THE THUNDER-STORM--THE EBONY STICK--THE UNSEEN VISITANT--TERROR.
At length the uproar in Sir Richard's room died away. The hoarse voice
in furious soliloquy, and the rapid tread as he paced the floor, were
no longer audible. In their stead was heard alone the stormy wind
rushing and yelling through the old trees, and at intervals the deep
volleying thunder. In the midst of this hubbub the Italian rubbed his
hands, tripped lightly up and down his room, placed his ear at the
keyhole, and chuckled and rubbed his hands again in a paroxysm of
glee--now and again venting his gratification in brief ejaculations of
intense delight--the very incarnation of the spirit of mischief.
The sounds in Sir Richard's room had ceased for two hours or more; and
the piping wind and the deep-mouthed thunder still roared and rattled.
The Neapolitan was too much excited to slumber. He continued,
therefore, to pace the floor of his chamber--sometimes gazing through
his window upon the black stormy sky and the blue lightning, which
leaped in blinding flashes across its darkness, revealing for a moment
the ivied walls, and the tossing trees, and the fields and hills, which
were as instantaneously again swallowed in the blackness of the
tempestuous night; and then turning from the casement, he would plant
himself by the door, and listen with eager curiosity for any sound from
Sir Richard's room.
As we have said before, several hours had passed, and all had long been
silent in the baronet's apartment, when on a sudden Parucci thought he
heard the sharp and well-known knocking of his patron's ebony stick
upon the floor. He ran and listened at his own door. The sound was
repeated with unequivocal and vehement distinctness, and was
instantaneously followed by a prolonged and violent peal from his
master's hand-bell. The summons was so sustained and vehement, that the
Italian at length cautiously withdrew the bolt, unlocked the door, and
stole out upon the lobby. So far from abating, the sound grew louder
and louder. On tip-toe he scaled the stairs, until he reached to about
the midway; and he there paused, for he heard his master's voice
exerted in a tone of terrified entreaty,--
"Not now--not now--avaunt--not now. Oh, God!--help," cried the
well-known voice.
These words were followed by a crash, as of some heavy body springing
from the bed--then a rush upon the floor--then another crash.
The voice was hushed; but in its stead the wild storm made a long and
plaintive moan, and the listener's heart turned cold.
"_Malora_--_Corpo di Pluto!_" muttered he between his teeth. "What is
it? Will he reeng again? _Santo gennaro!_--there is something wrong."
He paused in fearful curiosity; but the summons was not repeated. Five
minutes passed; and yet no sound but the howling and pealing of the
storm. Parucci, with a beating heart, ascended the stairs and knocked
at the door of his patron's chamber. No answer was returned.
"Sir Richard, Sir Richard," cried the man, "do you want me, Sir
Richard?"
Still no answer. He pushed open the door and entered. A candle, wasted
to the very socket, stood upon a table beside the huge hearse-like bed,
which, for the convenience of the invalid, had been removed from his
bed-chamber to his dressing-room. The light was dim, and waved
uncertainly in the eddies which found their way through the chinks of
the window, so that the lights and shadows flitted ambiguously across
the objects in the room. At the end of the bed a table had been upset;
and lying near it upon the floor was some-thing--a heap of bed-clothes,
or--could it be?--yes, it _was_ Sir Richard Ashwoode.
Parncci approached the prostrate figure: it was lying upon its back,
the countenance fixed and livid, the eyes staring and glazed, and the
jaw fallen--he was a corpse. The Italian stooped down and took the hand
of the dead man--it was already cold; he called him by his name and
shook him, but all in vain. There lay the cunning intriguer, the
fierce, fiery prodigal, the impetuous, unrelenting tyrant, the
unbelieving, reckless man of the world, a ghastly lump of clay.
[Illustration: "Parucci approached the prostate figure."
_To face page 156._]
With strange emotions the Neapolitan gazed upon the lifeless effigy
from which the evil tenant had been so suddenly and fearfully called to
its eternal and unseen abode.
"Gone--dead--all over--all past," muttered he, slowly, while he pressed
his foot upon the dead body, as if to satisfy himself that life was
indeed extinct--"quite gone. _Canchero!_ it was ugly death--there was
something with him; what was he speaking with?"
Parucci walked to the door leading to the great staircase, but found it
bolted as usual.
"Pshaw! there was nothing," said he, looking fearfully round the room
as he approached the body again, and repeating the negative as if to
reassure himself--"no, no--nothing, nothing."
He gazed again on the awful spectacle in silence for several minutes.
"_Corbezzoli_, and so it _is_ over," at length he ejaculated--"the game
is ended. See, see, the breast is bare, and there the two marks of
Aldini's stiletto. Ah! _briccone_, _briccone_, what wild faylow were
you--_panzanera_, for a pretty ankle and a pair of black eyes, you
would dare the devil. _Rotto di collo_, his face is moving!--pshaw! it
is only the light that wavers. _Diamine!_ the face is terrible. What
made him speak? nothing was with him--pshaw! nothing could come to him
here--no, no, nothing."
As he thus spoke, the wind swept vehemently upon the windows with a
sound as if some great thing had rushed, against them, and was pressing
for admission, and the gust blew out the candle; the blast died away in
a lengthened wail, and then again came rushing and howling up to the
windows, as if the very prince of the powers of the air himself were
thundering at the casement; then again the blue dazzling lightning
glared into the room and gave place to deeper darkness.
"Pah! that lightning smells like brimstone. _Sangue d'un dua_, I hear
something in the room."
Yielding to his terrors, Parucci stumbled to the door opening upon the
great lobby, and with cold and trembling fingers drawing the bolt,
sprang to the stairs and shouted for assistance in a tone which
speedily assembled half the household in the chamber of death.