Part 10

“‘Avoid the Sathanas!’ quoth Balvardo.

“‘Be quiet, fiend!’ cried Hugo.

“Exquisite sport--exquisite!” muttered I to myself, as a curious idea flitted through my brain, “Ho--ho--ho! The Duke of Florence locked up in one of his own prisons! Ha--ha--ha!”

“Louder rose the voice within the cell, and louder and fiercer swelled the exclamations of the sentinels; until having strained every bone in my body, with excessive laughter, I fell asleep thro’ mere weariness.

“When I awoke, the first beams of morning were streaming along the prison galleries, and engaged in earnest converse with Hugo and Balvardo stood the ill-looking, wry-mouthed, and hump backed Doomsman of Florence.

“‘The irons are hot, and the wheel is ready,’ said the deformed caitiff, bring your prisoner forth. The cauldron of lead is hissing and seething while it awaits his coming. ’Tis long since I’ve tried my hand upon one of noble blood. Bring forth this noble boy, and let me see what mettle his flesh is made of. Thanks, Balvardo--thanks, Hugo, for ’twas ye that gave him to the Doomsman!’

“Here the villain performed several very graceful actions, such as tying an imaginary knot around his neck, with a ‘chick’, and then rehearsing in dumb show the whole process of punishment upon the wheel; concluding with an animated waving, pushing and thrusting of his hands, descriptive of the entire manner of disemboweling.

“And this, this was to be the fate of Adrian Lord of Albarone!

“Meanwhile Hugo had unlocked the door of the Doomed Cell, and, called the name of the prisoner without receiving an answer.

“‘I’ll wake him,’ quoth the Doomsman, entering the cell; ‘see! he lays flat upon his face. Get up, Sir Parricide; get up. There--there,’ he concluded, bestowing a few kicks upon the prostrate occupant of the cell.

“The prisoner replied with a groan.

“‘Ho! ho!--You will not stir, will you?’ continued the Doomsman, as he dragged the prisoner from the cell into the gallery:--‘See, Hugo, how the caitiff’s hat is slouched over his face, and his hands are bound with his own belt. By St. Judas, this is a rare sight!’

“‘His hands bound!’ exclaimed Balvardo. ‘This is not my work!’

“‘Nor mine!’ responded Hugo.

“‘Remove his slouched hat, one of ye,’ exclaimed the Doomsman, ‘see ye not that both of my hands are employed in holding his carcass.’

“Hugo reached forth his hand and removed his slouched hat--‘O! an’ I live till fourscore, I’ll never forget the scene that followed.’

“There, his arms ignominiously bound, resting in the embrace of the Doomsman, lay the Duke of Florence, his face pale with ire, his mouth frothing like a madman’s, and his eyes bloodshot; and there stood the Doomsman, his gray eyes protruding with astonishment, until they seemed about to drop from their sockets, his mouth agape and his tongue lolling out upon his bearded chin; and there, likewise, stood Hugo and Balvardo, looking first at one another, then at the Duke, and then clasping their hands, they fall upon their knees and screaming for mercy--and there in the back-ground, his cloak muffled over his face, and his frame shaking with laughter while his eyes run over with tears of mirth, stands his grace’s page, the trim Guiseppo. Was’t not a rich scene, Rosalind?”

CHAPTER THE TENTH.

THE MEMORY OF GUILT.

On the stately couch in the Red-Chamber, with the Count Aldarin bending over him, lay his Grace the Duke of Florence, attired in his boots and hose, with his under shirt thrown back, revealing the left shoulder of the Prince laid open in a deep gash.

As the Count Aldarin, holding a light in one hand peered earnestly at the wound, the Duke exclaimed--

“A horrid gash, Count? eh! Damnation! to be foiled by the villain twice--bound in my own dungeon like a criminal--struck down in that cursed cavern like a dog--damnation seize the--ah! Count, some wine; for the Saint’s sake, some wine, I pray thee.”

The Count turned hurriedly to the beaufet, and filling a goblet with wine that sparkled in the light with a ruddy glow, he hastened to give it to the wounded Duke, who raised it until it nearly touched his lips, when, as if struck by a strange fancy, he suddenly held it out at arm’s length exclaiming as he gazed at Aldarin with a lack-lustre eye--

“I say Count, suppose there should be some _white dust_ at the bottom of this goblet?--and--and--_a ring_? eh? Count?--Ugh!--Take it away--ugh!”

He flung the goblet from him, scattering the wine over the couch, while the vessel rolled clanging over the marble floor.

“How SIR?” cried the Count, speaking in a deep-toned voice that thrilled to the very heart of the Duke, “_what mean’st thou_?” The dark gray eyes of the Scholar flashed like living coals of fire, as he spoke.

“O, nothing,” responded the Duke, “nothing--only I thought the murderer Adrian might--dost understand? A truce to all this. My Lord Count, what didst thou with those men-at-arms who raised their swords in the cause of the murderer?”

Right glad was the Count Aldarin to recover his usual calm demeanour as he answered this inquiry.

“Of the fifty treacherous caitiffs who raised their swords against the person of your grace, forty lie bleeding and dead upon the cavern floor.

“As for the others--” he finished the sentence by pointing to the arched window of the Red-Chamber.

The Duke looked over his shoulder and beheld through the opened window the black and gloomy timbers of a gibbet towering like an evil omen high over the walls of the castle, and backed by the soft azure of a cloudless summer night.

The beams of the moon fell upon ten ghastly and death-writhen faces and ten figures swung to and fro, while the groaning cords as they grated against the creaking timbers over their heads, seemed shaking their death wail.

“Curse the traitors--they have their deserts!” The Duke exclaimed with a meaning smile.

The Count said nothing, but bending over the form of the Prince proceeded to dress his wounded shoulder, after the manner prescribed by his scholarly studies.

And as the Scholar bent over the form of the Duke, the hangings of the couch, sweeping beside the Prince, waved to and fro, with a slight motion, as though the summer breeze disturbed their folds, and a dark form, robed in garments of sable, with a monkish cowl dropping over its face, glided noiselessly along the floor, and in a moment stood at the back of his Grace of Florence, holding aloft, above his very head, a slender-bladed and glittering dagger.

The Figure stood silent and immoveable, its face shrouded and its form robed from view, the dagger glittering above the head of the Duke, brilliant as a spiral flame, while the light of the lamp held by Aldarin, shone on the upraised hand, revealing the sinews, stretched to their utmost tension, while the clutched fingers prepared to strike the blow of death.

And at the very instant, as the Figure of Sable emerged from the hangings of the couch, at the back of the Prince, there silently strode from the folds of the tapestry on the other side of the bed, a veiled form, clad from head to foot, in a robe of ghostly white.

While the Figure in garments of sable, raised the dagger above the head of the Duke, the strange Form, arrayed in the sweeping robe of white, disappeared behind the hangings of the couch, on the side opposite the Scholar Aldarin.

“Curse the traitors--they have their deserts!” again exclaimed the Duke. “Count, how succeeds my suit with the Ladye Annabel? Dost think she affects me? Eh, Count?”

“Marry, does, my Lord Duke--this slight wound in thy shoulder will detain thee at the castle for a few days. Thou wilt have every opportunity to urge thy suit, and, and--the day of your nuptials shall be named whenever thou dost wish!”

And as Aldarin spoke, the knife rose glittering in the hands of the Sable Figure, and a pale face, marked by the glare of a wild and flashing eye, was thrust from the folds of the robe of black. It was the face of Albertine.

“Now, by St. Antonia, but that is pleasant to think of,” exclaimed the Duke, as, complacently surveying his figure, he passed his hand over his bearded chin and whiskered lip--“as thou wishest me to name the day, my Lord Count, be assured, I shall not return to Florence without being accompanied by my fair bride--_Ladye Annabel Duchess of Florence_. It sounds well--eh, Count?”

A smile passed over the compressed lips of the Count, and a glance of wild joy lit up his piercing eyes, as he thought of the fulfillment of the dream of ambition that had haunted his soul for years.

“It does indeed sound well, my Lord Duke,” he calmly replied, as he proceeded in his employment of dressing the wound. There was a pause for a moment, a strange, dread pause, while the hands of the Sable Figure trembled, as though Albertine, was nerving his soul for the work of death.

“My Lord Count, how curious it seems? eh? Count?” exclaimed the Duke in a tone of vacant wonder.

“To what does your Grace refer?” answered the Count.

“Why, Count, but three short days ago, upon this very couch lay your gallant brother; here he folded to his arms his Adrian. Now that very son is a--murderer--a parricide. I rest upon the very couch that supported the murdered remains of the late Count, and thou, Aldarin, his brother--”

“HIS MURDERER!” exclaimed a voice that thrilled to the very heart of Aldarin, and made the Duke start with terror.

And as he started the knife came hissing through the air, it grazed the robe of the Duke, it sank to the very hilt in the death couch.

The start of the Duke saved him from the steel.

“Eh! Count, what’s that? Who spoke? eh?” The eyes of the Count distended, and his lips parted with affright as he spoke.

The Count looked up and beheld a sight that froze his very blood.

On the opposite side of the bed, among the crimson hangings, stood a figure robed in white, and there, two eyes, blazing like fire-coals, from beneath the deathly pallor of a half-veiled brow, looked steadily upon the trembling Aldarin.

The cheeks of that pale countenance were dug into fearful hollows, and the eyes were surrounded by circles of livid blue.

The Count gazed with intense horror at this apparition and the Sable Figure, who had hurriedly stooped, in the effort to wrench the dagger from the couch, with a noiseless grasp, looked up and started hastily backward as his eye rested upon the ghastly face, appearing amid the hangings in the opposite side of the bed.

“It is the face of the dead”--muttered Albertine, gliding hurriedly toward his place of concealment while the Duke was absorbed by the awe-stricken visage of Aldarin, whose very soul seemed starting from his eyes as he gazed upon the apparition--“It is the face of the dead--The time of the Betrayer hath not yet come!”

And as he spoke he disappeared, without being observed by either the Duke or Aldarin, while the Scholar, beheld the curtains on the opposite side of the couch rustling to and fro--he looked and the Spectre was gone.

“This is some vile trick!” cried Aldarin, grasping the sword of the Duke from the couch as he spoke. “Let the mummers, whoe’er they are, beware the vengeance of the Scholar!”

He rushed to the other side of the couch, he lifted the hangings, but discovered no one. With a hurried step, he turned to the tapestry that adorned the walls, and thrust aside the embroidered, folds. The secret door was closed, and he beheld neither sign nor mark, that might tell of aught concealed within its pannels.

And as Aldarin continued his hurried search, the Duke leaning back on the couch, felt some hard substance pressing against his side. Thrusting his hand along the couch, he felt the handle of a dagger, thrust from its resting place, and with a trembling arm, held the steel aloft in the light.

“It bears an inscription--Saints of Heaven, let me read--

‘THE VENGEANCE OF THE MONKS OF THE HOLY STEEL.’”

And at the same moment, the Count Aldarin, leaned trembling against a pillar for support, and quaking in every nerve, one fearful thought possessed his soul as he murmured in a hollow whisper.

“_Haunted, forever haunted--by thy gloomy shade, my murdered brother!_”

BOOK THE THIRD.

THE LAST NIGHT OF THRICE SEVEN YEARS.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

THE MAIDEN IN HER BOWER.

ALDARIN PICTURES TO THE LADYE ANNABEL THE GLORIES OF A LIVING-TOMB.

A lamp of alabaster, placed upon a small table of ebony, beside which was seated the Ladye Annabel, threw its softened beams around the apartment, and leaving the hangings, the stately bed, and the luxurious couches, wrapt in twilight shadow, cast a lovelier tint upon a vase of flowers standing upon the table, and revealed the fair maiden’s countenance and figure in soft and rosy light.

Her flaxen tresses, unrestrained by band or cincture, fell in a golden shower over her delicate neck and finely-turned shoulders; and streaming along the full and swelling bosom, but half concealed by the bodice of white, bordered by finest lace, they flowed soft and waving down to her very feet.

The figure of the Ladye Annabel realized an old saying, that nature shows all her art, and lavishes the richest of her beauties, upon her smallest creations.

In form slight and delicate, in stature somewhat below the usual size, the proportions of Annabel were of the most exquisite tracery of outline. Her arms, full and softly rounded, were terminated by hands small and white, with tapering fingers; her feet, thin and slender, and marked by an high instep, supported ancles as finely turned, as the movements of the maiden were light and graceful; the well-proportioned waist arose in lovely gradation into the bosom of rich and budding promise; the neck, gently arching, and graceful in every attitude, blended sweetly into the small and half dimpling chin, that harmonized with the face of loveliness and soul.

“Right beauteous shone those eyes of blue,” says the chronicler of the ancient MS., “glancing pure thoughts and light-hearted fancies; and right lovely were those glowing cheeks, in which the snow-white of the fair countenance bloomed into a roseate hue; and lovely was the small mouth of parting lips, delicious in their maiden ripeness; and sweet, surpassing sweet, was the expression of that face, where love and innocence beaming from every feature, seemed like the golden fruit of fairy land, only waiting to be gathered.”

Her face was a poem, written by the finger of God, in characters of youth and bloom.

A poem whose theme was ever beauty and love, speaking its meaning through the deep glance of a shadowy eye, sending forth its messages of sweetness from the smile of the wreathing lip, or preaching its lessons of thought and purity by the calm glory of the unclouded brow.

A face lovely as a dream, when dreams are loveliest, with an outline of youth and bloom, a brow clear, calm, and cloudless, over-arching the eyes of azure, whose brightness seemed unfathomable; with full and swelling cheeks, varying the snow-white of the maiden’s countenance by the damask of the budding rose; a small mouth, with curving lips; a chin all roundness and dimple, receding with a waving outline into the neck, all lightness and grace; while all around, the luxuriance of her golden hair, unbound and uncinctured, fell sweeping and waving, with a soft, airy motion, through the sunbeams shimmered round the fairy countenance of the maiden.

Alone in her bower sate the Ladye Annabel, her lip curving with scorn while she glanced at the letter of his grace of Florence, as it was flung along the floor, unopened and unheeded.

Her soul was agitated by the fearful memory of the last three days of mystery and blood, and then came confused and wandering thoughts of the scenes she had witnessed but an hour since, in the cavern of the dead.

Her mind was lost in a maze of never-ending doubts, when she contemplated the fearful death of the late Count.

She had never for an instant believed that Adrian could be guilty of the accursed act, neither had she dreamed that it was her father’s hand that dealt the blow.

The thought would have driven her mad.

Suddenly her thoughts were agitated by a fearful picture.

She saw Adrian stretched bleeding and dead upon the wheel--his limbs severed and torn, and his brow scarred by the instruments of torture, while the doomsman’s laugh rang in her ears. As the picture grew upon her mind in all its horrible details:--the glazed eye and the writhen lip, the chest heaving with the convulsive sobs of death, and the throat straining with the death rattle,--the maiden covered her face with her hands, and shrieked:

“Save me, holy Mary, save me from these fearful fancies!”

And as she spoke, the maiden burst into a flood of tears.

“_Annabel!_” whispered a voice at once deep-toned and full of affection.

She looked up, and her father, the Count Aldarin, stood before her.

“My daughter,” he continued, drawing a seat beside her, “how dost thou like these?”

He opened a casket which he held in his hand, and the light of the alabaster lamp flashed upon ornaments of gold and silver, such as might not shame a queen to wear.

There were bracelets for the wrists, there were chains for the arching neck, gems for the brow, pearls to be woven in the flowing hair; and as their bright and star-like blaze met the eye of the Ladye Annabel, she gave utterance to a cry of delight.

“I thank thee, father, I thank thee!” she exclaimed, as, clasping a bracelet of gold, bordered by pearls, around her fair and well-rounded wrist, she received it with a glance of admiration. “See, father, see! How beauteous are those pearls, how bright that gold, and the shape--how exquisite! O! father, this is kind of thee! ’Tis indeed a rich gift!”

“_It is a bridal gift!_” exclaimed the Count, in a low and quiet tone, and with his eyes fixed upon his daughter’s countenance, as if to note each varying expression of the fair and lovely features.

Annabel started as if an adder had stung her.

“A bridal gift? Said you not so? A bridal gift? From whom is it, my father?”

“His grace, the Duke of Florence, sends thee this rare and costly present. He sends it with his ardent wishes for thy health. He sends these jewels with the hope that ere three days have run their sands, he may behold them shining on the brow of his fair bride--the Ladye Annabel, Duchess of Florence.”

As in a calm and determined tone he spoke these words, a deadly paleness came over the damsel’s face; her lips dropped apart, and her fair blue eyes distended with a vacant look, the slender fingers of each hand slowly straightened, unclasping their grasp of the casket, which fell heavily to the floor, as her arms dropped listlessly by her side.

The old man surveyed his child for an instant with a look which told of his deep, his yearning affection, combined with the strange fancies ruling his destiny through life. In an instant he again spoke, and his voice, as it came from the depths of his chest, sounded wild and thrilling to the maiden’s ear.

“_My daughter!_” said he, taking her by the hand, “_thou shall wed this man!_”

Annabel replied not.

“Thou shalt, I say, wed the Lord of Florence. It must be so; therefore it were well that thou dost prepare thee for the bridal. I say it shall be so, my daughter. The word of Aldarin is passed!”

“Father,” replied the Ladye Annabel, in tremulous tones; “father, O! look not so sternly at me, your eyes chill my very heart. I would do your bidding--the Virgin and all the saints witness me, I would--but, father--”

“Annabel,” said the Count, in his deep tones of enthusiasm, “I have said it, and it shall be so. Wed the Duke of Florence, and behold thyself a--queen! All that heart can wish, or the wildest fancy desires, shalt thou possess, and claim as thine own. Wealth shall lavish its stores around thee, and honor shall bring the fairest and the noblest to bow low at the feet of the Ladye Annabel, Duchess of Florence.

“Lo! thou art in the ducal hall of Florence: behold thyself encircled by the gay and glittering throng; a thousand eyes are fixed upon thee in admiration, a thousand tongues speak their words of eloquence but to syllable that admiration, and a thousand swords, flashing in the light, are slaves to the slightest word of Ladye Annabel--the queen.

“The robes of a queen shall gird this lovely form, the stars of a coronet shall flash from that beauteous brow, and this fair hand, so beautiful in its alabaster whiteness, shall wave the sceptre over the heads of kneeling myriads! With a queenly port and a flashing eye, thou shalt look around thee, and behold the princely halls illumined by lamps, diffusing at once both light, soft as moonbeams, and fragrance sweeter than the breath of spring flowers. The lofty windows, with their rare carvings, shall give to view gardens rich with golden fruit, won from the far lands of the East, fragrant with shrubbery and gay with flowers, while ancient trees, in leafy magnificence, sweep their arching bows overhead. Fountains fling their columns of liquid diamonds up from the arbored paths, lulling waterfalls soothe the ear, distant music wakes delightful visions in the soul, solemn palaces, in all their grandeur of outline, break through the air of night! Palaces, gardens, unbounded wealth, rank, pride, place, honor--all, all shall be thine own!”

“All, my father, all--all--but love.”

As Annabel spoke, her eyes filled with tears, and her voice was choked with the sobs that convulsed her bosom.

To say that the picture of the Count had no effect upon the maiden, would be uttering an absurd and unnatural fiction. In bright and glowing colors arose the gorgeous pageantry before the mind of Annabel: it was all saith the Chronicler of the ancient MSS.--it was all that a woman could wish, the fruition of a woman’s most ardent aspiration. With Adrian, the companion of her childhood, the princely palace would have been like an abode of fairy land; with the Duke, it would have been a tomb--a golden sepulchre for the living-dead.

The answer of Aldarin was contemptuous and bitter.

“_Love!_--a dream--a phantom--a bubble!--_Love_, forsooth! the vision of warm-blooded youth, which all have felt, and none but fools obey, Girl,” continued he, “I have said that thou shouldst wed the Duke, and--by my soul!--_thou shalt wed him_! My word--the word of Aldarin--is passed. Think not to deceive _me_. I know thy motive in thus setting the bidding of a father at defiance. It is because thou dost affect the murderer of my only brother,--of thy kind uncle,--the PARRICIDE, Adrian--”

“O! father, he cannot--cannot be the doer of so dread a crime.”

“Who, then,” exclaimed the Count, bitterly, “who then was the doer of so dread a crime? Speak, my fair daughter, _who_ was’t?”

“IT WAS THOU! THOU! ALDARIN THE SCHOLAR!” exclaimed a voice that sounded strange and hollow through the lonely apartment.

“Holy Mary, preserve us!” shrieked Annabel. “Father, whence came that fearful voice?”

The Count Aldarin replied not. The convulsive motion that heaved his breast, and strained the lineaments of his countenance, showed that he was making a desperate attempt to command his soul.

“‘Tis naught, my daughter,” he began; “‘tis fancy--’tis--”

He finished the sentence by a howl of horror, that might have been uttered by a lost soul. Annabel beheld him gazing fixedly at some object behind her. She turned her head and saw a vision that drove the life current back from her heart.

A figure arrayed in the snow-white attire of the grave, looked with a pale and ghastly countenance, and hollow eyes, from among the folds of the crimson tapestry on the opposite side of the apartment.

With freezing blood, Annabel beheld the figure advance with a slow and measured step towards her. Her consciousness failed, and she fell insensible on the floor, at the same instant that Aldarin sank down with a yell of despair, while his mouth frothed, and his eyes glared like those of a maniac.