soul of Vivenzio shrunk with dismay as he entered
this abode, and heard the ponderous doors triple-locked by the silent
ruffians who conducted him to it. Their silence seemed prophetic of
his fate, of the living grave that had been prepared for him. His
menaces and his entreaties, his indignant appeals for justice, and his
impatient questioning of their intentions, were alike vain. They
listened, but spoke not. Fit ministers of a crime that should have no
tongue!
How dismal was the sound of their retiring steps! And, as their faint
echoes died along the winding passages, a fearful presage grew within
him, that never more the face, or voice, or tread, of man, would greet
his senses. He had seen human beings for the last time! And he had
looked his last upon the bright sky, and upon the smiling earth, and
upon a beautiful world he loved, and whose minion he had been! Here
he was to end his life--a life he had just begun to revel in! And by
what means? By secret poison? or by murderous assault? No--for then it
had been needless to bring him thither. Famine perhaps--a thousand
deaths in one! It was terrible to think of it; but it was yet more
terrible to picture long, long years of captivity, in a solitude so
appalling, a loneliness so dreary, that thought, for want of
fellowship, would lose itself in madness, or stagnate into idiocy.
He could not hope to escape, unless he had the power, with his bare
hands, of rending asunder the solid iron walls of his prison. He could
not hope for liberty from the relenting mercies of his enemy. His
instant death, under any form of refined cruelty, was not the object
of Tolfi, for he might have inflicted it, and he had not. It was too
evident, therefore, he was reserved for some premeditated scheme of
subtle vengeance; and what vengeance could transcend in fiendish
malice, either the slow death of famine, or the still slower one of
solitary incarceration, till the last lingering spark of life expired,
or till reason fled, and nothing should remain to perish but the brute
functions of the body?
It was evening when Vivenzio entered his dungeon, and the approaching
shades of night wrapped it in total darkness, as he paced up and down,
revolving in his mind these horrible forebodings. No tolling bell
from the castle, or from any neighbouring church or convent, struck
upon his ear to tell how the hours passed. Frequently he would stop
and listen for some sound that might betoken the vicinity of man; but
the solitude of the desert, the silence of the tomb, are not so still
and deep as the oppressive desolation by which he was encompassed. His
heart sank within him, and he threw himself dejectedly down upon his
couch of straw. Here sleep gradually obliterated the consciousness of
misery, and bland dreams wafted his delighted spirit to scenes which
were once glowing realities for him, in whose ravishing illusions he
soon lost the remembrance that he was Tolfi's prisoner.
When he awoke, it was daylight; but how long he had slept he knew not.
It might be early morning, or it might be sultry noon, for he could
measure time by no other note of its progress than light and darkness.
He had been so happy in his sleep, amid friends who loved him, and the
sweeter endearments of those who loved him as friends could not, that
in the first moments of waking, his startled mind seemed to admit the
knowledge of his situation, as if it had burst upon it for the first
time, fresh in all its appalling horrors. He gazed round with an air
of doubt and amazement, and took up a handful of the straw upon which
he lay, as though he would ask himself what it meant. But memory, too
faithful to her office, soon unveiled the melancholy past, while
reason, shuddering at the task, flashed before his eyes the tremendous
future. The contrast overpowered him. He remained for some time
lamenting, like a truth, the bright visions that had vanished; and
recoiling from the present, which clung to him as a poisoned garment.
When he grew more calm, he surveyed his gloomy dungeon. Alas! the
stronger light of day only served to confirm what the gloomy
indistinctness of the preceding evening had partially disclosed, the
utter impossibility of escape. As, however, his eyes wandered round
and round, and from place to place, he noticed two circumstances which
excited his surprise and curiosity. The one, he thought, might be
fancy; but the other was positive. His pitcher of water, and the dish
which contained his food, had been removed from his side while he
slept, and now stood near the door. Were he even inclined to doubt
this, by supposing he had mistaken the spot where he saw them
over-night, he could not, for the pitcher now in his dungeon was
neither of the same form nor colour as the other, while the food was
changed for some other of better quality. He had been visited,
therefore, during the night. But how had the person obtained entrance?
Could he have slept so soundly, that the unlocking and opening of
those ponderous portals were effected without waking him? He would
have said this was not possible, but that in doing so, he must admit
a greater difficulty, an entrance by other means, of which he was
convinced there existed none. It was not intended, then, that he
should be left to perish from hunger. But the secret and mysterious
mode of supplying him with food, seemed to indicate he was to have no
opportunity of communicating with a human being.
The other circumstance which had attracted his notice, was the
disappearance, as he believed, of one of the seven grated windows that
ran along the top of his prison. He felt confident that he had
observed and counted them; for he was rather surprised at their
number, and there was something peculiar in their form, as well as in
the manner of their arrangement, at unequal distances. It was so much
easier, however, to suppose he was mistaken, than that a portion of
the solid iron, which formed the walls, could have escaped from its
position, that he soon dismissed the thought from his mind.
Vivenzio partook of the food that was before him, without
apprehension. It might be poisoned; but if it were he knew he could
not escape death, should such be the design of Tolfi, and the quickest
death would be the speediest release.
The day passed wearily and gloomily; though not without a faint hope
that, by keeping watch at night, he might observe when the person came
again to bring him food, which he supposed he would do in the same
way as before. The mere thought of being approached by a living
creature, and the opportunity it might present of learning the doom
prepared, or preparing, for him, imparted some comfort. Besides, if he
came alone, might he not in a furious onset overpower him? Or he might
be accessible to pity, or the influence of such munificent rewards as
he could bestow, if once more at liberty and master of himself. Say he
were armed. The worst that could befall, if nor bribe, nor prayers,
nor force prevailed, was a friendly blow, which, though dealt in a
damned cause, might work a desired end. There was no chance so
desperate, but it looked lovely in Vivenzio's eyes, compared with the
idea of being totally abandoned.
The night came, and Vivenzio watched. Morning came, and Vivenzio was
confounded! He must have slumbered without knowing it. Sleep must have
stolen over him when exhausted by fatigue, and in that interval of
feverish repose, he had been baffled: for there stood his replenished
pitcher of water, and there his day's meal! Nor was this all. Casting
his looks towards the windows of his dungeon, he counted but FIVE!
_Here_ was no deception; and he was now convinced there had been none
the day before. But what did all this portend? Into what strange and
mysterious den had he been cast? He gazed till his eyes ached; he
could discover nothing to explain the mystery. That it was so, he
knew. Why it was so, he racked his imagination in vain to conjecture.
He examined the doors. A simple circumstance convinced him they had
not been opened.
A wisp of straw, which he had carelessly thrown against them the
preceding day, as he paced to and fro, remained where he had cast it,
though it must have been displaced by the slightest motion of either
of the doors. This was evidence that could not be disputed; and it
followed there must be some secret machinery in the walls by which a
person could enter. He inspected them closely. They appeared to him
one solid and compact mass of iron; or joined, if joined they were,
with such nice art, that no mark of division was perceptible. Again
and again he surveyed them--and the floor--and the roof--and that
range of visionary windows, as he was now almost tempted to consider
them: he could discover nothing, absolutely nothing, to relieve his
doubts or satisfy his curiosity. Sometimes he fancied that altogether
the dungeon had a more contracted appearance--that it looked smaller;
but this he ascribed to fancy, and the impression naturally produced
upon his mind by the undeniable disappearance of two of the windows.
With intense anxiety, Vivenzio looked forward to the return of night;
and as it approached, he resolved that no treacherous sleep should
again betray him. Instead of seeking his bed of straw, he continued
to walk up and down his dungeon till daylight, straining his eyes in
every direction through the darkness, to watch for any appearances
that might explain these mysteries. While thus engaged, and as nearly
as he could judge (by the time that afterwards elapsed before the
morning came in), about two o'clock, there was a slight tremulous
motion of the floors. He stooped. The motion lasted nearly a minute;
but it was so extremely gentle, that he almost doubted whether it was
real, or only imaginary. He listened. Not a sound could be heard.
Presently, however, he felt a rush of cold air blow upon him; and
dashing towards the quarter whence it seemed to proceed, he stumbled
over something which he judged to be the water ewer. The rush of cold
air was no longer perceptible; and as Vivenzio stretched out his
hands, he found himself close to the walls. He remained motionless for
a considerable time; but nothing occurred during the remainder of the
night to excite his attention, though he continued to watch with
unabated vigilance.
The first approaches of the morning were visible through the grated
windows, breaking, with faint divisions of light, the darkness that
still pervaded every other part, long before Vivenzio was enabled to
distinguish any object in his dungeon. Instinctively and fearfully he
turned his eyes, hot and inflamed with watching, towards them. There
were FOUR! He could _see_ only four: but it might be that some
intervening object prevented the fifth from becoming perceptible; and
he waited impatiently to ascertain if it were so. As the light
strengthened, however, and penetrated every corner of the cell, other
objects of amazement struck his sight. On the ground lay the broken
fragments of the pitcher he had used the day before, and at a small
distance from them, nearer to the wall, stood the one he had noticed
the first night. It was filled with water, and beside it was his food.
He was now certain that, by some mechanical contrivance, an opening
was obtained through the iron wall, and that through this opening the
current of air had found entrance. But how noiseless! For had a
feather almost waved at the time, he must have heard it. Again he
examined that part of the wall; but both to sight and touch it
appeared one even and uniform surface, while to repeated and violent
blows there was no reverberating sound indicative of hollowness.
This perplexing mystery had for a time withdrawn his thoughts from the
windows; but now, directing his eyes again towards them, he saw that
the fifth had disappeared in the same manner as the preceding two,
without the least distinguishable alteration of external appearances.
The remaining four looked as the seven had originally looked; that is,
occupying, at irregular distances, the top of the wall on that side
of the dungeon. The tall folding-door, too, still seemed to stand
beneath, in the centre of these four, as it had at first stood in
the centre of the seven. But he could no longer doubt, what, on the
preceding day, he fancied might be the effect of visual deception.
The dungeon _was_ smaller. The roof had lowered--and the opposite ends
had contracted the intermediate distance by a space equal, he thought,
to that over which the three windows had extended. He was bewildered
in vain imaginings to account for these things. Some frightful
purpose--some devilish torture of mind or body--some unheard-of device
for producing exquisite misery, lurked, he was sure, in what had taken
place.
Oppressed with this belief, and distracted more by the dreadful
uncertainty of whatever fate impended, than he could be dismayed, he
thought, by the knowledge of the worst, he sat ruminating, hour after
hour, yielding his fears in succession to every haggard fancy. At last
a horrible suspicion flashed suddenly across his mind, and he started
up with a frantic air. "Yes!" he exclaimed, looking wildly round his
dungeon, and shuddering as he spoke--"Yes! it must be so! I see it!--I
feel the maddening truth like scorching flames upon my brain! Eternal
God!--support me! it must be so!--Yes, yes, _that_ is to be my fate!
Yon roof will descend!--these walls will hem me round--and slowly,
slowly, crush me in their iron arms! Lord God! look down upon me, and
in mercy strike me with instant death! Oh, fiend--oh, devil--is this
your revenge?"
He dashed himself upon the ground in agony;--tears burst from him, and
the sweat stood in large drops upon his face--he sobbed aloud--he tore
his hair--he rolled about like one suffering intolerable anguish of
body, and would have bitten the iron floor beneath him; he breathed
fearful curses upon Tolfi, and the next moment passionate prayers to
heaven for immediate death. Then the violence of his grief became
exhausted, and he lay still, weeping as a child would weep. The
twilight of departing day shed its gloom around him ere he arose from
that posture of utter and hopeless sorrow. He had taken no food. Not
one drop of water had cooled the fever of his parched lips. Sleep had
not visited his eyes for six-and-thirty hours. He was faint with
hunger; weary with watching, and with the excess of his emotions. He
tasted of his food; he drank with avidity of the water; and reeling
like a drunken man to his straw, cast himself upon it to brood again
over the appalling image that had fastened itself upon his almost
frenzied thoughts.
He slept. But his slumbers were not tranquil. He resisted, as long as
he could, their approach; and when, at last, enfeebled nature yielded
to their influence, he found no oblivion from his cares. Terrible
dreams haunted him--ghastly visions harrowed up his imagination--he
shouted and screamed, as if he already felt the dungeon's ponderous
roof descending on him--he breathed hard and thick, as though writhing
between its iron walls. Then would he spring up--stare wildly about
him--stretch forth his hands, to be sure he yet had space enough to
live--and, muttering some incoherent words, sink down again, to pass
through the same fierce vicissitudes of delirious sleep.
The morning of the fourth day dawned upon Vivenzio. But it was high
noon before his mind shook off its stupor, or he awoke to a full
consciousness of his situation. And what a fixed energy of despair sat
upon his pale features, as he cast his eyes upwards, and gazed upon
the THREE windows that now alone remained! The three!--there were no
more!--and they seemed to number his own allotted days. Slowly and
calmly he next surveyed the top and sides, and comprehended all the
meaning of the diminished height of the former, as well as of the
gradual approximation of the latter. The contracted dimensions of his
mysterious prison were now too gross and palpable to be the juggle of
his heated imagination. Still lost in wonder at the means, Vivenzio
could put no cheat upon his reason, as to the end. By what horrible
ingenuity it was contrived, that walls, and roof, and windows, should
thus silently and imperceptibly, without noise, and without motion
almost, fold, as it were, within each other, he knew not. He only
knew they did so; and he vainly strove to persuade himself it was the
intention of the contriver, to rack the miserable wretch who might be
immured there with anticipation, merely, of a fate, from which, in the
very crisis of his agony, he was to be reprieved.
Gladly would he have clung even to this possibility, if his heart
would have let him; but he felt a dreadful assurance of its fallacy.
And what matchless inhumanity it was to doom the sufferer to such
lingering torments--to lead him day by day to so appalling a death,
unsupported by the consolations of religion, unvisited by any human
being, abandoned to himself, deserted of all, and denied even the sad
privilege of knowing that his cruel destiny would awaken pity! Alone
he was to perish!--alone he was to wait a slow coming torture, whose
most exquisite pangs would be inflicted by that very solitude and that
tardy coming!
"It is not death I fear," he exclaimed, "but the death I must prepare
for! Methinks, too, I could meet even that--all horrible and revolting
as it is--if it might overtake me now. But where shall I find
fortitude to tarry till it come? How can I outlive the three long days
and nights I have to live? There is no power within me to bid the
hideous spectre hence--none to make it familiar to my thoughts; or
myself, patient of its errand. My thoughts, rather, will flee from me,
and I grow mad in looking at it. Oh! for a deep sleep to fall upon
me! That so, in death's likeness, I might embrace death itself, and
drink no more of the cup that is presented to me, than my fainting
spirit has already tasted!"
In the midst of these lamentations, Vivenzio noticed that his
accustomed meal, with the pitcher of water, had been conveyed, as
before, into his dungeon. But this circumstance no longer excited his
surprise. His mind was overwhelmed with others of a far greater
magnitude. It suggested, however, a feeble hope of deliverance; and
there is no hope so feeble as not to yield some support to a heart
bending under despair. He resolved to watch, during the ensuing night,
for the signs he had before observed; and should he again feel the
gentle, tremulous motion of the floor, or the current of air, to seize
that moment for giving audible expression to his misery. Some person
must be near him, and within reach of his voice, at the instant when
his food was supplied; some one, perhaps, susceptible of pity. Or if
not, to be told even that his apprehensions were just, and that his
fate _was_ to be what he foreboded, would be preferable to a suspense
which hung upon the possibility of his worst fears being visionary.
The night came; and as the hour approached when Vivenzio imagined he
might expect the signs, he stood fixed and silent as a statue. He
feared to breathe, almost, lest he might lose any sound which would
warn him of their coming. While thus listening, with every faculty of
mind and body strained to an agony of attention, it occurred to him he
should be more sensible of the motion, probably, if he stretched
himself along the iron floor. He accordingly laid himself softly down,
and had not been long in that position when--yes--he was certain of
it--the floor moved under him! He sprang up, and in a voice suffocated
nearly with emotion, called aloud. He paused--the motion ceased--he
felt no stream of air--all was hushed--no voice answered to his--he
burst into tears, and as he sank to the ground, in renewed anguish,
exclaimed--"Oh, my God! my God! You alone have power to save me now,
or strengthen me for the trial you permit."
Another morning dawned upon the wretched captive, and the fatal index
of his doom met his eyes. Two windows!--and _two_ days--and all would
be over! Fresh food--fresh water! The mysterious visit had been paid,
though he had implored it in vain. But how awfully was his prayer
answered in what he now saw! The roof of the dungeon was within a foot
of his head. The two ends were so near, that in six paces he trod the
space between them. Vivenzio shuddered as he gazed, and as his steps
traversed the narrowed area. But his feelings no longer vented
themselves in frantic wailings. With folded arms, and clenched teeth,
with eyes that were bloodshot from much watching, and fixed with a
vacant glare upon the ground, with a hard quick breathing, and a
hurried walk, he strode backwards and forwards in silent musing for
several hours. What mind shall conceive, what tongue utter, or what
pen describe the dark and terrible character of his thoughts? Like the
fate that moulded them, they had no similitude in the wide range of
this world's agony for man. Suddenly he stopped, and his eyes were
riveted upon that part of the wall which was over his bed of straw.
Words are inscribed there! A human language, traced by a human hand!
He rushes towards them; but his blood freezes as he reads:--
"I, Ludovico Sforza, tempted by the gold of the Prince of Tolfi, spent
three years in contriving and executing this accursed triumph of my
art. When it was completed, the perfidious Tolfi, more devil than man,
who conducted me hither one morning, to be witness, as he said, of its
perfection, doomed me to be the first victim of my own pernicious
skill; lest, as he declared, I should divulge the secret, or repeat
the effort of my ingenuity. May God pardon him, as I hope he will me,
that ministered to his unhallowed purpose! Miserable wretch, whoe'er
thou art, that readest these lines, fall on thy knees, and invoke, as
I have done, His sustaining mercy, who alone can nerve thee to meet
the vengeance of Tolfi, armed with this tremendous engine which, in a
few hours, must crush _you_, as it will the needy wretch who made it."
A deep groan burst from Vivenzio. He stood, like one transfixed, with
dilated eyes, expanded nostrils, and quivering lips, gazing at this
fatal inscription. It was as if a voice from the sepulchre had sounded
in his ears, "Prepare!" Hope forsook him. There was his sentence,
recorded in those dismal words. The future stood unveiled before him,
ghastly and appalling. His brain already feels the descending
horror--his bones seem to crack and crumble in the mighty grasp of the
iron walls! Unknowing what it is he does, he fumbles in his garment
for some weapon of self-destruction. He clenches his throat in his
convulsive gripe, as though he would strangle himself at once. He
stares upon the walls, and his warring spirit demands, "Will they not
anticipate their office if I dash my head against them?" An hysterical
laugh chokes him as he exclaims, "Why should I? He was but a man who
died first in their fierce embrace; and I should be less than man not
to do as much!"
The evening sun was descending, and Vivenzio beheld its golden beams
streaming through one of the windows. What a thrill of joy shot
through his soul at the sight! It was a precious link, that united
him, for the moment, with the world beyond. There was ecstasy in the
thought. As he gazed, long and earnestly, it seemed as if the windows
had lowered sufficiently for him to reach them. With one bound he was
beneath them--with one wild spring he clung to the bars. Whether it
was so contrived, purposely to madden with delight the wretch who
looked, he knew not; but, at the extremity of a long vista, cut
through the solid rocks, the ocean, the sky, the setting sun, olive
groves, shady walks, and, in the farthest distance, delicious glimpses
of magnificent Sicily, burst upon his sight. How exquisite was the
cool breeze as it swept across his cheek, loaded with fragrance! He
inhaled it as though it were the breath of continued life. And there
was a freshness in the landscape, and in the rippling of the calm
green sea, that fell upon his withering heart like dew upon the
parched earth. How he gazed, and panted, and still clung to his hold!
sometimes hanging by one hand, sometimes by the other, and then
grasping the bars with both, as loth to quit the smiling paradise
outstretched before him; till exhausted, and his hands swollen and
benumbed, he dropped helpless down, and lay stunned for a considerable
time by the fall.
When he recovered, the glorious vision had vanished. He was in
darkness. He doubted whether it was not a dream that had passed before
his sleeping fancy; but gradually his scattered thoughts returned, and
with them came remembrance. Yes! he had looked once again upon the
gorgeous splendour of nature! Once again his eyes had trembled
beneath their veiled lids, at the sun's radiance, and sought repose in
the soft verdure of the olive-tree, or the gentle swell of undulating
waves. Oh, that he were a mariner, exposed upon those waves to the
worst fury of storm and tempest; or a very wretch, loathsome with
disease, plague-stricken, and his body one leprous contagion from
crown to sole, hunted forth to gasp out the remnant of infectious life
beneath those verdant trees, so he might shun the destiny upon whose
edge he tottered!
Vain thoughts like these would steal over his mind from time to time,
in spite of himself; but they scarcely moved it from that stupor into
which it had sunk, and which kept him, during the whole night, like
one who had been drugged with opium. He was equally insensible to the
calls of hunger and of thirst, though the third day was now commencing
since even a drop of water had passed his lips. He remained on the
ground, sometimes sitting, sometimes lying; at intervals, sleeping
heavily; and when not sleeping, silently brooding over what was to
come, or talking aloud, in disordered speech, of his wrongs, of his
friends, of his home, and of those he loved, with a confused mingling
of all.
In this pitiable condition, the sixth and last morning dawned upon
Vivenzio, if dawn it might be called--the dim, obscure light which
faintly struggled through the ONE SOLITARY window of his dungeon. He
could hardly be said to notice the melancholy token. And yet he did
notice it; for as he raised his eyes and saw the portentous sign,
there was a slight convulsive distortion of his countenance. But what
did attract his notice, and at the sight of which his agitation was
excessive, was the change his iron bed had undergone. It was a bed no
longer. It stood before him, the visible semblance of a funeral couch
or bier! When he beheld this, he started from the ground; and, in
raising himself, suddenly struck his head against the roof, which was
now so low that he could no longer stand upright. "God's will be
done!" was all he said, as he crouched his body, and placed his hand
upon the bier; for such it was. The iron bedstead had been so
contrived, by the mechanical art of Ludovico Sforza, that as the
advancing walls came in contact with its head and feet, a pressure was
produced upon concealed springs, which, when made to play, set in
motion a very simple though ingeniously-contrived machinery, that
effected the transformation. The object was, of course, to heighten,
in the closing scene of this horrible drama, all the feelings of
despair and anguish, which the preceding ones had aroused. For the
same reason, the last window was so made as to admit only a shadowy
kind of gloom rather than light, that the wretched captive might be
surrounded, as it were, with every seeming preparation for
approaching death.
Vivenzio seated himself on his bier. Then he knelt and prayed
fervently; and sometimes tears would gush from him. The air seemed
thick, and he breathed with difficulty; or it might be that he fancied
it was so, from the hot and narrow limits of his dungeon, which were
now so diminished that he could neither stand up nor lie down at his
full length. But his wasted spirits and oppressed mind no longer
struggled within him. He was past hope, and fear shook him no more.
Happy if thus revenge had struck its final blow; for he would have
fallen beneath it almost unconscious of a pang. But such a lethargy of
the soul, after such an excitement of its fiercest passions, had
entered into the diabolical calculations of Tolfi; and the fell
artificer of his designs had imagined a counteracting device.
The tolling of an enormous bell struck upon the ears of Vivenzio! He
started. It beat but once. The sound was so close and stunning, that
it seemed to shatter his very brain, while it echoed through the rocky
passages like reverberating peals of thunder. This was followed by a
sudden crash of the roof and walls, as if they were about to fall upon
and close around him at once. Vivenzio screamed, and instinctively
spread forth his arms, as though he had a giant's strength to hold
them back. They had moved nearer to him, and were now motionless.
Vivenzio looked up, and saw the roof almost touching his head, even as
he sat cowering beneath it; and he felt that a farther contraction of
but a few inches only must commence the frightful operation. Roused as
he had been, he now gasped for breath. His body shook violently--he
was bent nearly double. His hands rested upon either wall, and his
feet were drawn under him to avoid the pressure in front. Thus he
remained for more than an hour, when that deafening bell beat again,
and again there came the crash of horrid death. But the concussion was
now so great that it struck Vivenzio down. As he lay gathered up in
lessened bulk, the bell beat loud and frequent--crash succeeded
crash--and on, and on, and on came the mysterious engine of death,
till Vivenzio's smothered groans were heard no more! He was horribly
crushed by the ponderous roof and collapsing sides--and the flattened
bier was his _Iron Shroud_.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Minor changes have been made to correct obvious typesetters' errors;
otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the authors'
words and intent.