For three days, the three fatal days, did Adrian remain bereft of
strength and sense. But he was not smitten by the scourge which his
devoted and generous nurse had anticipated. It was a fierce and
dangerous fever, brought on by the great fatigue, restlessness, and
terrible agitation he had undergone.
No professional mediciner could be found to attend him but a good
friar, better perhaps skilled in the healing art than many who claimed
its monopoly, visited him daily. And in the long and frequent absences
to which his other and numerous duties compelled the monk, there was
one ever at hand to smooth the pillow, to wipe the brow, to listen to
the moan, to watch the sleep. And even in that dismal office, when, in
the frenzy of the sufferer, her name, coupled with terms of passionate
endearment, broke from his lips, a thrill of {199} strange pleasure
crossed the heart of the betrothed, which she chid as if it were a
crime. But even the most unearthly love is selfish in the rapture of
being loved! Words cannot tell, heart cannot divine, the mingled
emotions that broke over her when, in some of those incoherent
ravings, she dimly understood that _for her_ the city had been sought,
the death dared, the danger incurred. And as then bending passionately
to kiss that burning brow, her tears fell fast over the idol of her
youth, the fountains from which they gushed were those, fathomless and
countless, which a life could not weep away. Not an impulse of the
human and the woman heart that was not stirred; the adoring gratitude,
the meek wonder thus to _be_ loved, while deeming it so simple a merit
thus _to_ love;--as if all sacrifice _in_ her were a thing of
course,--_to_ her, a virtue nature could not paragon, worlds could not
repay! And there he lay, the victim to his own fearless faith,
helpless--dependent upon her--a thing between life and death, to
thank, to serve--to be proud of, yet to protect--to compassionate, yet
revere--the saver, to be saved! Never seemed one object to demand at
once from a single heart so many and so profound emotions; the
romantic enthusiasm of the girl!--the fond idolatry of the bride--the
watchful providence of the mother over her child.
And strange to say, with all the excitement of that lonely watch,
scarcely stirring from his side, taking food only that her strength
might not fail her,--unable to close her eyes--though, from the same
cause, she would fain have taken rest, when slumber fell upon her
charge--with all such wear and tear of frame and heart, she seemed
wonderfully supported. And the holy man marvelled, in each visit, to
see the cheek of the nurse still fresh, and her eye still bright. In
her own superstition she thought and felt that Heaven gifted her with
a preternatural power to be true to so sacred a charge: and in this
fancy she did not wholly err;--for Heaven _did_ gift her with that
diviner power, when it planted in so soft a heart the enduring might
and energy of Affection! The friar had visited the sick man, late on
the third night, and administered to him a strong sedative--"This
night," said he to Irene, "will be the crisis--should he awaken, as I
trust he may, with a returning consciousness, and a calm pulse, he
will live--if not, young daughter, prepare for the worst. But should
you note any turn in the disease, that may excite alarm, or require my
attendance, this scroll will inform you where I am if God spare me
still, at each hour of the night and morning."
The monk retired and Irene resumed her watch.
The sleep of Adrian was at first broken and interrupted--his features,
his exclamations, his gestures, all evinced great agony whether mental
or bodily--it seemed, as perhaps it was, a fierce and doubtful
struggle between life and death for the conquest of the sleeper.
Patient, silent, breathing but by long-drawn gasps, Irene sate at the
bed-head. The lamp was removed to the further end of the chamber, and
its ray, shaded by the draperies, did not suffice to give to her gaze
more than the outline of the countenance she watched. In that awful
suspense, all the thoughts that hitherto had stirred her mind lay
hushed and mute. She was only sensible to that unutterable fear which
few of us have been happy enough not to know. That crushing weight
under which we can scarcely breathe or move, the avalanche over us,
freezing and suspended, which we cannot escape from, with which, every
moment, we may be buried and overwhelmed. The whole destiny of life
was in the chances of that single night! It was just as Adrian at last
seemed to glide into a deeper and serener slumber, that the bells of
the death-cart broke with their boding knell the palpable silence of
the streets. Now hushed, now revived, as the cart stopped for its
gloomy passengers, and coming nearer and nearer after every pause. At
length she heard the heavy wheels stop under the very casement, and a
voice deep and muffled calling aloud "Bring out the dead!" She rose,
and with a noiseless step, passed to secure the door, when the dull
lamp gleamed upon the dark and shrouded forms of the Becchini.
"You have not marked the door, nor set out the body," said one
gruffly, "but this is the _third night_! He is ready for us!"
"Hush, he sleeps--away, quick, it is not the Plague that seized him."
"Not the Plague," growled the Becchino in a disappointed tone, "I
thought no other illness dared encroach upon the rights of the
gavocciolo!"
"Go, here's money, leave us."
And the grisly carrier sullenly withdrew. The cart moved on, the bell
renewed its summons, till slowly and faintly the dreadful larum died
in the distance.
Shading the lamp with her hand, Irene stole to the bed-side, fearful
that the sound and the intrusion had disturbed the slumberer. But his
face was still locked, as in a vice, with that iron sleep. He stirred
not--his breath scarcely passed his lips--she felt his pulse, as the
wand lay on the coverlid--there was a slight heat--she was
contented--removed the light, and, retiring to a corner of the room,
placed the little cross suspended round her neck upon the table, and
prayed--in her intense suffering--to Him who had known death, and
who--Son of Heaven though he was, and Sovereign of the Seraphim--had
also prayed, in his earthly travail, that the cup might pass away.
The morning broke, not, as in the north, slowly and through shadow,
but with the sudden glory with which in those climates Day leaps upon
earth--like a giant from his sleep. A sudden smile--a burnished
glow--and night had vanished. Adrian still slept; not a muscle seemed
to have stirred; the sleep was even heavier than before; the silence
became a burthen upon the air. Now, in that exceeding torpor so like
unto death, the solitary watcher became alarmed and terrified. Time
passed--morning glided to noon--still not a sound nor motion. The sun
was mid-way in heaven--the friar came not. And now again touching
Adrian's pulse, she felt no flutter--she gazed on him, appalled and
confounded; surely nought living could be so still and pale. "Was it
indeed sleep, might it not be ----." She turned away, sick and frozen;
her tongue clove to her lips. Why did the father tarry--she would go
to him--she would learn the worst--she could forbear no longer. She
glanced over the scroll the monk had left her: "From sunrise," it
said, "I shall be at the Convent of the Dominicans. Death has stricken
many of the brethren." The Convent was at some distance, but she knew
the spot, and fear would wing her steps. She gave one wistful look at
the sleeper, and rushed from the house. "I shall see thee again
presently," she murmured. Alas! what hope can calculate beyond the
moment. And who shall claim the tenure of "_The Again!_"
It was not many minutes after Irene had left the room, ere, with a
long sigh, Adrian opened his eyes--an altered and another man; the
fever was gone, the reviving pulse beat low indeed, but calm. His mind
was once more master of his body, and, though weak and feeble, the
danger was past, and life and intellect regained.
"I have slept long," he muttered--"and oh such dreams--and methought I
saw Irene, but could not speak to her; and while I attempted to grasp
her, her face changed, her form dilated, and I was in the clutch of
the foul grave-digger. It is late--the sun is high--I must be up and
stirring. Irene is in Lombardy. No, no; that was a lie, a wicked
lie--she is at Florence--I must renew my search."
As this duty came to his remembrance, he rose from the bed--he was
amazed at his own debility; at first he could not stand without
support from the wall--by degrees, however, he so far regained the
mastery of his limbs, as to walk, though with effort and pain. A
ravening hunger preyed upon him; he found some scanty and light food
in the chamber, which he devoured eagerly. And with scarce less
eagerness laved his {200} enfeebled form and haggard face with the
water that stood at hand. He now felt refreshed and invigorated, and
began to indue his garments, which he found thrown on a heap beside
the bed. He gazed with surprise and a kind of self-compassion upon his
emaciated hands and shrunken limbs, and began now to comprehend that
he must have had some severe but unconscious illness. "Alone too,"
thought he, "no one near to tend me! Nature my only nurse! But alas!
alas! how long a time may thus have been wasted, and my adored
Irene----quick, quick, not a moment more will I lose."
He soon found himself in the open street; the air revived him; and
that morning, the first known for weeks, had sprung up the blessed
breeze. He wandered on very slowly and feebly till he came to a broad
square, from which, in the vista, might be seen one of the principal
gates of Florence, and the fig-trees and olive-groves beyond. It was
then that a pilgrim of tall stature approached towards him as from the
gate; his hood was thrown back, and gave to view a countenance of
great but sad command; a face, in whose high features, massive brow,
and proud, unshrinking gaze, shaded by an expression of melancholy
more stern than soft, Nature seemed to have written majesty, and Fate
disaster. As in that silent and dreary place, these two, the only
tenants of the street, now encountered, Adrian stopped abruptly, and
said in a startled and doubting voice: "Do I dream still, or do I
behold Rienzi?"
The pilgrim paused also, as he heard the name, and gazing long on the
attenuated features of the young lord, said: "I am he that was Rienzi!
and you, pale shadow, is it in this grave of Italy that I meet with
the gay and high Colonna? Alas, young friend," he added in a more
relaxed and kindly voice, "hath the Plague not spared the flower of
the Roman nobles? Come, I, the cruel and the harsh tribune, _I_ will
be thy nurse: he who might have been my brother, shall yet claim from
me a brother's care."
With these words, he wound his arm tenderly round Adrian; and the
young noble, touched by his compassion, and agitated by the surprize,
leant upon Rienzi's breast in silence.
"Poor youth," resumed the Tribune, for so since rather fallen than
deposed he may yet be called, "I ever loved the young; (my brother
died young!) and you more than most. What fatality brought thee
hither?"
"Irene!" replied Adrian falteringly.
"Is it so, really? Art thou a Colonna, and yet prize the fallen? The
same duty has brought me also to the City of Death. From the farthest
south--over the mountains of the robber--through the fastnesses of my
foes--through towns in which the herald proclaimed in my ear the price
of my head--I have passed hither, on foot and alone, safe under the
wings of the Almighty One. Young man, thou shouldst have left this
task to one who bears a wizard's life, and whom Heaven and Earth yet
reserve for an appointed end!"
The Tribune said this in a deep and inward voice; and in his raised
eye and solemn brow might be seen how much his reverses had deepened
his fanaticism, and added even to the sanguineness of his hopes.
"But," asked Adrian, withdrawing gently from Rienzi's arm, "thou
knowest, then, where Irene is to be found, let us go together. Lose
not a moment in this talk--time is of inestimable value, and a moment
in this city is often but the border to eternity."
"Right," said Rienzi, awakening to his object. "But fear not; I _have
dreamt_ that I shall save her, the gem and darling of my house. Fear
not--_I_ have no fear."
"Know you where to seek," said Adrian, impatiently; "the convent holds
far other guests."
"Ha! so said my dream!"
"Talk not now of dreams," said the lover, "but if you have no other
guide, let us part at once in quest of her; I will take yonder street,
you take the opposite, and at sunset let us meet in the same spot."
"Rash man," said the Tribune, with great solemnity, "scoff not at the
visions which Heaven makes a parable to its Chosen. Thou seekest
counsel of thy human wisdom; I, less presumptuous, follow the hand of
the mysterious Providence, moving even now before my gaze as a pillar
of light, through the wilderness of dread. Ay, meet we here at sunset,
and prove whose guide is the most unerring. If my dream tell me true,
I shall see my sister living, ere the sun reach yonder hill, and by a
church dedicated to St. Mark."
The grave earnestness with which Rienzi spoke, impressed Adrian with a
hope his reason would not acknowledge. He saw him depart with that
proud and stately step to which his sweeping garments gave a yet more
imposing dignity, and then passed up the street to the right hand. He
had not got half way when he felt himself pulled by the mantle. He
turned and saw the shapeless mask of a Becchino.
"I feared you were sped, and that another had cheated me of my
office," said the grave-digger, "seeing that you returned not to the
old prince's palace. You don't know me from the rest of us, I see, but
I am the one you told to seek----"
"Irene!"
"Yes, Irene di Gabrini, you promised ample reward."
"You shall have it."
"Follow me."
The Becchino strode on, and soon arrived at a mansion. He knocked
twice at the porter's entrance; an old woman cautiously opened the
door. "Fear not, good aunt," said the grave-digger, "this is the young
lord I spoke to thee of. Thou sayest thou hadst two ladies in the
palace, who alone survived of all the lodgers, and their names were
Bianca di Medici, and--what was the other?"
"Irene di Gabrini, a Roman lady. But I told thee this was the fourth
day they left the house, terrified by the deaths within it."
"Thou didst so--and was there any thing remarkable in the dress of the
Signora di Gabrini?"
"Yes, I have told thee, a blue mantle, such as I have rarely seen,
wrought with silver."
"Was the broidery that of stars, silver stars," exclaimed Adrian,
"with a sun in the centre."
"It was!"
"Alas! alas! the arms of the Tribune's family! I remember how I
praised the mantle the first day she wore it--the day on which we were
betrothed!" And the lover at once conjectured the secret sentiment
which had induced Irene to retain so carefully a robe so endeared by
association.
"You know no more of your lodgers?"
"Nothing."
"And is this all you have learnt, knave?" cried Adrian.
"Patience. I must bring you from proof to proof, and link to link, in
order to win my reward. Follow, Signor."
The Becchino then passing through the several lanes and streets,
arrived at another house of less magnificent size and architecture.
Again he tapped thrice at the parlor door, and this time came forth a
man withered, old, and palsied, whom death seemed to disdain to
strike.
"Signor Astuccio," said the Becchino, "pardon me; but I told thee I
might trouble thee again. This is the gentleman who wants to know,
what is often best unknown--but that's not my affair. Did a
lady--young and beautiful--with dark hair, and of a slender form,
enter this house, stricken with the first symptom of the plague, three
days since?"
"Ay, thou knowest that well enough--and thou knowest still
better--that she has departed these two days; it was quick work with
her, quicker than with most!"
"Did she wear any thing remarkable?"
"Yes, troublesome man, a blue cloak with stars of silver."
{201} "Couldst thou guess aught of her previous circumstances?"
"No, save that she raved much about the nunnery of Santa Maria dei
Pazza, and bravos, and sacrilege."
"Are you satisfied, Signor?" asked the grave-digger, with an air of
triumph, turning to Adrian. "But no, I will satisfy thee better, if
thou hast courage. Wilt thou follow?"
"I comprehend thee; lead on. Courage! what is there on earth now to
fear?"
Muttering to himself--"Ay, leave me alone. I have a head worth
something; I ask no gentleman to go by my word; I will make his own
eyes the judge of what my trouble is worth." The grave-digger now led
the way through one of the gates a little out of the city. And here
under a shed sat six of his ghastly and ill-omened brethren, with
spades and pick-axes at their feet.
His guide now turned round to Adrian, whose face was set and resolute
in despair.
"Fair Signor," said he, with some touch of lingering compassion,
"wouldst thou really convince thine own eyes and heart; the sight may
appal, the contagion may destroy thee,--if, indeed, as it seems to me,
Death has not already written '_mine_' upon thee."
"Raven of bode and woe," answered Adrian, "seest thou not that all I
shrink from is thy voice and aspect? Show me her I seek, living or
dead."
"I will show her to you, then," said the Becchino, sullenly, "such as
two nights since she was committed to my charge. Line and lineament
may already be swept away, for the Plague hath a rapid besom; but I
have left that upon her by which you will know the Becchino is no
liar. Bring hither the torches, comrades, and lift the door. Never
stare; it's the gentleman's whim, and he'll pay it well."
Turning to the right, while Adrian mechanically followed his
conductors,--a spectacle whose dire philosophy crushes as with a wheel
all the pride of mortal man--the spectacle of that vault in which
earth hides all that on earth flourished, rejoiced, exulted--awaited
his eye!
The Becchino lifted a ponderous grate, lowered their torches (scarcely
needed, for through the aperture rushed, with a hideous glare, the
light of the burning sun,) and motioned to Adrian to advance. He stood
upon the summit of the abyss and gazed below.
* * * * *
* * * * *
It was a large, deep and circular space, like the bottom of an
exhausted well. In niches cut into the walls of earth around, lay,
duly confined, those who had been the earliest victims of the plague,
when the Becchino's market was not yet glutted, and priest followed,
and friend mourned, the dead. But on the floor below, _there_ was the
loathsome horror! Huddled and matted together,--some naked, some in
shrouds already black and rotten,--lay the later guests, the unshriven
and unblest! The torches, the sun, streamed broad and red over
corruption in all its stages, from the pale blue tint and swollen
shape, to the moistened undistinguishable mass, or the riddled bones,
where yet clung, in strips and tatters, the black and mangled flesh.
In many the face remained almost perfect, while the rest of the body
was but bone; the long hair, the human face, surmounting the grisly
skeleton. There, was the infant, still on the mother's breast; there,
was the lover stretched across the dainty limbs of his adored! The
rats (for they clustered in numbers to that feast,) disturbed, not
scared, sate up from their horrid meal as the light glimmered over
them, and thousands of them lay round, stark and dead, poisoned by
that they fed on! There, too, the wild satire of the grave-diggers had
cast, though stripped of their gold and jewels, the emblems that spoke
of departed rank;--the broken wand of the Councillor; the General's
baton; the Priestly Mitre! The foul and livid exhalations gathered
like flesh itself, fungous and putrid, upon the walls, and the----
* * * * *
* * * * *
But who shall detail the ineffable and unimaginable horrors that
reigned over the Palace where the Great King received the prisoners
whom the sword of the Pestilence had subdued.
But through all that crowded court--crowded with beauty and with
birth, with the strength of the young and the honors of the old, and
the valor of the brave, and the wisdom of the learned, and the wit of
the scorner, and the piety of the faithful--one only figure attracted
Adrian's eye. Apart from the rest, a late comer--the long locks
streaming far and dark over arm and breast--lay a female, the face
turned partially aside, the little seen not recognisable even by the
mother of the dead,--but wrapped round in that fatal mantle, on which,
though blackened and tarnished, was yet visible the starry heraldry
assumed by those who claimed the name of the proud Tribune of Rome.
Adrian saw no more--he fell back in the arms of the grave diggers:
when he recovered, he was still without the gates of
Florence--reclined upon a green mound--his guide stood beside
him--holding his steed by the bridle as it grazed patiently on the
neglected grass. The other brethren of the axe had resumed their seat
under the shed.
"So you have revived; ah! I thought it was only the effluvia; few
stand it as we do. And so, as your search is over, deeming you would
not be quitting Florence if you have any sense left to you, I went for
your good horse. I have fed him since your departure from the palace.
Indeed I fancied he would be my perquisite, but there are plenty as
good. Come, young Sir, mount. I feel a pity for you, I know not why,
except that you are the only one I have met for weeks who seem to care
for another more than for yourself. I hope you are satisfied now that
I showed some brains, eh! in your service, and as I have kept my
promise, you'll keep yours."
"Friend," said Adrian, "here is gold enough to make thee rich; here
too is a jewel that merchants will tell thee princes might vie to
purchase. Thou seemest honest, despite thy calling, or thou mightest
have robbed and murdered me long since. Do me one favor more."
"By my poor mother's soul, yes."
"Take yon--yon clay from that fearful place. Inter it in some quiet
and remote spot--apart--alone! You promise me--you swear it--it is
well. And now help me on my horse."
"Farewell Italy, and if I die not with this stroke, may I die as
befits at once honor and despair--with trumpet and banner round me--in
a well-fought field against a worthy foe!--save a knightly death
nothing is left to live for!"
Here, in many incidents of extraordinary force--in the call of the
Becchini on the third night--in the most agonizing circumstance of
Irene's abandonment of Adrian--in the bodily weakness and mental
prostration of that young nobleman--in the desolation of the
streets--in the meeting with Rienzi--in the colossal dignity of the
words, "I am he that was Rienzi!"--in the affectionate attention of
the fallen hero--and lastly, in the appalling horror of the vault and
its details--may be seen and will be felt much, but not all, of the
exceeding power of the "_Last of the Tribunes_."