Sable Figure, and a pale face, marked by the glare of a wild and
flashing eye, was thrust from the folds of the robe of black. It was the
face of Albertine.
“Now, by St. Antonia, but that is pleasant to think of,” exclaimed the
Duke, as, complacently surveying his figure, he passed his hand over his
bearded chin and whiskered lip--“as thou wishest me to name the day, my
Lord Count, be assured, I shall not return to Florence without being
accompanied by my fair bride--_Ladye Annabel Duchess of Florence_. It
sounds well--eh, Count?”
A smile passed over the compressed lips of the Count, and a glance of
wild joy lit up his piercing eyes, as he thought of the fulfillment of
the dream of ambition that had haunted his soul for years.
“It does indeed sound well, my Lord Duke,” he calmly replied, as he
proceeded in his employment of dressing the wound. There was a pause for
a moment, a strange, dread pause, while the hands of the Sable Figure
trembled, as though Albertine, was nerving his soul for the work of
death.
“My Lord Count, how curious it seems? eh? Count?” exclaimed the Duke in
a tone of vacant wonder.
“To what does your Grace refer?” answered the Count.
“Why, Count, but three short days ago, upon this very couch lay your
gallant brother; here he folded to his arms his Adrian. Now that very
son is a--murderer--a parricide. I rest upon the very couch that
supported the murdered remains of the late Count, and thou, Aldarin, his
brother--”
“HIS MURDERER!” exclaimed a voice that thrilled to the very heart of
Aldarin, and made the Duke start with terror.
And as he started the knife came hissing through the air, it grazed the
robe of the Duke, it sank to the very hilt in the death couch.
The start of the Duke saved him from the steel.
“Eh! Count, what’s that? Who spoke? eh?” The eyes of the Count
distended, and his lips parted with affright as he spoke.
The Count looked up and beheld a sight that froze his very blood.
On the opposite side of the bed, among the crimson hangings, stood a
figure robed in white, and there, two eyes, blazing like fire-coals,
from beneath the deathly pallor of a half-veiled brow, looked steadily
upon the trembling Aldarin.
The cheeks of that pale countenance were dug into fearful hollows, and
the eyes were surrounded by circles of livid blue.
The Count gazed with intense horror at this apparition and the Sable
Figure, who had hurriedly stooped, in the effort to wrench the dagger
from the couch, with a noiseless grasp, looked up and started hastily
backward as his eye rested upon the ghastly face, appearing amid the
hangings in the opposite side of the bed.
“It is the face of the dead”--muttered Albertine, gliding hurriedly
toward his place of concealment while the Duke was absorbed by the
awe-stricken visage of Aldarin, whose very soul seemed starting from his
eyes as he gazed upon the apparition--“It is the face of the dead--The
time of the Betrayer hath not yet come!”
And as he spoke he disappeared, without being observed by either the
Duke or Aldarin, while the Scholar, beheld the curtains on the opposite
side of the couch rustling to and fro--he looked and the Spectre was
gone.
“This is some vile trick!” cried Aldarin, grasping the sword of the Duke
from the couch as he spoke. “Let the mummers, whoe’er they are, beware
the vengeance of the Scholar!”
He rushed to the other side of the couch, he lifted the hangings, but
discovered no one. With a hurried step, he turned to the tapestry that
adorned the walls, and thrust aside the embroidered, folds. The secret
door was closed, and he beheld neither sign nor mark, that might tell of
aught concealed within its pannels.
And as Aldarin continued his hurried search, the Duke leaning back on
the couch, felt some hard substance pressing against his side. Thrusting
his hand along the couch, he felt the handle of a dagger, thrust from
its resting place, and with a trembling arm, held the steel aloft in the
light.
“It bears an inscription--Saints of Heaven, let me read--
‘THE VENGEANCE OF THE MONKS OF THE HOLY STEEL.’”
And at the same moment, the Count Aldarin, leaned trembling against a
pillar for support, and quaking in every nerve, one fearful thought
possessed his soul as he murmured in a hollow whisper.
“_Haunted, forever haunted--by thy gloomy shade, my murdered
brother!_”
BOOK THE THIRD.
THE LAST NIGHT OF THRICE SEVEN YEARS.
CHAPTER THE FIRST.
THE MAIDEN IN HER BOWER.
ALDARIN PICTURES TO THE LADYE ANNABEL THE GLORIES OF A LIVING-TOMB.
A lamp of alabaster, placed upon a small table of ebony, beside which
was seated the Ladye Annabel, threw its softened beams around the
apartment, and leaving the hangings, the stately bed, and the luxurious
couches, wrapt in twilight shadow, cast a lovelier tint upon a vase of
flowers standing upon the table, and revealed the fair maiden’s
countenance and figure in soft and rosy light.
Her flaxen tresses, unrestrained by band or cincture, fell in a golden
shower over her delicate neck and finely-turned shoulders; and streaming
along the full and swelling bosom, but half concealed by the bodice of
white, bordered by finest lace, they flowed soft and waving down to her
very feet.
The figure of the Ladye Annabel realized an old saying, that nature
shows all her art, and lavishes the richest of her beauties, upon her
smallest creations.
In form slight and delicate, in stature somewhat below the usual size,
the proportions of Annabel were of the most exquisite tracery of
outline. Her arms, full and softly rounded, were terminated by hands
small and white, with tapering fingers; her feet, thin and slender, and
marked by an high instep, supported ancles as finely turned, as the
movements of the maiden were light and graceful; the well-proportioned
waist arose in lovely gradation into the bosom of rich and budding
promise; the neck, gently arching, and graceful in every attitude,
blended sweetly into the small and half dimpling chin, that harmonized
with the face of loveliness and soul.
“Right beauteous shone those eyes of blue,” says the chronicler of the
ancient MS., “glancing pure thoughts and light-hearted fancies; and
right lovely were those glowing cheeks, in which the snow-white of the
fair countenance bloomed into a roseate hue; and lovely was the small
mouth of parting lips, delicious in their maiden ripeness; and sweet,
surpassing sweet, was the expression of that face, where love and
innocence beaming from every feature, seemed like the golden fruit of
fairy land, only waiting to be gathered.”
Her face was a poem, written by the finger of God, in characters of
youth and bloom.
A poem whose theme was ever beauty and love, speaking its meaning
through the deep glance of a shadowy eye, sending forth its messages of
sweetness from the smile of the wreathing lip, or preaching its lessons
of thought and purity by the calm glory of the unclouded brow.
A face lovely as a dream, when dreams are loveliest, with an outline of
youth and bloom, a brow clear, calm, and cloudless, over-arching the
eyes of azure, whose brightness seemed unfathomable; with full and
swelling cheeks, varying the snow-white of the maiden’s countenance by
the damask of the budding rose; a small mouth, with curving lips; a chin
all roundness and dimple, receding with a waving outline into the neck,
all lightness and grace; while all around, the luxuriance of her golden
hair, unbound and uncinctured, fell sweeping and waving, with a soft,
airy motion, through the sunbeams shimmered round the fairy countenance
of the maiden.
Alone in her bower sate the Ladye Annabel, her lip curving with scorn
while she glanced at the letter of his grace of Florence, as it was
flung along the floor, unopened and unheeded.
Her soul was agitated by the fearful memory of the last three days of
mystery and blood, and then came confused and wandering thoughts of the
scenes she had witnessed but an hour since, in the cavern of the dead.
Her mind was lost in a maze of never-ending doubts, when she
contemplated the fearful death of the late Count.
She had never for an instant believed that Adrian could be guilty of the
accursed act, neither had she dreamed that it was her father’s hand that
dealt the blow.
The thought would have driven her mad.
Suddenly her thoughts were agitated by a fearful picture.
She saw Adrian stretched bleeding and dead upon the wheel--his limbs
severed and torn, and his brow scarred by the instruments of torture,
while the doomsman’s laugh rang in her ears. As the picture grew upon
her mind in all its horrible details:--the glazed eye and the writhen
lip, the chest heaving with the convulsive sobs of death, and the throat
straining with the death rattle,--the maiden covered her face with her
hands, and shrieked:
“Save me, holy Mary, save me from these fearful fancies!”
And as she spoke, the maiden burst into a flood of tears.
“_Annabel!_” whispered a voice at once deep-toned and full of affection.
She looked up, and her father, the Count Aldarin, stood before her.
“My daughter,” he continued, drawing a seat beside her, “how dost thou
like these?”
He opened a casket which he held in his hand, and the light of the
alabaster lamp flashed upon ornaments of gold and silver, such as might
not shame a queen to wear.
There were bracelets for the wrists, there were chains for the arching
neck, gems for the brow, pearls to be woven in the flowing hair; and as
their bright and star-like blaze met the eye of the Ladye Annabel, she
gave utterance to a cry of delight.
“I thank thee, father, I thank thee!” she exclaimed, as, clasping a
bracelet of gold, bordered by pearls, around her fair and well-rounded
wrist, she received it with a glance of admiration. “See, father, see!
How beauteous are those pearls, how bright that gold, and the shape--how
exquisite! O! father, this is kind of thee! ’Tis indeed a rich gift!”
“_It is a bridal gift!_” exclaimed the Count, in a low and quiet tone,
and with his eyes fixed upon his daughter’s countenance, as if to note
each varying expression of the fair and lovely features.
Annabel started as if an adder had stung her.
“A bridal gift? Said you not so? A bridal gift? From whom is it, my
father?”
“His grace, the Duke of Florence, sends thee this rare and costly
present. He sends it with his ardent wishes for thy health. He sends
these jewels with the hope that ere three days have run their sands, he
may behold them shining on the brow of his fair bride--the Ladye
Annabel, Duchess of Florence.”
As in a calm and determined tone he spoke these words, a deadly paleness
came over the damsel’s face; her lips dropped apart, and her fair blue
eyes distended with a vacant look, the slender fingers of each hand
slowly straightened, unclasping their grasp of the casket, which fell
heavily to the floor, as her arms dropped listlessly by her side.
The old man surveyed his child for an instant with a look which told of
his deep, his yearning affection, combined with the strange fancies
ruling his destiny through life. In an instant he again spoke, and his
voice, as it came from the depths of his chest, sounded wild and
thrilling to the maiden’s ear.
“_My daughter!_” said he, taking her by the hand, “_thou shall wed this
man!_”
Annabel replied not.
“Thou shalt, I say, wed the Lord of Florence. It must be so; therefore
it were well that thou dost prepare thee for the bridal. I say it shall
be so, my daughter. The word of Aldarin is passed!”
“Father,” replied the Ladye Annabel, in tremulous tones; “father, O!
look not so sternly at me, your eyes chill my very heart. I would do
your bidding--the Virgin and all the saints witness me, I would--but,
father--”
“Annabel,” said the Count, in his deep tones of enthusiasm, “I have said
it, and it shall be so. Wed the Duke of Florence, and behold thyself
a--queen! All that heart can wish, or the wildest fancy desires, shalt
thou possess, and claim as thine own. Wealth shall lavish its stores
around thee, and honor shall bring the fairest and the noblest to bow
low at the feet of the Ladye Annabel, Duchess of Florence.
“Lo! thou art in the ducal hall of Florence: behold thyself encircled by
the gay and glittering throng; a thousand eyes are fixed upon thee in
admiration, a thousand tongues speak their words of eloquence but to
syllable that admiration, and a thousand swords, flashing in the light,
are slaves to the slightest word of Ladye Annabel--the queen.
“The robes of a queen shall gird this lovely form, the stars of a
coronet shall flash from that beauteous brow, and this fair hand, so
beautiful in its alabaster whiteness, shall wave the sceptre over the
heads of kneeling myriads! With a queenly port and a flashing eye, thou
shalt look around thee, and behold the princely halls illumined by
lamps, diffusing at once both light, soft as moonbeams, and fragrance
sweeter than the breath of spring flowers. The lofty windows, with their
rare carvings, shall give to view gardens rich with golden fruit, won
from the far lands of the East, fragrant with shrubbery and gay with
flowers, while ancient trees, in leafy magnificence, sweep their arching
bows overhead. Fountains fling their columns of liquid diamonds up from
the arbored paths, lulling waterfalls soothe the ear, distant music
wakes delightful visions in the soul, solemn palaces, in all their
grandeur of outline, break through the air of night! Palaces, gardens,
unbounded wealth, rank, pride, place, honor--all, all shall be thine
own!”
“All, my father, all--all--but love.”
As Annabel spoke, her eyes filled with tears, and her voice was choked
with the sobs that convulsed her bosom.
To say that the picture of the Count had no effect upon the maiden,
would be uttering an absurd and unnatural fiction. In bright and glowing
colors arose the gorgeous pageantry before the mind of Annabel: it was
all saith the Chronicler of the ancient MSS.--it was all that a woman
could wish, the fruition of a woman’s most ardent aspiration. With
Adrian, the companion of her childhood, the princely palace would have
been like an abode of fairy land; with the Duke, it would have been a
tomb--a golden sepulchre for the living-dead.
The answer of Aldarin was contemptuous and bitter.
“_Love!_--a dream--a phantom--a bubble!--_Love_, forsooth! the vision of
warm-blooded youth, which all have felt, and none but fools obey, Girl,”
continued he, “I have said that thou shouldst wed the Duke, and--by my
soul!--_thou shalt wed him_! My word--the word of Aldarin--is passed.
Think not to deceive _me_. I know thy motive in thus setting the bidding
of a father at defiance. It is because thou dost affect the murderer of
my only brother,--of thy kind uncle,--the PARRICIDE, Adrian--”
“O! father, he cannot--cannot be the doer of so dread a crime.”
“Who, then,” exclaimed the Count, bitterly, “who then was the doer of so
dread a crime? Speak, my fair daughter, _who_ was’t?”
“IT WAS THOU! THOU! ALDARIN THE SCHOLAR!” exclaimed a voice that sounded
strange and hollow through the lonely apartment.
“Holy Mary, preserve us!” shrieked Annabel. “Father, whence came that
fearful voice?”
The Count Aldarin replied not. The convulsive motion that heaved his
breast, and strained the lineaments of his countenance, showed that he
was making a desperate attempt to command his soul.
“‘Tis naught, my daughter,” he began; “‘tis fancy--’tis--”
He finished the sentence by a howl of horror, that might have been
uttered by a lost soul. Annabel beheld him gazing fixedly at some object
behind her. She turned her head and saw a vision that drove the life
current back from her heart.
A figure arrayed in the snow-white attire of the grave, looked with a
pale and ghastly countenance, and hollow eyes, from among the folds of
the crimson tapestry on the opposite side of the apartment.
With freezing blood, Annabel beheld the figure advance with a slow and
measured step towards her. Her consciousness failed, and she fell
insensible on the floor, at the same instant that Aldarin sank down with
a yell of despair, while his mouth frothed, and his eyes glared like
those of a maniac.
On toward the light advanced the figure in white.
In a moment it stood beside the prostrate forms of the father and child,
and having gazed at them for an instant, it threw back the robe from its
head, and the beams of the lamp flashed over the wan and ghastly face of
the strange figure.
“Ha--ha--ha!” he laughed, in tones sepulchral with famine, “methinks
I’ve frightened the old caitiff enow! O, St. Withold! but I do feel this
fiend, Hunger, gnawing with its serpent teeth at my very heart! Nothing
to eat for three days and as many nights! And this hand--half-severed at
the finger joints--throbbing with pain all the while! Thanks to the hard
lessons of a soldier’s life, that taught me to wrap this rough bandage
round the wound! Had it been my good right hand--St. Withold!--Robin had
been a dead man three days ago! True, I did make out to crawl toward one
of the dead soldiers in the cavern. How sweetly the wine in his flask
gurgled down my parched throat! I am faint with lack of food. By a
soldier’s faith, I could eat a whole ox! St. Withold, an’ I do not get
some nourishment in the shortest time possible, I may as well wrap me up
in this pall, so as to be ready for burial! Ugh! the priest shall not
say his prayers over thee yet, my friend Robin; courage.”
Having first divested himself of the funeral pall of the late lord, the
famished soldier strode across the apartment, and opening the door that
led into the ante chamber, he discovered Guiseppo and Rosalind seated
upon one of the couches, apparently in the most amiable humor with each
other.
“Look ye, sir page,” exclaimed Robin, as he showed his wan and wasted
features through the opened door, “an’ ye stir not yourself right
quickly, your master will be dead; and, fair damsel, the same may be
said of your mistress, the Ladye Annabel.”
Rosalind shrieked with affright at the hollow voice and shrunken figure
of the bold yeoman, and Guiseppo sprang with one bound from the couch
half way across the apartment.
“Fear not, Rosalind,” he cried, drawing his dagger. “If it be a devil, I
defy it in God’s name; and if it be a man why I will try what this good
steel can do.”
“Tut, tut,” exclaimed Robin, “put up your cheese-knife boy. Come hither.
Know you me not?”
“No more than I do the devil.”
“Mayhap then, fair Sir, you have heard of a _certain youth_, who on the
night before he departed from the castle--the castle where his infancy
had been passed--to be a page at court, took occasion to pour a sleeping
potion into the wine of a _certain yeoman_; and then shaving one side of
the yeoman’s face; concluded by tying a dead cat around his neck, thus
making an honest soldier a mock of laughter for all the castle. Did’st
ever hear of such a page? Eh? Guiseppo?”
“Why the Virgin bless me,” exclaimed Rosalind, “It’s Rough Robin!”
“Eh?” cried the page with a stare of astonishment.
“If you value your life, Guiseppo,” continued the yeoman; “Hie away, and
bring me a dozen flasks of wine or so, and a round of beef. Speak not a
word, but haste away. I am nigh starved to death, and the devil may
tempt me to cut a slice from the trim figure of a certain page; away!”
As Guiseppo left the apartment, Rosalind asked the bold yeoman where he
had been for the last three days, and wherefore he looked so much like a
ghost risen from the dead merely for its own amusement.
“_My lord the Count Aldarin_,” replied Robin with a grim smile,
“_despatched me--upon a long journey, to arrange matters of business
entirely relating to himself._”
Having thus spoken, he again entered the bower of the Ladye Annabel, and
laying hold of the senseless body of Aldarin, he dragged him into the
ante-chamber, and then returned to assist the damsel Rosalind in the
recovery of her mistress.
CHAPTER THE SECOND.
THE LADY AND THE YEOMAN.
When the Ladye Annabel opened her fair blue eyes, she gazed hurriedly
around the apartment until her glance was met by that of the bold
yeoman. She gave a faint scream, and her form trembled with affright.
“St. Withold!” exclaimed the yeoman--“but I do seem to frighten every
one that looks at me, into fits. Fear me not, Ladye Annabel--’Tis
I--Rough Robin--I would speak a few words to thee. The import of what I
have to say is of a fearful nature.”
“Ah!” said Annabel, “of what would you speak?”
Robin whispered a word in her ear.
The maiden gave a convulsive start. She clasped her hands and looked
wildly in the yeoman’s face, as she exclaimed--
“How was’t done!--The doer of this deed--who was’t?”
“Pardon me, Lady. For three long days and nights have I been without
sustenance--I am faint--my brain burns, and mine hands tremble.”
The Ladye Annabel made a sign to Rosalind, who was leaving the room,
when she was met at the door by Guiseppo, bearing a wine flask in one
hand, while the other supported a dish containing the fragments of a
venison pasty.
“Bold Robin,” said Guiseppo, “I contrived to abstract these from the
wine cellar and the kitchen, without being noticed. I thought your
business might require secrecy.”
“Thanks, Sir Page, thanks--and now,” continued the yeoman--“an’ thou
lovest thy Lord Adrian, wait in the ante-chamber, and see that no one
enters. Fair Rosalind, I am waiting to close the door.”
As he said this he gently pushed the damsel through the doorway, and
carefully drawing the bolt he seated himself opposite Annabel. He then
placed the pasty on his knee, and with a trembling hand filled a silver
goblet to the very brim with wine. With all the nervous eagerness of
famine, he lifted the capacious vessel to his lips, when he beheld a
pale, cadaverous, spectre-like face dancing in the ruddy glow of the
wine.
“St. Withold! ’Tis no wonder I have scared every body with my dried up
visage!” He drained the goblet to the last drop. “S’ death I’m
frightened at that death’s head myself.”
He then plunged one hand into the pasty, and raising a piece of the rich
crust, he devoured it in an instant; then lifting the flask to his
mouth, he poured the luscious liquid down his throat, and his sinews and
veins began to rise and swell, a ruddy glow ran over his ashy face,
while the supernatural brightness of his eyes, gave place to a healthy,
twinkling glance.
There was a pause of some ten minutes.
“St. Withold! but I thank thee!” cried the yeoman, as his eyes filled
with a liquid which bore a strange resemblance to tears of joy--“Holy
Mary, Holy Peter, and Holy Paul, ye shall have a wax candle apiece;
instead of one to all of ye!”
The Ladye Annabel who had watched his movements with the greatest
impatience, now exclaimed--
“For heaven’s sake, good Robin, speak. What dost thou know of the
fearful deed”--she looked hurriedly around the room--“_Of the murder?_”
“Ladye” replied the yeoman, “I’m a rough, blunt soldier--I know little
of courtly manners, but so help me St. Withold, I would peril--I would
sacrifice my life, to serve thee and--Lord Adrian--”
“Adrian? What knowest thou of Adrian? For heaven’s sake speak.” Her very
soul glanced from her eyes as she continued.--“Oh, God! thou surely wilt
not say that he--Adrian--is--is--THE MURDERER?”
“St. Withold!” muttered Robin, “but I have got myself into a nice
predicament. Ladye I would say no such falsehood.”
“It is a falsehood then?--Thanks--Holy Mary, from my soul, unfeigned
thanks?”
“It is not Adrian: but Ladye--heaven help thee to bear it--the murderer
is one who is mayhap as beloved of thee, as is Lord Adrian.”
“_One as beloved?_” murmured Annabel--“surely there is no one as beloved
as Adrian, no one save my father. Thou triflest with me, Robin.”
“Nay Ladye I trifle not--again I say it is _the_ one who is as dear to
thee as Lord Adrian.”
One word came from the maiden’s lips.
“MY FATHER--” she shrieked, as if some awful thought had riven her
brain.
She said never a word more, but her bosom which a moment past rose and
fell convulsively, now became stilled; the excited flush of her cheeks
died away into an ashy paleness, her lip lost its eager expression, her
eyelids closed stiffly, and she fell heavily as a corse from her seat.
Robin sprang forward and extended his arms in time to prevent her from
falling to the floor.