PART III.--THE FALL.

A wild spot: the accursed cloisters, where once lived sinning nuns. A wild spot, lighted now and then by the moon, when its light could flit down between the jagged, angry clouds which rushed floating by. The light showed a sombre square of burial-ground, covered with marble tombs, whereon lay effigies of the dead; solemn white figures, still, still as death.

But something now moves in this accursed spot. Treading lightly through the moonlight comes a solemn-looking man, with small, white, claw-like hands. Arrived in the midst, he lifts these terrible hands above his head, and then he speaks--“O, ye impious women who sleep beneath these stones, shake from you your troubled slumber, and awake. ’Tis I condemned as you, who speak. But for an hour take life; move, breathe, and then sink to your weeping sleep again!”

See--the white, sleeping figures move. The ground breaks in long, ugly cracks. Stones are up-heaved, and trembling green lights flicker where once sacred altars stood. Slowly, forms, something like human, stand here and there, uncertain of themselves and each other, as with ghastly eyes they doubtingly peer into the darkness. Then, with noiseless steps, they approach and touch each other, stepping from side to side, as again and again a figure rises from the ground. At last, there are hundreds of these grim phantoms. Gradually, life seems to grow brighter in their faces. At last, they even smile; and then, behold, they are as human-looking as the pale, unyielding moon will let them look.

“Ye hopeless--hear me! A warrior whom I love shall come to pluck the weeping cypress; if he trembles, seduce his better soul from him, and with all your earthly charms, strive to destroy him. Rejoice--rejoice--for thou knowest whither I would lead him.”

Again with his light, solemn step he passed away--his hands now clasped within each other.

Suddenly the weird figures seemed to shudder, as with evil eyes they marked the warrior’s fearful coming. Hiding behind pillars and broken stones they watched him. He hesitated--then came forward. Then again he stopped. At last he stood near the cypress, which waved above the tomb of the abbess. But as he stretched his hand to pluck the fatal branch, he looked upon the statue of that abbess, and the face seemed as the face of his mother, wrathful and angry. He fell back stunned and speechless.

Then out trooped the living-dead--their features no longer ghastly, but full of wicked, sensuous life. They surrounded him; they tempted him; in a circling band they drew him to the fatal cypress. Yet he hesitated. Then they held to him a golden cup, brimming with delicious wine. Drinking it, again the evil look was in their faces. But when he returned the cup, they smiled again.

At last he plucked the branch, and held it in his hand.

Then the faces turned again to hopeless death. The figures screamed in their joy about him--loudly and more loud.

While he--his heart now failing him--shrank down upon the ground and hid his eyes with his hands--one of which still clasped the terrible cypress branch.