"There stands he that governs Klosterheim by night!" thought every
cavalier, as he endeavored to pierce the gloomy being's concealment
with penetrating eyes, or, by scrutiny ten times repeated, to unmasque
the dismal secrets which lurked beneath his disguise. "There stands the
gloomy murderer!" thought another. "There stands the poor detected
criminal," thought the pitying young ladies, "who in the next moment
must lay bare his breast to the Landgrave's musketeers."
The figure, meantime, stood tranquil and collected, apparently not in
the least disturbed by the consciousness of his situation, or the
breathless suspense of more than a thousand spectators of rank and
eminent station, all bending their looks upon himself. He had been
leaning against a marble column, as if wrapped up in revery, and
careless of everything about him. But when the dead silence announced
that the ceremony was closed, that he only remained to answer for
himself, and upon palpable proof--evidence not to be gainsayed--
incapable of answering satisfactorily; when, in fact, it was beyond
dispute that here was at length revealed, in bodily presence, before
the eyes of those whom he had so long haunted with terrors, The Masque
of Klosterheim,--it was naturally expected that now, at least, he would
show alarm and trepidation; that he would prepare for defence, or
address himself to instant flight.
Far otherwise! Cooler than any one person beside in the saloon, he
stood, like the marble column against which he had been reclining,
upright, massy, and imperturbable. He was enveloped in a voluminous
mantle, which, at this moment, with a leisurely motion, he suffered to
fall at his feet, and displayed a figure in which the grace of an
Antinous met with the columnar strength of a Grecian Hercules,--
presenting, in its _tout ensemble_, the majestic proportions of a
Jupiter. He stood--a breathing statue of gladiatorial beauty, towering
above all who were near him, and eclipsing the noblest specimens of the
human form which the martial assembly presented. A buzz of admiration
arose, which in the following moment was suspended by the dubious
recollections investing his past appearances, and the terror which
waited even on his present movements. He was armed to the teeth; and he
was obviously preparing to move.
Not a word had yet been spoken; so tumultuous was the succession of
surprises, so mixed and conflicting the feelings, so intense the
anxiety. The arrangement of the groups was this: At the lower half of
the room, but starting forward in attitudes of admiration or suspense,
were the ladies of Klosterheim. At the upper end, in the centre, one
hand raised to bespeak attention, was The Masque of Klosterheim. To his
left, and a little behind him, with a subtle Venetian countenance, one
hand waving back a half file of musketeers, and the other raised as if
to arrest the arm of The Masque, was the wily minister Adorni, creeping
nearer and nearer with a stealthy stride. To his right was the great
body of Klosterheim cavaliers, a score of students and young officers
pressing forward to the front; but in advance of the whole, the
Landgrave of X----, haughty, lowering, and throwing out looks of
defiance. These were the positions and attitudes in which the first
discovery of The Masque had surprised them; and these they still
retained. Less dignified spectators were looking downwards from the
galleries.
"Surrender!" was the first word by which silence was broken; it came
from the Landgrave.
"Or die!" exclaimed Adorni.
"He dies in any case," rejoined the prince.
The Masque still raised his hand with the action of one who bespeaks
attention. Adorni he deigned not to notice. Slightly inclining his head
to the Landgrave, in a tone to which it might be the headdress of
elaborate steel work that gave a sepulchral tone, he replied:
"The Masque, who rules in Klosterheim by night, surrenders not. He can
die. But first he will complete the ceremony of the night; he will
reveal himself."
"That is superfluous," exclaimed Adorni; "we need no further
revelations. Seize him, and lead him out to death!"
"Dog of an Italian!" replied The Masque, drawing a dag [Footnote:
_Dag_, a sort of pistol or carbine.] from his belt, "die first
yourself!" And so saying, he slowly turned and levelled the barrel at
Adorni, who fled with two bounds to the soldiers in the rear. Then,
withdrawing the weapon hastily, he added, in a tone of cool contempt,
"Or bridle that coward's tongue."
But this was not the minister's intention. "Seize him!" he cried again
impetuously to the soldiers, laying his hand on the arm of the
foremost, and pointing them forward to their prey.
"No!" said the Landgrave, with a commanding voice; "halt! I bid you."
Something there was in the tone, or it might be that there was
something in his private recollections, or something in the general
mystery, which promised a discovery that he feared to lose by the too
precipitate vengeance of the Italian. "What is it, mysterious being,
that you would reveal? Or who is it that you now believe interested in
your revelations?"
"Yourself.--Prince, it would seem that you have me at your mercy:
wherefore, then, the coward haste of this Venetian hound? I am one; you
are many. Lead me, then, out; shoot me. But no: freely I entered this
hall; freely I will leave it. If I must die, I will die as a soldier.
Such I am; and neither runagate from a foreign land, nor "--turning to
Adorni-"a base mechanic."
"But a murderer!" shrieked Adorni: "but a murderer; and with hands yet
reeking from innocent blood!"
"Blood, Adorni, that I will yet avenge.--Prince, you demand the nature
of my revelations. I will reveal my name, my quality, and my mission."
"And to whom?"
"To yourself, and none beside. And, as a pledge for the sincerity of my
discoveries, I will first of all communicate a dreadful secret, known,
as you fondly believe, to none but your highness. Prince, dare you
receive my revelations?"
Speaking thus, The Masque took one step to the rear, turning his back
upon the room, and by a gesture signified his wish that the Landgrave
should accompany him. But at this motion ten or a dozen of the foremost
among the young cavaliers started forward in advance of the Landgrave,
in part forming a half-circle about his person, and in part commanding
the open doorway.
"He is armed!" they exclaimed; "and trebly armed: will your highness
approach him too nearly?"
"I fear him not," said the Landgrave, with something of a contemptuous
tone.
"Wherefore should you fear me?" retorted The Masque, with a manner so
tranquil and serene as involuntarily to disarm suspicion. "Were it
possible that I should seek the life of any man here in particular, in
that case (pointing to the fire-arms in his belt), why should I need to
come nearer? Were it possible that any should find in my conduct here a
motive to a personal vengeance upon myself, which of you is not near
enough? Has your highness the courage to trample on such terrors?"
Thus challenged, as it were, to a trial of his courage before the
assembled rank of Klosterheim, the Landgrave waved off all who would
have stepped forward officiously to his support. If he felt any
tremors, he was now sensible that pride and princely honor called upon
him to dissemble them. And, probably, that sort of tremors which he
felt in reality did not point in a direction to which physical support,
such as was now tendered, could have been available. He hesitated no
longer, but strode forward to meet The Masque. His highness and The
Masque met near the archway of the door, in the very centre of the
groups.
With a thrilling tone, deep, piercing, full of alarm, The Masque began
thus:
"To win your confidence, forever to establish credit with your
highness, I will first of all reveal the name of that murderer who this
night dared to pollute your palace with an old man's blood. Prince,
bend your ear a little this way."
With a shudder, and a visible effort of self-command, the Landgrave
inclined his ear to The Masque, who added,--
"Your highness will be shocked to hear it:" then, in a lower tone, "Who
could have believed it?--It was----." All was pronounced clearly and
strongly, except the last word--the name of the murderer; _that_ was
made audible only to the Landgrave's ear.
Sudden and tremendous was the effect upon the prince: he reeled a few
paces off; put his hand to the hilt of his sword; smote his forehead;
threw frenzied looks upon The Masque,--now half imploring, now dark
with vindictive wrath. Then succeeded a pause of profoundest silence,
during which all the twelve hundred visitors, whom he had himself
assembled as if expressly to make them witnesses of this extraordinary
scene, and of the power with which a stranger could shake him to and
fro in a tempestuous strife of passions, were looking and hearkening
with senses on the stretch to pierce the veil of silence and of
distance. At last the Landgrave mastered his emotion sufficiently to
say, "Well, sir, what next?"
"Next comes a revelation of another kind; and I warn you, sir, that it
will not be less trying to the nerves. For this first I needed your
ear; now I shall need your eyes. Think again, prince, whether you will
stand the trial."
"Pshaw! sir, you trifle with me; again I tell you--" But here the
Landgrave spoke with an affectation of composure, and with an effort
that did not escape notice;--"again I tell you that I fear you not. Go
on."
"Then come forward a little, please your highness, to the light of this
lamp." So saying, with a step or two in advance, he drew the prince
under the powerful glare of a lamp suspended near the great archway of
entrance from the interior of the palace. Both were now standing with
their faces entirely averted from the spectators. Still more
effectually, however, to screen himself from any of those groups on the
left, whose advanced position gave them somewhat more the advantage of
an oblique aspect, The Masque, at this moment, suddenly drew up, with
his left hand, a short Spanish mantle which depended from his
shoulders, and now gave him the benefit of a lateral screen. Then, so
far as the company behind them could guess at his act, unlocking with
his right hand and raising the masque which shrouded his mysterious
features, he shouted aloud, in a voice that rang clear through every
corner of the vast saloon, "Landgrave, for crimes yet unrevealed, I
summon you, in twenty days, before a tribunal where there is no shield
but innocence" and at that moment turned his countenance full upon the
prince.
With a yell, rather than a human expression of terror, the Landgrave
fell, as if shot by a thunderbolt, stretched at his full length upon
the ground, lifeless apparently, and bereft of consciousness or
sensation. A sympathetic cry of horror arose from the spectators. All
rushed towards The Masque. The young cavaliers, who had first stepped
forward as volunteers in the Landgrave's defence, were foremost, and
interposed between The Masque and the outstretched arms of Adorni, as
if eager to seize him first. In an instant a sudden and dense cloud of
smoke arose, nobody knew whence. Repeated discharges of fire-arms were
heard resounding from the doorway and the passages; these increased the
smoke and the confusion. Trumpets sounded through the corridors. The
whole archway, under which The Masque and the Landgrave had been
standing, became choked up with soldiery, summoned by the furious
alarms that echoed through the palace. All was one uproar and chaos of
masques, plumes, helmets, halberds, trumpets, gleaming sabres, and the
fierce faces of soldiery forcing themselves through the floating
drapery of smoke that now filled the whole upper end of the saloon.
Adorni was seen in the midst, raving fruitlessly. Nobody heard, nobody
listened. Universal panic had seized the household, the soldiery, and
the company. Nobody understood exactly for what purpose the tumult had
commenced--in what direction it tended. Some tragic catastrophe was
reported from mouth to mouth: nobody knew what. Some said the Landgrave
had been assassinated; some, The Masque; some asserted that both had
perished under reciprocal assaults. More believed that The Masque had
proved to be of that supernatural order of beings, with which the
prevailing opinions of Klosterheim had long classed him; and that, upon
raising his disguise, he had revealed to the Landgrave the fleshless
skull of some forgotten tenant of the grave. This indeed seemed to many
the only solution that, whilst it fell in with the prejudices and
superstitions of the age, was of a nature to account for that
tremendous effect which the discovery had produced upon the Landgrave.
But it was one that naturally could be little calculated to calm the
agitations of the public prevailing at this moment. This spread
contagiously. The succession of alarming events,--the murder, the
appearance of The Masque, his subsequent extraordinary behavior, the
overwhelming impression upon the Landgrave, which had formed the
catastrophe of this scenical exhibition,--the consternation of the
great Swedish officers, who were spending the night in Klosterheim, and
reasonably suspected that the tumult might be owing to the sudden
detection of their own _incognito_, and that, in consequence, the
populace of this imperial city were suddenly rising to arms; the
endless distraction and counter-action of so many thousand persons--
visitors, servants, soldiery, household--all hurrying to the same
point, and bringing assistance to a danger of which nobody knew the
origin, nobody the nature, nobody the issue; multitudes commanding
where all obedience was forgotten, all subordination had gone to
wreck;--these circumstances of distraction united to sustain a scene of
absolute frenzy in the castle, which, for more than half an hour, the
dense columns of smoke aggravated alarmingly, by raising, in many
quarters, additional terrors of fire. And when, at last, after infinite
exertions, the soldiery had deployed into the ball-room and the
adjacent apartments of state, and had succeeded, at the point of the
pike, in establishing a safe egress for the twelve hundred visitors, it
was then first ascertained that all traces of The Masque had been lost
in the smoke and subsequent confusion; and that, with his usual good
fortune, he had succeeded in baffling his pursuers.