Part 19

Robin the Rough advanced, and grasping a thong, twisted out of the wild bull’s hide, from the hands of one of the men-at-arms, slowly wound the cord around the body of one of the wild horses, and looping it in a firm knot, secured the right arm of Aldarin to the back of the restless steed; while Damian bound the left to the other steed, Halbert, assisted by the men-at-arms, bound his legs to the backs of the opposite horses, winding the thongs again and again, around the bodies of the impatient Arabs, until his blood spouted from the withered flesh of the fratricide.

“Wind your thongs yet tighter friends of mine!” the sneer broke gaspingly from the lips of the doomed. “I defy your malice and laugh at your doom!”

The interest now was most absorbing and intense.

Along the whole extent of blackened rocks, frowning above the level space, gathered the multitude gazing on the scene with gasping breath and woven brows; while the men-at-arms, circling along the base of the hill, stood silent and motionless, their upraised swords still glittering in the first beams of the morning sun.

And there, in the centre of the space of highway earth, placed haunch to haunch, stood the barbs of Arimanes, their eyes flashing as though a demon-soul lived and moved within each sinewy form; there were gathered the deformed Moors, each sable groom holding an ebon steed by the nostrils, for the bridles were now cast aside; there, standing at the side of each wild horse, the avengers of the dead, with the right leg advanced and dagger drawn, awaited the word of vengeance; and there, with his face turned upward to heaven, helpless and motionless, intense pain shooting through every vein, and quivering along every sinew, filling his brain with fire, his heart with ice, Aldarin the fratricide smiled in scorn, as the moment of his doom came hurrying on.

“Avengers of your Lord,” shouted Robin the Rough, “raise your daggers, and as the word falls from my lips, bury them to the hilt in the flank of each steed!”

“A word--a single word,” whispered Aldarin, in a subdued voice. “Draw near--I would say my last farewell--”

“What would’st thou have?” exclaimed one of the men-at-arms, advancing.

“When I am dying, ere the heart is cold, or the brow chill, approach and gaze upon my countenance, and as you gaze, take to your very soul.”

“Speak--man of blood--thy moments are well nigh spent.”

“Take to your very soul,” whispered the fratricide, as he slowly, and with difficulty, brought his head round to his right shoulder--“THE CURSE OF ALDARIN!”

“Avengers of your Lord,” exclaimed the stout yeoman--“strike deep, every man into the flanks of his steed!”

“_The curse_,” shrieked a hollow voice, “_The Curse of Aldarin!_”

“Strike,--I say--strike!”

The daggers sunk into the flanks of the horses, buried to the hilts; the Moors leaped back; the maddened steeds sprang forward, with one wild bound, straining every sinew in the effort to free themselves from their accursed burden.

It was in vain.

They sank back, with a maddening howl, each steed upon his haunches, the accursed fratricide uttered a yell of intense and overwhelming agony--it died on his lips!

With eyes of fire with streaming manes, their nostrils extended, and all their vigour gathered for the effort, the steeds again leaped forward, springing madly from each other, and darting into the air, with one terrible impulse--

The scene swam for an instant before the vision of the spectators.

They looked again. A limbless trunk lay in the dust of the highway, spouting streams of blood--along the green meadow careered two black steeds--through the dense forest thundered the others.

One of the men-at-arms, approaching the carcass, gazed for a moment at the dread face. His eye glanced over expressions of the features, convulsed by the throes of the parting soul; the eye yet fired with hate, the lip curved with scorn; the sunken jaw oozing blood from every pore; the quivering flesh and changing hues of the visage. All the ghastliness and fear of this countenance, met his vision at a glance; he uttered a howl of horror, and fell stiffened upon the earth, as the last spark of life fled from the remains of the fratricide. When the soldier awoke, his eye was vacant, and his reason gone. He was a maniac! He had received the last words of the Doomed, and the Curse was on him forever.

Another moment passed, and the crowd came rushing from the rocky steeps, filling the air with fierce shouts, and wild yells of execration, while the men-at-arms, circled round the bleeding trunk, gazing upon the wild and unearthly countenance of the Scholar, in wonder and in awe, each man whispering to his comrade, a word of fear, as he marked the expression of blasphemous and fiend-like scorn, stamped upon the visage of the FRATRICIDE.

And while they circled round, struck dumb with a nameless awe, two Figures, arrayed in robes of sable, rushed through the throng and confronted Robin the Rough, as he stood stern, silent and awe-stricken, they gazed upon the Dead.

“It is--” exclaimed the solemn voice of Adrian Di Albarone--“It is the judgment of Heaven!”

From rock, from hill, from valley, from forest and from castle-wall, arose the stern echo,--

“The Judgment of Heaven--the Judgment of Heaven!”

On, on, like lightning, darted the ebon steeds, bearing the torn and shattered limbs, reeking with the life blood, yet warm and smoking. On, on as tho’ the spirit of the lost, had entered their maddened forms. On, on, they flew!

Onward! and onward! sped the wild horses, tracking their course with blood, and rushing past the cottages of the affrighted peasantry, like beings of the unreal world, fired with the soul of Arimanes, cursed with the Spirit of the _Evil One_! Onward and Onward!

One brave barb, came plunging from the depths of a wood, and a precipice mighty and steep, was before him, but he heeded it not. Down an hundred fathoms into the boiling water he fell.

Another black steed sank into the calm waters of a placid river; another reached the sea, and plunging in its depths, swam far, far, into the wide expanse of the waters and was heard of no more.

The last--swept like the wind, by hamlet and tower and town. The live-long day he urged on his career. The blood streaming from his nostrils, his limbs weakened, and his sinews unstrung, he entered the confines of a long valley, where a calm lake, gave its bosom to the evening sun.

His pace was unsteady and he staggered to and fro, yet still the bloody fragment hung at his back. At last he fell and died, and the scene of his death was before a pleasant cottage on the green hill side. Much wondered the solitary Student of the cot, as he surveyed the carcass of the gallant steed. Little did he wot from whence he sped or the cause of his flight.

Meanwhile gathering around the shapeless trunk, the men of Albarone built a pile of the branches of oaks, that had lain mouldering for years in the forest, and soon a broad bright flame arose, and it burned till the setting of the sun, when a storm gathered in the west, and heralded by thunder, and armed with lightning, it swept over the earth, and the ashes of the _fratricide_, mingling with the whirlwind, never more polluted the green bosom of the earth.

Thus runs the legend of the Doom of the Poisoner, thus runs the legend of the death that befel.

ALDARIN THE FRATRICIDE.

BOOK THE FOURTH.

THE QUEEN OF FLORENCE.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

A SILVERY MOON AND A CLOUDLESS SKY.

THE AGED DAME OF THE COT ON THE HILLSIDE LEARNS THE MYSTERY OF AN UNFASTENED DOUBLET.

“Night among the mountains--oh, glorious and beautiful!” arose the voice of the Wanderer, as with one bold grasp he attained the topmost rock of the hoary steep, rising far above forest and stream--“Night among the mountains--the calm moonbeams sleeping on the lake--the boundless azure arching above--the rolling sweep of forest and the rugged outline of precipice and steep--the far-off convent, its towers looming through the distance, like a cloud of evil omen--Night among the mountains, glorious and grand and beautiful!

“Thank God for the breeze, the cool and freshening breeze! It sweeps over my forehead, burning as with the ravages of hidden flame, it bears the fever from my cheek, and the madness from my brain. And yet I must on, and on--afar I behold the peaceful cot, appearing amid the luxuriance of the hill-side vines--my steed lays bleeding and dead in the vale below, still must I on, and on!

“God of Heaven, will that face never depart from my soul, the brow darkened by superhuman hate, the eyes all aflame with the Curse of the Fratricide, the white lips, and the sunken jaws; with the blood oozing from every pore! Even now I behold the face! And to her ear--help me Saints of Light--to _her_ ear must I bear the manner of his doom!

“The moon shines in the heavens, calm and beautiful--when the mild radiance of her beams pales before the glory of the uprising sun--then, then, will the angels of fate, write in the books of the Unknown, the Doom of Adrian, the last of the race of Albarone!”

And as the words broke murmuring from his lips, he flung his form from the summit of the steep, and grasping with eager hands the point of each projecting rock, at last descended to the bed of the valley, and sped onward on his errand of woe, while higher in the heavens up rose the moon.

High in the heavens arose the full orbed moon, and calm and lovely was the sight, as enthroned in the very zenith of the boundless azure, this thing of beauty and of beams, shed a shower of silver radiance down on the silent bosom of the quiet vale, mirroring her rounded glory in the deep waters of the mountain lake, giving a ghastly lustre to the white precipice, from whose foundations arose the walls of the lonely convent, mossy with age and darkened by time.

In this wide world of ours--so runs the wild rhapsody of the Chronicler of the ancient MSS.--in this wide world of ours, there are, I ween, many things sublime and beautiful and grand, yet what sight may compare with a cloudless heaven, a silvery moon and a lovely extent of woody hills and grassy vales? Never minstrel struck harp--never romancer spoke the fancies of his brain, that did not hymn thy praise, O! beauteous thing of brilliance and of beams! For ages and for ages thou hast held thy way of glory through the arching heavens--thou hast looked down upon warriors marching in all their pomp, and thou hast beheld their withered forms strewn over the battle plain;--lovers have poured forth their love beneath thy light, and again thou hast looked down upon their quiet graves;--nations have risen and fallen;--monuments that gave promise of eternal duration, have crumbled in the dust;--cities have towered in deserts, and deserts have won the place of gorgeous cities, yet still kind nurturer of holy thoughts, inspirer of heavenly fancies, yet still thou passest on in thy course of light, and thus, with brilliance unpaling and unpaled, glorious as when God first bade thee roll through the azure expanse, thou shalt urge thy way until the final trump of doom.

Arising in the calm moonbeams, the roof of the lonely cottage gave its wreathing vines, all gay with flowers, to the motion of the night air, while the gleam of a taper, shooting from a crevice of the closed lattice, varied the shadows which darkened over one side of the tenement, by a single thread of light.

Meanwhile the beams of the taper gave light to the principal chamber of the cottage, where the stately mother of Leone the student, sate wrapt in deep meditation.

“Strange!”--thus she murmured--“Strange! Scarce seven days since we first concealed ourselves in this lonely vale, and Adrian--ha! I may be overheard--Leone has won the friendship of this noble youth of Florence. Not that he acquires honor thereby--by my troth, no!--the youth is a good youth, and a fair, but the friendship of Emperors cannot add glory to the heir of Albarone--fool that I am!--ever repeating the name of our race! Strange it is, very strange, that the gentle Florian should take up his abode in our cot! He is ever with Leone!--They walk, they eat, they drink together, and together they pursue their studies! The fair stranger shall in time become the leader of armies--but my son--the last of an honored race, shall become a--_monk_. The thought is maddening!”

The dame arose and hurriedly paced the room. As she strode to and fro she perceived the door of Leone’s apartment slightly ajar, and impelled by mere restlessness, she took a mother’s privilege, and softly entered the room.

No sooner had she opened the door, than a sight met her gaze, that caused her to start back to the very threshold with astonishment.

Seated beside the table, on which a taper cast its dim light, over the opened volume, the chairs of the students were drawn close together, their backs were turned to the dame, the arm of Leone was around the slender waist of the gentle Florian, and with their heads laid one against the other, the rich golden locks of Leone mingled with a shower of flaxen tresses that fell over the shoulders and down the back of the fair stranger.

Treading on tip-toe and much wondering at the unusual length of Florian’s hair, the dame approached.

“Thou art weary, my love”--the whisper broke from Florian’s lips--“thy dress is soiled with dust and torn by travel--thy face is wan and haggard, and--the Virgin save me--thine eyes are bloodshot! Thou hast been absent two long and weary days. Hast journeyed far to-day, Adrian?”

“A score of miles, since the sunset hour.”

“And thou didst see the old castle yet again?”

Adrian replied in a whisper, and then as they conversed in low murmurs, the dame observed the form of her son agitated by a slight trembling motion, while ever and anon he turned his head aside veiling his face in his hands.

Nearer drew the dame, and looking over the heads of the students, a tremor of surprise ran over her frame, her hands were involuntarily raised, her thin lips parted, her gray eyes expanded, and her eyebrows arose to the very roots of her hair. Silent she stood and motionless as stone.

The evening being somewhat warm, the broach that fastened Florian’s doublet at the neck, was unloosed, and the opening garment gave to view a neck of the most surpassing whiteness, spreading into shoulders of flowing outline, and budding into a bosom of virgin tracery of form, all glowing with the warm blood of youth, and heaving with the pulsations of passion.

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

THE CLOUD GATHERS AND THE SKY DARKENS.

The dame essayed to speak. Her voice died away in an unmeaning rattle of the throat. One hand she extended, and seizing Leone by the shoulder, with the other she tore the maiden from his embrace--

“Apostate!” she began in tones that trembled with rage, “is it thus thou honorest the race whose name thou bearest. Away!--I will never look upon thee more! Away!--and with thee take thy----, I will not speak the title of shame;--Away!”

As she spoke she raised her hand to strike the shrinking maiden, who, with head drooped on her bosom, and quick blushes coursing over her face, strove hurriedly to fasten the broach of her doublet.

“Strike her not, mother!” cried Leone, throwing himself before the damsel, “Assail her not with words of shame!”

He took the hand of the blushing maiden and continued--“Fear not, love, there is none to harm thee. Mother, behold my bride!”

“Annabel!--Thy bride? Wherefore this concealment? Why this unmaidenly disguise? How is’t, my son--how is’t?”

“As for the disguise it was assumed to aid her escape, and then,”--he whispered into his mother’s ear--“and then I thought thou wouldst not affect the niece of the--the--s’life, mother, I cannot speak the word of any one connected with Annabel!”

“My son, my son! what hast thou done? Answer me--befits such doings with thy profession? Art thou not intended for a minister of Heaven?”

While the dame spoke, the figure of a monk darkened the opened doorway, advancing to Leone he threw back his cowl, and discovered the dark brow, the wan face, the flashing eyes of Albertine, the monk.

“Lord Adrian,” whispered the Monk, “at the hour of sunset, when the dark storm arose, howling its requiem over the remains of the Fratricide, thou didst hasten from the castle of Albarone, bound for this lonely valley. Thou hadst not gone an hour’s journey from the castle walls, when I tracked thy footsteps, bearing news of fearful import. Thy haunt hath been betrayed to the tyrant, by a traitor from the lonely valley. Even now, the Duke spurs his steed toward the valley of the mountain lake, attended by a band of minions; even now the voices of his bravoes startle the air, shrieking for thy blood!”

“And the INVISIBLE?” whispered Adrian--“where is their dagger of vengeance, while the tyrant rides abroad on his errands of wrong?”

“Listen, Lord Adrian! This very night, while the Duke is absent from the walls of Florence, will Lord and Monk, Prince and Peasant, joined in the solemn oath of the holy steel, arise in the might of men who have sworn at the very Altar of God to be free, and ere the morrow’s sun, Florence the Fair and Beautiful, will own another Sovereign! The Invisible work in secret, as doth the earthquake--man alone beholds the bursting of the storm!”

“Hark! I hear the sound of horses’ hoofs, mingled with the clatter of arms!”

“God of Heaven! The Duke approaches!” shouted the Monk--“I must be gone--all thought of escape for thee and thy bride is vain! Adrian, Adrian, bear a firm heart through the perils of this night, and in the morrow’s dawn will blaze the star of thy Mighty Fortune! Hath the Duke any issue, or is he the last of his line?”

“He is the last of his race,” answered Adrian, “why dost thou ask?”

“Thou wilt learn anon!” exclaimed the Monk.

He turned and sought the door, but as if struck by a sudden thought, he again approached Adrian, and whispered in tones that seemed to come from his very soul--“Fare-thee-well, Adrian, fare-thee-well! I have loved thee much, very much. There was a time when my heart was as young as thine, my soul as pure. But now--Ha! _now_ I would have my revenge, although the chasm of hell yawned beneath me--nay, although between me and the object of my hate yawned the gulf of perdition, I would leap the abyss and drag him down, down to the eternal flames that now hunger for his accursed soul--Fare-thee-well, Adrian--I’ll never see thee more!”

The Monk was gone. The fearful look that fired his countenance, and the awful tones in which he spoke, haunted Adrian Di Albarone until his dying hour.

Scarcely had Albertine disappeared, when there was the sound of trampling feet in the outer apartment, and presently the figure of his Grace of Florence occupied the doorway, while the heads of his followers were seen looking over his shoulders.

He looked around the apartment with a curious eye, as if he sought the wanderers. At last his glance rested upon the form of the disguised Annabel, and advancing toward the damsel, he flung himself at her feet, exclaiming with all the grace of attitude and expression at his command.

“Fair Ladye, it is with joy beyond the power of words to tell, that I hail thee by the title of the--Fair Ladye Annabel, Countess Di Albarone!”

“How sayst thou?” exclaimed Annabel, forgetting her boyish disguise in her eagerness, “How sayst thou? Ladye of Albarone?”

“Aye, fair Ladye. Thou art _now_ the Countess Di Albarone, soon shalt thou be my own loved Annabel, Duchess of Florence.”

The Duke leaned earnestly forward, trying to look as much like a lover as might be--his face wore an expression of deep solemnity, his protruding eyes made an effort to sparkle, and his attempt to soften his voice, gave one the idea of a magpie trying to sing.

Annabel cast an agonized look at the Duke--

“Sayst thou nought of my father?” she exclaimed. “Is he sick?--is he ill?--Tell me that I may hurry to him!--For heaven’s sake tell me!--my father is--”

“DEAD!” cried the Duke.

“Dead!” echoed the dame, starting with surprise.

Annabel heard no more.

“Coward and tyrant,” shouted Lord Adrian, as he caught the sinking maiden in his arms, “away with thee from this humble tenement. Defile not my bride with the pollution of thy touch--By the honor of my race! I would give the brightest jewel in the coronet of Albarone, for one good blow at the carcass of this craven hound!”

“Ho! art thou here my gay springald?--_Thy bride_, indeed?--Guards advance, seize the miscreant!--I will teach him to raise his unholy hand against his liege Lord!--away with him to the lowest dungeon of yon convent. On the morrow he shall be carried to Florence, there to answer for his treason!”

Unarmed and weaponless Adrian beheld himself at the mercy of the tyrant. The soldiers advanced,--in vain was his defence--in an instant he found himself in the hands of his foes, and as the minions bound his hands behind his back, he heard the beetle-browed Balvardo--for he was among the throng--whisper in the ear of the Duke--

“At what hour my Lord?”

“‘Slife canst not do it without my bidding?--When all in the convent is still--at midnight let it be done!--See to’t!”

“Aye, aye, my Lord, at midnight it shall be done!”

“And the Bridal,” cried the Duke, turning to the Ladye Annabel, as she rested in the arms of the Countess. “The hour after midnight shall witness the joyous scene--the marriage of the Duke and his betrothed!”

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

THE DEATH BOWL.

THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE RAVISHER STARTLE THE SILENCE OF THE MAIDEN’S CELL, WHILE ADRIAN PREPARES FOR HIS DOOM IN THE VAULTS BELOW.

It was in a lone chamber, where the dark walls, unrelieved by tapestry or wainscotting, were rendered yet more sad and gloomy by the fitful flashes of a taper, placed upon a small table of blackened oak.

The sable hangings of the couch standing in one corner, the floor of stone, wearing the same dead and leaden hue, the massive furniture of the room, and the grotesque carvings ornamenting the heavy pillars, all were in unison with the grave-like silence of the air, which seemed heavy with doom and burdened with death.

In the centre of the apartment, her white robes loosely flowing around her peerless form, her fair and rounded arms upraised, her head slightly inclined to one side, her cheek, now warm with hope, now pale with fear, stood the Ladye Annabel. Her hair of sunshine luxuriance was swept back over her neck and shoulders, while her bosom rose in the light, and her breath came thick and fast, the convulsive gasps, breaking the death-like silence of the apartment, with an echo of strange emphasis.

Sleep had fled from her eyelids. She arose and watched, she knew not why, but still she watched and trembled as she listened to the slightest sound.

“I listen, I tremble, and my heart is chilled with a nameless fear,” murmured the Ladye Annabel, pacing the dark floor of the apartment with indecisive and hurried steps. “The hour wears slowly on, the fatal hour after midnight, when this unrelenting Duke will claim my hand, this hand already given to another, by the minister of Heaven! Holy Mary! behold the bridal--a lonely cell, hidden in the depths of this fearful monastery, the altar of black, the dark-robed monk, the tyrant-Duke and the victim; the time, the hour after the bell has tolled midnight, no hope, no aid, afar from human consolation, or the voice of human friend--such will be the second bridal of Annabel, wife of Adrian Di Albarone!”

She paused with an involuntary thrill of fear, as the vivid details of the picture rose before her mental vision, and then came another thought of horror--_the bride must be widowed ere she weds a second time_.