Part 1
THE
MYSTERIES OF FLORENCE.
BY
GEORGE LIPPARD.
AUTHOR OF “THE EMPIRE CITY, OR NEW YORK BY NIGHT AND DAY,” “THE MEMOIRS OF A PREACHER,” “WASHINGTON AND HIS MEN,” “THE LEGENDS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, OR, WASHINGTON AND HIS GENERALS,” “THE QUAKER CITY; OR, THE MONKS OF MONK HALL,” “PAUL ARDENHEIM, THE MONK OF WISSAHIKON,” “LEGENDS OF MEXICO,” “THE NAZARENE,” “BLANCHE OF BRANDYWINE,” “THE ENTRANCED,” “THE BANK DIRECTOR’S SON,” ETC., ETC.
COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME.
Philadelphia: T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, 306 CHESTNUT STREET.
Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1864, by
T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS.
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
CONTENTS.
BOOK THE FIRST.
THE RED CHAMBER.
CHAPTER FIRST.
PAGE
The Signet Ring of Albarone 13
CHAPTER SECOND.
The White Dust in the Goblet of Gold 20
CHAPTER THIRD.
The Embrace of a Brother 31
CHAPTER FOURTH.
The Death Trap 36
CHAPTER FIFTH.
The Chamber of Mysteries 40
CHAPTER SIXTH.
The Dream of the Damned 42
CHAPTER SEVENTH.
The Cell of the Doomed 48
CHAPTER EIGHTH.
Adrian the Doomed 53
CHAPTER NINTH.
The Felon and the Duke 57
CHAPTER TENTH.
The Chamber of the Duke 60
BOOK THE SECOND.
THE CAVERN OF ALBARONE.
CHAPTER FIRST.
The Pit of Darkness 65
CHAPTER SECOND.
Robin alone in the Earth-hidden Cavern 67
CHAPTER THIRD.
The Chapel of the Rocks 68
CHAPTER FOURTH.
The Chapel of St. George of Albarone 73
CHAPTER FIFTH.
The Cavern of Albarone 77
CHAPTER SIXTH.
The Ordeal 82
CHAPTER SEVENTH.
The Blow for the Winged Leopard 88
CHAPTER EIGHTH.
The Page and the Damsel 93
CHAPTER NINTH.
The Story of Guiseppo 95
CHAPTER TENTH.
The Memory of Guilt 98
BOOK THE THIRD.
LAST NIGHT OF THRICE SEVEN YEARS.
CHAPTER FIRST.
The Maiden in her Bower 105
CHAPTER SECOND.
The Lady and the Yeoman 111
CHAPTER THIRD.
The Valley of the Bowl 114
CHAPTER FOURTH.
The Bridal Eve 117
CHAPTER FIFTH.
The Bridal Morn 125
CHAPTER SIXTH.
Sir Geoffrey O’ TH’ Longsword 131
CHAPTER SEVENTH.
The Student and the Fair Stranger 135
CHAPTER EIGHTH.
The Castle Gate 138
CHAPTER NINTH.
Aldarin and his Future 143
CHAPTER TENTH.
The Scholar Aldarin and the Lord Guiseppo 151
CHAPTER ELEVENTH.
The White Waters of the Alembic 157
CHAPTER TWELFTH.
The Trial of the Waters of Life 163
CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
The Oath 173
CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.
The Fate of the Fratricide 178
BOOK THE FOURTH.
THE QUEEN OF FLORENCE.
CHAPTER FIRST.
A Silvery Moon and a Cloudless Sky 189
CHAPTER SECOND.
The Cloud Gathers and the Sky Darkens 192
CHAPTER THIRD.
The Death Bowl 195
CHAPTER FOURTH.
The Cell of St. Areline 205
CHAPTER FIFTH.
The Wonders of St. Areline 208
CHAPTER SIXTH.
The Watch beside the Dead 211
CHAPTER SEVENTH.
The Coffin and the Corse 213
CHAPTER EIGHTH.
The Fate of the Betrayer 218
CHAPTER NINTH.
Three Days Elapse 221
CHAPTER TENTH.
The Mysteries of the Chronicle 224
CHAPTER ELEVENTH.
The Buried Alive 230
CHAPTER TWELFTH.
The Real more terrible than the Unreal 239
CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
The Cathedral of Florence 250
The Scene of the Romance.
The moon arose!
Reposing on the porch of an ancient mansion,--which, deserted and falling to ruins, was pitched on the brow of a dizzy steep;--a traveller, who had journeyed far and long, looked forth upon the night, through an opening in the trees crowning the verge of the cliff, and, with a soul filled with silent awe, beheld this scene of the grandeur of nature, combined with the glories of art, and the stern memories of a long past age.
A lovely valley lay sleeping in the moonbeams: ancient towers, Gothic temples, domes of religion, palaces of pleasure, rose clearly in the air, from amid gardens gay with flowers, or forests heavy with foliage, while around the scene of slumbering grandeur, swept the mighty Apennines, lifting their blue peaks into the universe of azure that arched above, silvered and tinted and mellowed by the midnight moon.
A stream of tremulous silver wandered brightly through the valley, like a banner waving along the blackness of night. The domes of an ancient city, baptized by the strains of the Minstrel, and consecrated by the words of the Romancer, were seen looming over the forest trees, from the dim distance of the vale.
The moon arose!
There was softness, and beauty, and power, written on the wide sweep of that boundless sky, with its horizon of blue mountains; there was solemn silence resting on the night, and the angels of God might look down upon the scene, and weep to think that a land so like heaven in its gorgeousness of beauty, should be stamped with the footsteps of crimes too mighty for belief, wrongs too dark for the page of history, woes steeped in the very bitterness of death.
It was the valley of the Arno, and the traveler gazed from the height upon the distant City of Florence, surnamed the “Fair.”
Arising in the calm moonbeams from the very centre of the valley, the gray towers of a ruined castle broke abruptly into the dark azure of night, looming from the distance like stern monuments of a past age, lifting to heaven their testimony of the glory and the gloom of the Gothic Era.
It was the Castle of Albarone, the home of a mighty race who flourished in long past centuries. Within the walls of the lonely castle,--lonely because in ruins,--rising from the bosom of the Arno, and along the shores of a mountain lake, not many leagues away, the tragedy of the race of Albarone found its theatre of action, with vast multitudes of men looking on, spectators or actors in its scene of varied and contrasted horror.
And as the traveller, wearied with his day’s journey, athirst from fatigue and toil, uprose from his resting-place, and looked yet once more upon the night, ere he hastened on his path to the Fair City of Florence, his eye was again met by the stern vision of the castle towering in ruins, and over his soul came a feeling of awe and horror, as he mused upon the crimes and mysteries of the House of Albarone, while the night around him grew more still, and the sky above more shadowy in its beauty.
And as he mused, a dark cloud covered the face of the moon, hovering like a vast bird, with wings of night, and form of omen, right above the ruined towers of Albarone. A moment passed, the sky was again all glory and light, while still--
The moon arose!
BOOK THE FIRST.
THE RED CHAMBER
CHAPTER THE FIRST.
THE SIGNET RING OF ALBARONE.
HIGH NOON AMID THE OLD CASTLE WALLS.
From the clear azure of the summer sky, the mid-day sun shone over the lofty battlements and massive towers of an ancient castle, which, rising amid the heights of a precipitous rock, lay basking in the warm atmosphere; while along the spacious court-yard, and among the nooks and crevices of the dark gray walls, the mellow beams fell lazily, gilding each point they touched, and turning the blackened rocks to brightened gold, with the voluptuous light of a summer noon.
The massive cliff, from whose stern foundations the castle arose, sank suddenly, with a precipitous descent, into the bed of the valley, while around, venerable with the grandeur of ages, swept the magnificent forest, with its mass of verdure mellowing in the sunlight; and, winding on its way of silver, a broad and rapid stream, gleaming from the deep green foliage, now gave each wave and ripple to the kiss of day, and now, sweeping in its shadowy nooks, sheltered its beauty from the dazzling light.
Far along the view, forest towered over forest, and sloping meadows, dotted with cottages, succeeded shelving fields, golden with wheat, or gay with vines; while many a pleasant hill-side arose from amid the embowering woods, with the peaceful summit sleeping in the sun-light, and the straight shadows of the still noon resting along the depths of the valley, from which it greenly ascended.
Along the edge of the horizon, amid the tall peaks of the far-off mountains, summer clouds, vast and gorgeous, lay basking in the sunlight, with their fantastic forms, of every hue and shape--now dark, now bright, now golden, now gray, and again white as the new-fallen snow--all clearly and delicately relieved by the back-ground of azure, transparent and glassy as the sky of some voluptuous dream.
The hour was still and solemn, with the peculiar silence and solemnity of the high noon; the broad banner floated heavily from the loftiest tower of the castle, unruffled by a whisper of the wind; and along the court-yard, and throughout the castle, a death-like silence reigned, which betokened any thing save the presence of numerous bodies of armed men within the castle walls.
The sentinels who waited at the castle gate, rested indolently upon their pikes, and glancing over the spacious court-yard, marked, with a look of discontent, the absence of all signs of animation from those walls which had so often rung with sounds of gay carousal and shouts of merriment. All was still and solemn where, in days by-gone, not a sound had awoke the echoes of the time-darkened walls save the loud laugh of the careless reveller, the merry carol of the minstrel, or the glee-song of the banquet hall.
A footstep--a mailed and booted footstep--broke the silence of the air, and presently, appearing from the shadow of the lofty hall door of the castle, a stout and strong-limbed soldier emerged into the light of the sun. As he descended the steps of stone, he paused for a moment, and glanced around the court-yard. Stout, without being bulky in figure, the person of the yeoman was marked by broad shoulders, a chest massive and prominent, arms that were all bone and muscle, and legs that discovered the bold and rugged outline of strong physical power, hardened by fatigue and toil.
He raised his cap of buff, surmounted by a dark plume, and plated with steel, from his brow, and the sunbeams fell upon a rugged countenance, darkened by the sun, and seamed by innumerable wrinkles, with a low, yet massive forehead, a nose short, straight, yet prominent, a wide mouth, with thin lips, and cheek-bones high and bold in outline, while his clear blue eyes, with their quick and varying glance, afforded a strange contrast to his toil-hardened and sunburnt features. Around his throat, and over his prominent chin, grew a thick and rugged beard, dark as his eyebrows in hue, while his hair, slightly touched by age, and worn short and close, gave a marked outline to his head, that completed the expression of dogged courage and blunt frankness visible in every lineament of his countenance.
Attired in doublet and hose of buff, defended by a plate of massive steel on the breast, with smaller plates on each arm and leg, the yeoman wore boots of slouching buckskin, while a broad belt of darkened leather, thrown over his manly chest, supported the short, straight sword, which depended from his left side.
Having glanced along the court-yard, and marked the sentinels waiting lazily beside the castle gate, the yeoman’s eye wandered to the banner which clung heavily around the towering staff, and then depositing his cap on his head with an air of discontent, as he again surveyed the castle yard--
“St. Withold!” he cried, in a voice as rugged as his face--“St. Withold! but some foul spell of the fiend’s own making has fallen upon these old walls! All dull--all dead--all leaden! Even yon flag, which kissed the breeze of the Holy Land, not three months agone, looks dull and drowsy. ‘Slife! a man might as well be dead as live in this manner. No feasting--no songs--no carousing! Ugh! A pest take it all, I say! No jousts--no tournaments--no mellays! The foul fiend take it, I say; and Sathanas wither the heathen hand that winged the poisoned javelin at my knightly Lord--Julian, Count of this gallant castle Di Albarone! The foul fiend wither the hand of the paynim dog, I say!”
“Ha, ha, ha! my good Robin,” laughed a clear and youthful voice, “by my troth, thou’rt sadly out of temper! What has ruffled thee, my buff-and-buckskin? Holy Mary--_what_ a face!”
Robin turned, and beheld the slender form of a daintily appareled youth, whose full cheeks were wrinkled with laughter, while his merry hazel eyes seemed dancing in the light of their own glee.
“Out of temper!” exclaimed rough Robin, as he glanced at the laughing youth; “out of temper! By St. Withold! there’s good reason for’t, too. Look ye, my bird of a page, never since I left the service of mine own native prince, the brave Richard, of the Lion Heart--never since the day when the gallant Geoffrey o’ th’ Longsword drew his sword in the wars of Palestine, under the banner of Count Julian Di Albarone, have I felt so sick, so wearied in heart, as I do this day--mark ye, my page! ‘Out of temper,’ forsooth! Answer me, then, popinjay--does not our gallant Lord Julian lie wasting away in yon sick-chamber, with the poison of an incurable wound eating his very heart? Answer me that, Guiseppo.”
“Ay, marry does he, my good Robin,” the page answered, as he played with a jeweled chain that hung from his neck; “but then thou knowest he will recover. He will again mount his war-horse! Ay, my good Lord Julian will again lead armies to battle in the wilds of Palestine! He will, by my troth, Rough Robin!”
“I fear me, never, never,” the yeoman replied, in a subdued tone. “Look ye, Guiseppo, what dost think of this thin-faced half-brother of the Count, the scholar Aldarin? There’s a mystery about the man--I like him not. Thy master, the Duke of Florence, hath now been three days at this good castle of Albarone--why is he so much in the company of this keen-eyed Aldarin? By St. Withold! I like it not. Marry, boy, but the devil’s a-brewing a pretty pot of yeast for somebody’s bread! Guiseppo, canst tell me naught concerning the object of the visit of thy master, the Duke, to this castle--hey, boy?”
“Why, Robin,” replied the page, as, placing one small hand on either side of his slender waist, he glanced at the yeoman with a sidelong look; “why, Robin, didst ever hear of--of--the fair Ladye Annabel? Eh, Robin?”
“The fair Ladye Annabel! Tut! boy, thou triflest with me. The fair Ladye Annabel--she is the lovely daughter of this crusty old scholar. Her mother was an Eastern woman; and the fair girl first saw the light in the wilds of Palestine, when the scholar Aldarin accompanied his brother thither. Marry, ’tis more than sixteen--seventeen years since. ’Tis long ago--very long. By St. Withold! those were merry days. But come, sir page, why name the Ladye Annabel and the Duke in the same breath?”
The restless Guiseppo sprang aside with a nimble movement, and then folding his arms, stood at the distance of a few paces, regarding the stout yeoman with a look of mock gravity and solemn humor.
“What wouldst give to know, Robin?” he exclaimed, with a peculiar contortion of his mirthful face. “Hark ye, my stout yeoman, ‘My Lord Duke of Florence and the Ladye Annabel, Duchess of Florence.’ Dost like the sound? What says my rough soldier, now?”
“I see a light,” slowly responded Robin; “I see a light!” and he slowly drew his sword half-way from the scabbard. “But as yet ’tis but a pestilent Jack o’ lanthorn light, dancing about a tangled marsh of pits and bogs, with plenty o’hidden traps to catch honest men by the heels, i’ faith. Annabel and the Duke! Ho--ho! Then the game’s up with the son o’ th’ Count--my Lord Adrian?”
“Wag that clumsy tongue o’ thine with a spice o’ caution, Robin,” whispered the merry page. “See, the sharp-faced steward o’ th’ castle draws nigh, and with him a group of sworn grumblers. The four old esquires who followed our lord to battle in the wilds o’ Palestine--a soldier, with a carbuncled visage, and a lounging servitor, the huntsman o’ th’ castle. Hark! didst ever hear such eloquent growling?”
And as Robin turned to listen, he beheld the strangely contrasted party lounging slowly along the castle yard, with the indolent gait of men having little to do save to eat, to drink, to sleep, and to gossip, while around them the lazy hours of the silent castle-walls dragged onward with wings of lead.
“Talk not to me of thrift, sir steward,” cried the bluff-faced and thick-headed huntsman. “When my Lord, Count Julian, was well--not a day passed but a lusty buck was steaming on the castle hearth--”
“Wine flowed like water,” chimed in the soldier with the fiery nose. “Your true soldier swore by his beaker alone--”
“_Now!_” interrupted the sharp-faced steward, waving his thin hands, and with an expressive shrug of the shoulders; “_now_, my lord the Count is _sick_. The scholar Aldarin hath the rule. Tell me, sir huntsman, and you, sir, of the fiery nose, is there any waste o’ flesh or liquor in the castle? Is not the signer careful of the beeves of my lord. No longer are we quiet folks disturbed by your carousings: no silly dances, no rude catches o’ vile camp-follower songs! By the Virgin, no!”
“By the true wood o’ th’ cross, sir steward, thou’rt a rare one!” growled a white-haired esquire, as his scarred and sunburnt visage was turned angrily toward the sharp-faced steward. “Dost think men o’ mettle are made o’ such broomstick bones and mud-puddle blood as thou? Body o’ Bacchus, no! ‘No carousing!’ I’d e’en like to see thee on a jolly carouse!”
“Say rather, sir esquire,” Robin the Rough exclaimed, as the party reached his side, “say rather, you’d e’en wish to see a death’s-head making mirth at a feast, or a funeral procession strike up a jolly fandango! Sir steward at a feast!--the owl at a gathering o’ nightingales!”
The sharped-faced steward was about to make an angry reply, when a sudden thrill ran through the party. Each tongue was stilled, and each man stood motionless in the full glare of the noon-day sun.
* * * * *
“Hist! The Signor Aldarin approaches,” whispered the page Guiseppo. “He comes from the castle gate along to the castle hall.”
And as each head was stealthily turned over the shoulder toward the castle gate, there came gliding along, with cat-like steps and downcast look, a man of severe aspect, whose gray eye--cold, flashing, and clear, in its unchangeable glance--seemed as though it could read the very heart.
A tunic of dark velvet, disclosing the spare outlines of his slim figure, reached to his ankles, and over this garment, depending from his right shoulder, he wore a robe of similar color, passed under his left arm, joined in front by a chain of gold, and then falling in sweeping folds to his sandaled feet.
A cap of dark fur, bright with a single gem of strange lustre, gave a striking relief to his high, pale forehead, seamed by a single deep wrinkle, shooting upward from between the eyebrows, while his gray hair fell in slight masses down along the hollow cheeks and over his neck and shoulders.
“This is the--scholar!” growled one of the white-haired esquires. “His days have been passed in the laboratory, while his brother’s sword hath flashed at the head of armies.”
“The saints preserve me from the wizard-tribe, say I!” muttered Robin the Rough; and as he spoke, with an involuntary movement of fear, the party separated on either side of the castle hall, leaving room for the passage of the Signor Aldarin.
He came slowly onward, with his head downcast, neither looking to the one side nor to the other. He ascended the steps of stone, and in a moment was lost to the view of the loiterers in the castle yard.
The hall of the castle passed, a passage traversed, and another stairway ascended, the stooping scholar stood in a small ante-chamber, with the light of the noon-day sun subdued to a twilight obscurity by the absence of windows from the place, while an evening gloom hung around the narrow walls, the arching ceiling of darkened stone, and the floor of tesselated marble. A single casement, long and narrow, reaching from floor to arch, gave entrance to a straggling beam of daylight, disclosing the stout and muscular form of a man-at-arms, with armor and helmet of steel, who, pike in hand, waited beside a massive door, opening into one of the principal apartments of the castle.
With a soft, gliding footstep, the Signor Aldarin glided along the tesselated floor, and stood beside the man-at-arms, ere he was aware of his approach.
“Ha! Balvardo, thou keepest strict watch beside the sick chamber of my lord.” The words broke from the Signor Aldarin. “Hast obeyed my behest?”
“E’en so, my lord,” the sentinel began, in a rough, surly tone.
“How, vassal! Dost name me with the title of my brother? Have a care, good Balvardo, have a care!”
“He chides me in a rough voice,” murmured the sentinel, as though speaking to his own ear; “and yet a wild light flashes over his features at the word. Signor, I but mistook the word--a slip o’ th’ tongue,” he exclaimed aloud. “Thy behests have been obeyed. No one has been suffered to pass into the chamber of my Lord Di Albarone since morning dawn, save the fair Ladye Annabel, who waits beside the couch of the wounded knight.”
“Come hither, Balvardo. Look from this narrow window: mark you well the dial-plate in the castle yard. In a few moments the shadow will sweep across the path of high noon. When high noon and the shadow meet, thy charge is over. The soothing potion which I gave my brother at daybreak, will have taken its proper effect. Until that moment, keep strict watch: let not a soul enter the Red Chamber on the peril of thy life!”
And with the command, the Signor swept from the ante-chamber, gliding along a corridor opposite the one from which he had just emerged, and his low footsteps in a moment had ceased to echo along the dark old arches.