Part 3

Three times were the consecrated torches borne round by the archbishop, who, muttering between his teeth, dipped the wisp into a large ewer of holy water, and plentifully besprinkled all present; Thus spiritually armed, they silently and cautiously approached the entrance of the cavern. Here a question arose, "who should go down first?" Those who were at home were unwilling to rob the strangers of the honor of precedence. The deans drew back, as being merely subalterns in the church, out of respect to their bishop. The archbishop bowed to the right learned canon, and he bowed to the rest. The General became impatient, and forced the archbishop down the steps. The rest followed with beating hearts and tottering knees.

Each carried in his hand a consecrated taper; and with a rosary hanging at his elbow, sprinkled the walls with drops of holy water. The last of the procession was the Abbot of Pardis, who, grown unwieldy by the luxurious diet of the church, could scarcely drag his short puffed legs after his fat and bulky paunch. The steps too were not only small, but damp and slippery; whence it happened, that on the second step the Abbot lost his footing, and falling with his whole weight upon Henry of Uxkull, they both fell upon the last dean: all three on the first dean; all four on the canon; all five upon the archbishop of Riga; when the whole troop rolled helter skelter down the steps, and plumped to the bottom like so many sacks, there remaining senseless!

The consecrated tapers were extinguished, and the venerable group were veiled by a sort of Egyptian darkness. The General, who remained above, heard the tremendous rumbling, to which succeeded a dead silence. For two hours he listened, called on each by name, and waited in vain for a reply. His voice alone was returned to him in a dull and hollow echo. The only sound which met his eager listening, was that of the terrified bat, flitting in the depths of the cavern; or, at intervals, the scream of the frightened owl.

He was a man of uncommon courage, and he resolved to descend once more himself, to see what was become of his guests; but as a prelude to this perilous expedition, he determined to enliven his natural spirits by a draught of generous wine. As he vociferated--"a cup of wine," to the groom who held his horse, the word Wine reached the ears of the holy men--they disentangled themselves from each other, scrambled up, their foreheads bedewed with the sweat of terror, and when they had recovered themselves, they confessed unanimously _that they were not able to unravel the mystery._

Thus ended the second attempt to gain a more intimate acquaintance with the spirits of the subterraneous passage, and thenceforward no one was bold enough to tread the magic ground.

POINT X. A VISIT WITHOUT FORM.

When the Cardinal Bernis resided at Rome in the capacity of Ambassador from France, he bore the highest character for sanctity--yet the Cardinal was a man, though a churchman; and churchmen are sometimes not invulnerable to the shafts of love. A pair of speaking black eyes like those of the Princess B., have before now made sad havoc in the heart of the votary of celibacy. The lady was conscious of her own charms, but being married to the man she loved, instead of setting them off by certain little manouvres which some ladies perfectly understand how to put in practice, she carefully avoided giving any encouragement to the Cardinal, whose constant attendance upon her began to give her some uneasiness. At length the Cardinal, finding that his visits, attentions, _cadeaux_, and fine speeches had no effect, determined upon seeking an opportunity of making the lady sensible of the excess of his passion. One morning the Princess, on returning from mass, in her haste to avoid a violent shower of rain, tripped as she was getting out of her carriage, and sprained her ancle. The Cardinal, who by his spies was informed of every step the Princess took, had attended at mass also; and as he was following the Princess, unobserved, he saw the accident and ran to her assistance, raised her into the carriage, and very humbly entreated her to allow him the honour of seeing her safe home. His Excellency was not to be refused consistently with etiquette, so the poor Princess was under the necessity of hearing all the pretty things the Ambassador had reserved for the occasion. All his protestations and entreaties proved fruitless, and the poor lady arrived at the palace almost exhausted with the alarm the conversation had caused her. She now endeavoured with all care to avoid receiving the Cardinal's visits, but the old gentleman's amorous plans were not to be thwarted.--He still found means of seeing her, and again attacked her with his vows and protestations, so that the lady, unable to bear it any longer, determined to inform the Prince, and related to him all the circumstances of the affair. The Prince was enraged, and threatened all kinds of vengeance against the lover; but however, when the first burst of passion had a little subsided, he said to her, "We are, my love, in a very aukward situation, for the Cardinal being Ambassador his person is sacred; besides we should have the whole consistory and his holiness at their head, thundering excommunication upon us. However, I will think of some scheme of cooling the passion of this holy gentleman." He accordingly suggested that she should write word to the Cardinal, that as her husband was going that evening to his Villa near Tivoli, to order some improvement to be made which would detain him the best part of next day, she had determined to admit a visit from him; but that in order to keep the matter a secret from the servants, she desired him to come at midnight; that she would fix a silken ladder at her room window which looked into the garden, whence he might easily ascend into the anti-room, where he would find the door open that led into her own room. The reader will naturally conceive the transports which this delicious billet excited in the worthy Cardinal. He danced, and leaped and capered about for joy, rang the bell, gave contradictory orders, and convinced his valet that he was mad. He had the sense however to direct a suit of his finest linen to be prepared, and to countermand the order for his carriage, for he bethought himself he had better go privately. How tedious did the hours, which intervened before the time of appointment, appear to our ardent lover, and when the clock struck eleven he could no longer wait. It was a good distance, he must be there in time, not a second too late; therefore off he set after taking some precautions against his sacred person being discovered. He arrives, panting with love and hope; the burning of Mongibello could scarcely exceed the conflagration within him. He gets to the garden-gate. One cannot think of every thing. The Princess in her flurry had forgotten to order the garden-gate to be left open. What was to be done? The wall was not high; but must his Eminence endanger his sacred person? Love, however, the sovereign ruler, who makes even cowards heroes, animated him. It was dreadfully dark; but luckily, in feeling for the height of the wall, the anxious lover found an aperture in it large enough to admit the foot: into this he stepped, gave a spring, and got to the top; and then slid down the other side, not however without losing his hat and cloak, which owing to the darkness of the night he could not find again, nor was he aware, for the same reason, how he was daubed with mortar and brick-dust. In this pickle, our Adonis made the best of his way to find the ladder, tumbling over orange-trees and rosebushes, to the manifest injury of his cassock, which began to hang about him in rags. At last he reached the ladder, seized hold of it, stopped, panted a while for breath, and then up he went. He had just got one leg through the window, when the two large folding doors of the apartment flew open, and fifteen or twenty servants with lighted torches in their hands presented themselves before him.

The Prince, at their head, ran up to the window, and with all courtesy helped in the astonished Cardinal, and turning to the servants said, "Scoundrels! is it thus you pay respect to the sacred person of the Cardinal Bernis? Is it thus, by your negligence, that you compel his Eminence, when coming to my wife, to venture his precious life upon a slight ladder and force him through the window in this miserable plight?" Conceive the situation of the bald-pated, cloakless, and tattered Cardinal, as he stood ashamed and terrified before the jeering Prince and his twenty torchbearers. His trembling knees could scarcely support him, as, half dead with fright, shame, and disappointment, he sneaked out of the room, still lighted by the torches and bowed out by the Prince, who continued to apologize for the carelessness of his servants, much to the annoyance of the poor Cardinal, whose misery was heightened by one stroke more; for, as he was huddling off, he just caught the face of the Princess, peeping through the opening of a door with some friends, all almost convulsed with laughter.

End of Project Gutenberg's Points of Humour, Part I (of II), by Anonymous