THE WAYSIDE CHAPEL.
On the morning of the same day, Margarita was surprised to receive a
note, purporting to be from Cecil, whose handwriting she had never
seen, requesting her to be at the wayside chapel of Krall Lazar two
hours before noon, as the exigencies of the service required his
presence elsewhere at the time formerly appointed.
This note had been give to Theodore by a man attired like a peasant,
who promptly disappeared.
'Sooner than noon!' thought Margarita; 'perhaps he is impatient to
see me. He does love me--he must love me. But perhaps some dread of
Palenka fetters his tongue; or can it be--but let me not think
_that_!'
Never had Ottilie found her mistress more difficult to please in the
mode of dressing her beautiful hair, than on the morning of this day,
in the selection of a costume and the choice of colours; but at last
she was attired to her own satisfaction, and when the time came, left
Palenka by a garden-gate, and took the path that led to the wayside
chapel, or altar, for, though named the former, it had rather the
character of being the latter only.
Like Cecil, she, with all her hopes and wishes, had more than once
questioned herself as to the end or utility of this meeting which it
had been--she felt it--so unwomanly in her to invite.
She could not yet bear the idea that he should pass out of her life,
or he out of hers. She dreaded an unknown rival, as she had never
been baffled before; and over that rival, if such existed, she hoped
in the end to triumph by the power of her beauty and fascination of
manner, and to win him, without pity, to herself; and, full of such
thoughts, she trod lightly the steep and winding way that led to the
shrine of Krall Lazar, and softly sang to herself the little Servian
song of 'The Wishes,' which elsewhere she had sung to Cecil.
The morning was a glorious one, and in the poetry of her nature
Margarita felt all the softening and exhilarating influences of it.
The heavy fragrance of the great fir forest, on which the night-dew
lingered, loaded the air, and the rays of the sun fell aslant them
here and there, through the flat and fan-like boughs, from which the
great, over-ripe cones, brown and full of seed, were dropping ever
and anon.
A sea of pines, dark-green and sombre, seemed to spread in spiky
conical peaks up the steep mountain-slopes, as she proceeded by the
narrow pathway to the appointed place, her heart beating hopefully
and happily in anticipation.
At last she reached the vine-covered shrine; it stood alone; no one
was there.
'Cecil!' she said softly, and listened.
Then came a sound as of branches crackling, and a man clad like a
Servian peasant started from behind the edifice and stood before her;
but through the disguise, now minus the beard, and with close-shaven
chin and well-trimmed black moustache, she knew the pale face
of--Mattei Guebhard!
'You here?' exclaimed Margarita, shrinking back.
'Yes, I,' said he, grimly; 'you got a note----'
'From--from the Herr Lieutenant.'
'No; from _me_.'
'You?'
'In his name,' said Guebhard, laughing softly; 'could I have lured
you here, else?'
'Decidedly not,' she replied, with perplexity and anger. 'But how
knew you that I was to be here?'
'Every movement of yours is known to me.'
'And your purpose?' asked Margarita.
'I scarcely know--punishment--revenge!' he replied, incoherently and
a a little wildly.
As he surveyed her now he saw not a vestige of her soft, persuasive,
and caressing manner, or the witchery of her sovereign smile. Her
face expressed only deep anger, profound disdain, and utter
indifference by turns; yet he attempted to take her hand, but she
wrenched it away and waved him back, with a grandeur of gesture that
compelled him to obey, while her eyes flashed with unspoken
indignation.
It was at this moment that the rose-pearl bracelet fell from her
wrist, but both were too preoccupied to observe it.
'You visited the English cur in his prison?' said he, after a pause.
'Who told you so?'
'Heed not who told me so--suffice it that I know you did.'
'What then? Am I accountable to you for my actions?'
'This morning you are.'
'Fool--you forget yourself!'
Guebhard looked into her cool and defiant face, and read but too
plainly an expression of hatred in her beautiful eyes. He saw the
curl of careless scorn on her sweet red lips, and a sigh of rage
escaped him, though for a moment--but a moment only--his eyes sought
hers with an anguish of entreaty.
'Perjurer and deserter!' said she defiantly and bitterly; 'the
soldier who is false to his colours--the man who is false to his
country--is beneath rebuke; but not beneath vengeance.'
'You saved the man's life on one hand,' said he, hoarsely; 'on the
other, you exposed me, compelling me to anticipate an old intention
of joining the Turkish standard, which must prevail here and
elsewhere. You saved his life and won his gratitude and love; but
neither will avail, for by the God who hears us, you shall never see
him more!'
'Who will separate us?'
'I shall!'
'Stand aside, Captain Guebhard!' said she haughtily, and now dreading
every moment to hear the step of Cecil ascending the path; 'stand
aside--from this day you and I must be to each other as the dead.'
'As the dead--yes--be it so. I know you hate me now--though once you
did not do so.'
'I never even valued you as a friend, though you flattered yourself
that you stood even higher than a friend in my estimation; and now as
a deserter from the Servian cause----'
'I am more Bulgarian than Servian in my blood, perhaps more Italian
than either,' said he, hotly. 'Milano omitted to give me the cross,
though I had won it in our first battle, so I have assumed the
crescent in its place; that is all--and the crescent will prevail in
the end.'
'Never! we shall live to see the crescent thrust into Asia or the
sea; but as I did not come here to talk politics, I have the honour
to wish you good-morning, Captain Guebhard, and trust that our
comedietta is over.'
'It is a tragedy, as you may find,' was the grim and menacing
response.
'What do you mean, sir?'
'Simply what I say.'
'Insolent! But I fear you will never make your fortune as a Romeo.'
Oaths never rose to the lips of Guebhard; he was--though a finished
villain--too polished a man to indulge in such: but terrible was the
hatred that baffled passion was now raising in his lawless breast. A
dark and angry red shot for a moment across his usually pallid face,
and his eyes gleamed with a vindictiveness of expression that made
the heart of Margarita throb wildly, and with sudden apprehension;
but she could not pass him.
Behind her was a precipice, and before her--barred by him--lay the
path which she must descend to elude him.
Like a heroine, who is described in a recent novel, 'she knew well
enough that forgetfulness was a treasure for evermore beyond the
reach of those who once loved her.' Guebhard had loved her, she
knew, and this love had well-nigh maddened him--and now Guebhard, in
his tiger-like nature, was beginning to hate her--nay, hated her
already!
He grasped her delicate wrist with a force she could not withstand.
'Listen to me,' said he, with calm yet sad ferocity in his tone and
eyes; 'I am not the first, among many, whom your beauty and your
wiles have fooled and beguiled--for few women have had such
Circe-like power as you--but I shall be the last on whose face you
will look.'
'What do you mean?' she asked, in a low and agitated voice.
'That you will soon learn--come here,' he continued, hoarsely;
'here--and look down,' he added, dragging her to the giddy verge of
the beetling cliff, at the base of which, spread out like a map, was
the woody landscape stretching away towards Katadar, with the Morava
winding through it like a silver snake.
'Have pity, Guebhard!' exclaimed Margarita, shrinking back, while a
mortal terror seized her now, for the expression of his eyes froze
her heart.
'Pity--it is too late--too late!' he replied, yet with something like
a sob in his throat.
'Forgiveness is saint-like, Guebhard,' she urged piteously.
'But I am no saint, Margarita--I am only a humble mortal.'
'Mortal or not--man or devil--why have I to seek forgiveness of
_you_?' she exclaimed, as a gust of indignation and pride came to her
aid, and she strove to break away from him; but finding that all her
efforts were vain, and that he was too strong for her, she shrieked
out wildly, 'Cecil! Cecil!'
The name seemed to madden him. Stung to frenzy, he drew a pistol
from his belt; but replaced it, and grasped his yataghan; that, too,
he declined to use, lest it might elicit a shriek again and bring
succour, for with all his frenzy, there was a method in his madness,
and his next thought was--strangulation!
The proud and lovely neck she would not have permitted him to kiss
was now to feel the tiger-like clutch of his long, lean and felon
fingers, as they closed round her snow-white throat.
'Mercy, Guebhard--mercy!' she gasped; 'I am too young--too
young--perhaps too wicked--to die!'
Fate was upon her, and Guebhard was no longer a reasoning being.
There were tears in her starting and bloodshot eyes, and clamorous
fury gathered in Guebhard's heart, while his infernal gripe grew
closer; her arms fell powerless by her side--he felt the tumultuous
heavings of her bosom against his own. Sense had not left her; she
could not doubt the desperate character of his attack, and though she
ceased to struggle, her eyes spoke, and with such a language that
Guebhard dared not look on them again--they seemed so mournfully to
implore his mercy--but his heart, blazing with the insensate hate
that springs from baffled love, knew none!
In vain; his gripe grew tighter upon her delicate throat, that was
all symmetry and whiteness: a terrible spasm convulsed her frame;
then he knew that all was over, that she was dead in his hands, and
daring no more to look upon her, he flung her over the awful cliff
close by; and that he might not hear the sound, if any, that came
from below, he sank on his knees, and covered his ears with his hot
tremulous hands. So perished Margarita!
Her death was not the first that lay on Guebhard's soul, no doubt;
but, for a minute, he scarcely seemed to breathe, and his wild
glaring eyes seemed to wander stealthily in the air, in the woods,
and on the ground beneath him, as if to avoid the last glance of
appealing despair, that seemed to confront him everywhere now.
The leaves of the trees seemed to become eyes--then tongues that
whispered, he knew not what.
'Margarita!' said he involuntarily, and, to his overstrained fancy, a
thousand echoes seemed to give back the name of the dead--the dead
girl that, though mangled and lying far down below, was not yet cold.
'Margarita!' he said again, but in a lower voice, the name breaking
from him in the instinct of the awful time, rather than in conscious
utterance.
Suddenly the sound of approaching footsteps met his ear. A man was
ascending the pathway to the shrine, and Guebhard, who, in the agony
and frenzy of the time, had forgotten all about Cecil--for it was he
who was coming--dashed into the copse-wood and fled from the spot
like a hunted hare, seeking the gloomiest spots with that loathing of
the light which it has been averred some murderers feel.