of a singular make, intended for suspension in a manner before unknown.
The purpose of this bell, its rotary motion, and connection with the
clock-work, also executed at the time, will, in the sequel, receive
mention.
In the one erection, bell-tower and clock-tower were united, though
before that period such structures had commonly been built distinct; as
the Campanile and Torre dell’ Orologio of St. Mark to this day attest.
But it was upon the great state-bell that the founder lavished his
more daring skill. In vain did some of the less elated magistrates
here caution him, saying that, though truly the tower was Titanic, yet
limit should be set to the dependent weight of its swaying masses. But
undeterred he prepared his mammoth mould, dented with mythological
devices; kindled his fires of balsamic firs; melted his tin and copper,
and, throwing in much plate contributed by the public spirit of the
nobles, let loose the tide.
The unleashed metals bayed like hounds. The workmen shrunk. Through
their fright, fatal harm to the bell was dreaded. Fearless as Shadrach,
Bannadonna, rushing through the glow, smote the chief culprit with his
ponderous ladle. From the smitten part a splinter was dashed into the
seething mass, and at once was melted in.
Next day a portion of the work was heedfully uncovered. All seemed right.
Upon the third morning, with equal satisfaction, it was bared still
lower. At length, like some old Theban king, the whole cooled casting was
disinterred. All was fair except in one strange spot. But as he suffered
no one to attend him in these inspections, he concealed the blemish by
some preparation which none knew better to devise.
The casting of such a mass was deemed no small triumph for the caster;
one, too, in which the state might not scorn to share. The homicide
was overlooked. By the charitable that deed was but imputed to sudden
transports of æsthetic passion, not to any flagitious quality,—a kick
from an Arabian charger; not sign of vice, but blood. His felony remitted
by the judge, absolution given him by the priest, what more could even a
sickly conscience have desired?
Honoring the tower and its builder with another holiday, the republic
witnessed the hoisting of the bells and clock-work amid shows and pomps
superior to the former.
Some months of more than usual solitude on Bannadonna’s part ensued.
It was not unknown that he was engaged upon something for the belfry,
intended to complete it, and to surpass all that had gone before. Most
people imagined that the design would involve a casting like the bells.
But those who thought they had some further insight would shake their
heads, with hints that not for nothing did the mechanician keep so
secret. Meantime, his seclusion failed not to invest his work with more
or less of that sort of mystery pertaining to the forbidden.
Erelong he had a heavy object hoisted to the belfry, wrapped in a dark
sack or cloak,—a procedure sometimes had in the case of an elaborate
piece of sculpture or statue, which, being intended to grace the front of
a new edifice, the architect does not desire exposed to critical eyes,
till set up, finished, in its appointed place. Such was the impression
now. But, as the object rose, a statuary present observed, or thought he
did, that it was not entirely rigid, but was, in a manner, pliant. At
last, when the hidden thing had attained its final height, and, obscurely
seen from below, seemed almost of itself to step into the belfry as if
with little assistance from the crane, a shrewd old blacksmith present
ventured the suspicion that it was but a living man. This surmise was
thought a foolish one, while the general interest failed not to augment.
Not without demur from Bannadonna, the chief magistrate of the town, with
an associate,—both elderly men,—followed what seemed the image up the
tower. But, arrived at the belfry, they had little recompense. Plausibly
intrenching himself behind the conceded mysteries of his art, the
mechanician withheld present explanation. The magistrates glanced toward
the cloaked object, which, to their surprise, seemed now to have changed
its attitude, or else had before been more perplexingly concealed by the
violent muffling action of the wind without. It seemed now seated upon
some sort of frame or chair contained within the domino. They observed
that nigh the top, in a sort of square, the web of the cloth, either
from accident or from design, had its warp partly withdrawn, and the
cross-threads plucked out here and there, so as to form a sort of woven
grating. Whether it were the low wind or no, stealing through the stone
lattice-work, or only their own perturbed imaginations, is uncertain, but
they thought they discerned a slight sort of fitful, spring-like motion,
in the domino. Nothing, however incidental or insignificant, escaped
their uneasy eyes. Among other things, they pried out, in a corner, an
earthen cup, partly corroded and partly incrusted, and one whispered to
the other that this cup was just such a one as might, in mockery, be
offered to the lips of some brazen statue, or, perhaps, still worse.
But, being questioned, the mechanician said that the cup was simply used
in his founder’s business, and described the purpose; in short, a cup to
test the condition of metals in fusion. He added that it had got into the
belfry by the merest chance.
Again and again they gazed at the domino, as at some suspicious incognito
at a Venetian mask. All sorts of vague apprehensions stirred them. They
even dreaded lest, when they should descend, the mechanician, though
without a flesh-and-blood companion, for all that, would not be left
alone.
Affecting some merriment at their disquietude, he begged to relieve them,
by extending a coarse sheet of workman’s canvas between them and the
object.
Meantime he sought to interest them in his other work; nor, now that the
domino was out of sight, did they long remain insensible to the artistic
wonders lying round them; wonders hitherto beheld but in their unfinished
state; because, since hoisting the bells, none but the caster had entered
within the belfry. It was one trait of his that, even in details, he
would not let another do what he could, without too great loss of time,
accomplish for himself. So, for several preceding weeks, whatever hours
were unemployed in his secret design, had been devoted to elaborating the
figures on the bells.
The clock-bell, in particular, now drew attention. Under a patient
chisel, the latent beauty of its enrichments, before obscured by the
cloudings incident to casting, that beauty in its shiest grace, was
now revealed. Round and round the bell, twelve figures of gay girls,
garlanded, hand-in-hand, danced in a choral ring,—the embodied hours.
“Bannadonna,” said the chief, “this bell excels all else. No added touch
could here improve. Hark!” hearing a sound, “was that the wind?”
“The wind, Eccellenza,” was the light response. “But the figures, they
are not yet without their faults. They need some touches yet. When those
are given, and the—block yonder,” pointing toward the canvas screen,
“when Haman there, as I merrily call him,—him? _it_, I mean,—when Haman
is fixed on this, his lofty tree, then, gentlemen, shall I be most happy
to receive you here again.”
The equivocal reference to the object caused some return of restlessness.
However, on their part, the visitors forbore further allusion to it,
unwilling, perhaps, to let the foundling see how easily it lay within
his plebeian art to stir the placid dignity of nobles.
“Well, Bannadonna,” said the chief, “how long ere you are ready to set
the clock going, so that the hour shall be sounded? Our interest in you,
not less than in the work itself, makes us anxious to be assured of your
success. The people, too,—why, they are shouting now. Say the exact hour
when you will be ready.”
“To-morrow, Eccellenza, if you listen for it,—or should you not, all the
same,—strange music will be heard. The stroke of one shall be the first
from yonder bell,” pointing to the bell adorned with girls and garlands;
“that stroke shall fall there, where the hand of Una clasps Dua’s. The
stroke of one shall sever that loved clasp. To-morrow, then, at one
o’clock, as struck here, precisely here,” advancing and placing his
finger upon the clasp, “the poor mechanic will be most happy once more to
give you liege audience, in this his littered shop. Farewell till then,
illustrious magnificoes, and hark ye for your vassal’s stroke.”
His still, Vulcanic face hiding its burning brightness like a forge,
he moved with ostentatious deference toward the scuttle, as if so far
to escort their exit. But the junior magistrate, a kind-hearted man,
troubled at what seemed to him a certain sardonical disdain, lurking
beneath the foundling’s humble mien, and in Christian sympathy more
distressed at it on his account than on his own, dimly surmising
what might be the final fate of such a cynic solitaire, nor perhaps
uninfluenced by the general strangeness of surrounding things,—this good
magistrate had glanced sadly, sidewise from the speaker, and thereupon
his foreboding eye had started at the expression of the unchanging face
of the hour Una.
“How is this, Bannadonna?” he lowly asked, “Una looks unlike her sisters.”
“In Christ’s name, Bannadonna,” impulsively broke in the chief, his
attention for the first time attracted to the figure by his associate’s
remark, “Una’s face looks just like that of Deborah, the prophetess, as
painted by the Florentine, Del Fonca.”
“Surely, Bannadonna,” lowly resumed the milder magistrate, “you meant the
twelve should wear the same jocundly abandoned air. But see, the smile of
Una seems but a fatal one. ’Tis different.”
While his mild associate was speaking, the chief glanced, inquiringly,
from him to the caster, as if anxious to mark how the discrepancy would
be accounted for. As the chief stood, his advanced foot was on the
scuttle’s curb. Bannadonna spoke:—
“Eccellenza, now that, following your keener eye, I glance upon the face
of Una, I do, indeed, perceive some little variance. But look all round
the bell, and you will find no two faces entirely correspond. Because
there is a law in art—But the cold wind is rising more; these lattices
are but a poor defence. Suffer me, magnificoes, to conduct you at least
partly on your way. Those in whose well-being there is a public stake
should be heedfully attended.”
“Touching the look of Una, you were saying, Bannadonna, that there was a
certain law in art,” observed the chief, as the three now descended the
stone shaft, “pray, tell me, then—”
“Pardon—another time, Eccellenza; the tower is damp.”
“Nay, I must rest, and hear it now. Here,—here is a wide landing, and
through this leeward slit no wind, but ample light. Tell us of your law,
and at large.”
“Since, Eccellenza, you insist, know that there is a law in art, which
bars the possibility of duplicates. Some years ago, you may remember, I
graved a small seal for your republic, bearing, for its chief device,
the head of your own ancestor, its illustrious founder. It becoming
necessary, for the customs’ use, to have innumerable impressions for
bales and boxes, I graved an entire plate, containing one hundred of
the seals. Now, though, indeed, my object was to have those hundred
heads identical, and though, I dare say, people think them so, yet, upon
closely scanning an uncut impression from the plate, no two of those
five-score faces, side by side, will be found alike. Gravity is the air
of all; but diversified in all. In some, benevolent; in some, ambiguous;
in two or three, to a close scrutiny, all but incipiently malign, the
variation of less than a hair’s breadth in the linear shadings round the
mouth sufficing to all this. Now, Eccellenza, transmute that general
gravity into joyousness, and subject it to twelve of those variations I
have described, and tell me, will you not have my hours here, and Una one
of them? But I like—”
“Hark! is that—a footfall above?”
“Mortar, Eccellenza; sometimes it drops to the belfry-floor from the arch
where the stonework was left undressed. I must have it seen to. As I was
about to say: for one, I like this law forbidding duplicates. It evokes
fine personalities. Yes, Eccellenza, that strange and—to you—uncertain
smile, and those fore-looking eyes of Una, suit Bannadonna very well.”
“Hark!—sure, we left no soul above?”
“No soul, Eccellenza; rest assured, no _soul_. Again the mortar.”
“It fell not while we were there.”
“Ah, in your presence, it better knew its place, Eccellenza,” blandly
bowed Bannadonna.
“But Una,” said the milder magistrate, “she seemed intently gazing on
you; one would have almost sworn that she picked you out from among us
three.”
“If she did, possibly it might have been her finer apprehension,
Eccellenza.”
“How, Bannadonna? I do not understand you.”
“No consequence, no consequence, Eccellenza: but the shifted wind is
blowing through the slit. Suffer me to escort you on; and then, pardon,
but the toiler must to his tools.”
“It may be foolish, Signor,” said the milder magistrate, as, from the
third landing, the two now went down unescorted, “but, somehow, our great
mechanician moves me strangely. Why, just now, when he so superciliously
replied, his walk seemed Sisera’s, God’s vain foe, in Del Fonca’s
painting. And that young, sculptured Deborah, too. Ay, and that—”
“Tush, tush, Signor!” returned the chief. “A passing whim.
Deborah?—Where’s Jael, pray?”
“Ah,” said the other, as they now stepped upon the sod,—“ah, Signor, I
see you leave your fears behind you with the chill and gloom; but mine,
even in this sunny air, remain. Hark!”
It was a sound from just within the tower door, whence they had emerged.
Turning, they saw it closed.
“He has slipped down and barred us out,” smiled the chief; “but it is his
custom.”
Proclamation was now made that the next day, at one hour after meridian,
the clock would strike, and—thanks to the mechanician’s powerful art—with
unusual accompaniments. But what those should be, none as yet could say.
The announcement was received with cheers.
By the looser sort, who encamped about the tower all night, lights
were seen gleaming through the topmost blind-work, only disappearing
with the morning sun. Strange sounds, too, were heard, or were thought
to be, by those whom anxious watching might not have left mentally
undisturbed,—sounds, not only of some ringing implement, but also—so they
said—half-suppressed screams and plainings, such as might have issued
from some ghostly engine overplied.
Slowly the day drew on; part of the concourse chasing the weary time with
songs and games, till, at last, the great blurred sun rolled, like a
football, against the plain.
At noon, the nobility and principal citizens came from the town in
cavalcade, a guard of soldiers, also, with music, the more to honor the
occasion.
Only one hour more. Impatience grew. Watches were held in hands of
feverish men, who stood, now scrutinizing their small dial-plates, and
then, with neck thrown back, gazing toward the belfry, as if the eye
might foretell that which could only be made sensible to the ear; for,
as yet, there was no dial to the tower-clock.
The hour-hands of a thousand watches now verged within a hair’s breadth
of the figure 1. A silence, as of the expectation of some Shiloh,
pervaded the swarming plain. Suddenly a dull, mangled sound,—naught
ringing in it; scarcely audible, indeed, to the outer circles of the
people,—that dull sound dropped heavily from the belfry. At the same
moment, each man stared at his neighbor blankly. All watches were upheld.
All hour-hands were at—had passed—the figure 1. No bell-stroke from the
tower. The multitude became tumultuous.
Waiting a few moments, the chief magistrate, commanding silence, hailed
the belfry, to know what thing unforeseen had happened there.
No response.
He hailed again and yet again.
All continued hushed.
By his order, the soldiers burst in the tower-door, when, stationing
guards to defend it from the now surging mob, the chief, accompanied
by his former associate, climbed the winding stairs. Half-way up, they
stopped to listen. No sound. Mounting faster, they reached the belfry,
but, at the threshold, started at the spectacle disclosed. A spaniel,
which, unbeknown to them, had followed them thus far, stood shivering
as before some unknown monster in a brake; or, rather, as if it snuffed
footsteps leading to some other world.
Bannadonna lay, prostrate and bleeding, at the base of the bell which was
adorned with girls and garlands. He lay at the feet of the hour Una; his
head coinciding, in a vertical line, with her left hand, clasped by the
hour Dua. With downcast face impending over him, like Jael over nailed
Sisera in the tent, was the domino; now no more becloaked.
It had limbs, and seemed clad in a scaly mail, lustrous as a
dragon-beetle’s. It was manacled, and its clubbed arms were uplifted, as
if, with its manacles, once more to smite its already smitten victim. One
advanced foot of it was inserted beneath the dead body, as if in the act
of spurning it.
Uncertainty falls on what now followed.
It were but natural to suppose that the magistrates would, at first,
shrink from immediate personal contact with what they saw. At the least,
for a time, they would stand in involuntary doubt; it may be, in more or
less of horrified alarm. Certain it is, that an arquebuse was called for
from below. And some add that its report, followed by a fierce whiz, as
of the sudden snapping of a main-spring, with a steely din, as if a stack
of sword-blades should be dashed upon a pavement,—these blended sounds
came ringing to the plain, attracting every eye far upward to the belfry,
whence, through the lattice-work, thin wreaths of smoke were curling.
Some averred that it was the spaniel, gone mad by fear, which was shot.
This, others denied. True, it was, the spaniel never more was seen; and,
probably, for some unknown reason, it shared the burial now to be related
of the domino. For, whatever the preceding circumstances may have been,
the first instinctive panic over, or else all ground of reasonable fear
removed, the two magistrates, by themselves, quickly re-hooded the
figure in the dropped cloak wherein it had been hoisted. The same night,
it was secretly lowered to the ground, smuggled to the beach, pulled far
out to sea, and sunk. Nor to any after urgency, even in free convivial
hours, would the twain ever disclose the full secrets of the belfry.
From the mystery unavoidably investing it, the popular solution of the
foundling’s fate involved more or less of supernatural agency. But some
few less unscientific minds pretended to find little difficulty in
otherwise accounting for it. In the chain of circumstantial inferences
drawn, there may or may not have been some absent or defective links.
But, as the explanation in question is the only one which tradition has
explicitly preserved, in dearth of better, it will here be given. But, in
the first place, it is requisite to present the supposition entertained
as to the entire motive and mode, with their origin, of the secret design
of Bannadonna; the minds above mentioned assuming to penetrate as well
into his soul as into the event. The disclosure will indirectly involve
reference to peculiar matters, none of the clearest, beyond the immediate
subject.
At that period, no large bell was made to sound otherwise than as
at present,—by agitation of a tongue within, by means of ropes, or
percussion from without, either from cumbrous machinery, or stalwart
watchmen, armed with heavy hammers, stationed in the belfry, or in
sentry-boxes on the open roof, according as the bell was sheltered or
exposed.
It was from observing these exposed bells, with their watchmen, that the
foundling, as was opined, derived the first suggestion of his scheme.
Perched on a great mast or spire, the human figure viewed from below
undergoes such a reduction in its apparent size as to obliterate its
intelligent features. It evinces no personality. Instead of bespeaking
volition, its gestures rather resemble the automatic ones of the arms of
a telegraph.
Musing, therefore, upon the purely Punchinello aspect of the human
figure thus beheld, it had indirectly occurred to Bannadonna to devise
some metallic agent, which should strike the hour with its mechanic
hand, with even greater precision than the vital one. And, moreover,
as the vital watchman on the roof, sallying from his retreat at the
given periods, walked to the bell with uplifted mace to smite it,
Bannadonna had resolved that his invention should likewise possess the
power of locomotion, and, along with that, the appearance, at least, of
intelligence and will.
If the conjectures of those who claimed acquaintance with the intent
of Bannadonna be thus far correct, no unenterprising spirit could have
been his. But they stopped not here; intimating that though, indeed,
his design had, in the first place, been prompted by the sight of the
watchman, and confined to the devising of a subtle substitute for
him, yet, as is not seldom the case with projectors, by insensible
gradations, proceeding from comparatively pygmy aims to Titanic ones,
the original scheme had, in its anticipated eventualities, at last
attained to an unheard-of degree of daring. He still bent his efforts
upon the locomotive figure for the belfry, but only as a partial type of
an ulterior creature, a sort of elephantine Helot, adapted to further,
in a degree scarcely to be imagined, the universal conveniences and
glories of humanity; supplying nothing less than a supplement to the Six
Days’ Work; stocking the earth with a new serf, more useful than the ox,
swifter than the dolphin, stronger than the lion, more cunning than the
ape, for industry an ant, more fiery than serpents, and yet, in patience,
another ass. All excellences of all God-made creatures, which served man,
were here to receive advancement, and then to be combined in one. Talus
was to have been the all-accomplished Helot’s name. Talus, iron slave to
Bannadonna, and, through him, to man.