“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.
CHAPTER THE FOURTH.
THE CELL OF ST. ARELINE.
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.
CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
THE WONDERS OF ST. ARELINE.
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!”