Part 20

While dark and fearful imaginings haunted her soul, and well nigh crazed her brain, the fair and gentle Ladye Annabel felt a strange and deadening sleep stealing over her frame, and with a half-muttered prayer to the Virgin, she sank slumbering on the couch, the hangings of sable closing over her form, and concealing her from the sight.

All is silent within the cell. Low, suppressed sounds break from distant parts of the monastery, half-heard shrieks, and deep-muttered groans. For a dreary half hour, the cell is left to silence and solitude; when a distant footstep is heard, then a strange echo runs along the corridors of the Convent, and the small door of the lonely room, grating on its hinges slowly opens, and a Figure, buried in the folds of a sweeping robe of black, and bearing a small lamp of iron in an extended hand, stalks cautiously along the floor of stone.

The Figure paused with a trembling and indecisive movement in the centre of the floor, and then a face flushed by wine, and ruddy with excitement, was thrust from the folds of the robe of black.

“All silent and still,” exclaimed a voice, indistinct with wine. “An half hour of midnight--the sleeping potion has taken effect! It has, by St. Antonia!”

He approached the bedside, and with the trembling hand of a coward, flung back the sable hangings of the couch. The light of his lamp, fell vividly upon the form of the sleeping maiden, as she reclined on the sable furs covering the couch, while her flowing robes, white as the undriven snow, gave a strange contrast to the ebony darkness of the bed.

“I’ faith she is beautiful--_eh, Aldarin?_ Faugh! _I forgot--the man is dead!_ That bloom upon her cheek--’tis like the opening rose. How soft that heave of the bosom as it rises from the folds of the white robe--_torn to pieces by wild horses_--that arm, with the dress falling softly around its outlines, the small hand, the tapering fingers--_a most accursed fate_--and the attitude, the cheek reclining on the arm, the form laid so carelessly along the couch, the feet, small, delicate--_torn into a thousand fragments, an arm here, a leg there, and_--By the Saints I must e’en crave a kiss of this sleeping beauty--”

And stooping slowly over the bed, with the lamp extended in one hand, the Duke glanced nervously around the room, and then with a rude grasp of the flaxen tresses, he wound the other around the maiden’s neck, his unholy hands touched her virgin bosom, with its globes of beauty heaving and throbbing as his fingers pressed the snow-white skin, while his sensual lips, steaming with wine, were pressed upon her unstained cheek, his grasp growing closer, and his eyes gloating over the Ladye’s face and form, as that kiss of pollution rested on her cheek.

“Ha--ha!--the sleeping potion,--she is mine--she is mine. The braggart Adrian hugs his death in the vaults below--I gather his bride to my arm in the cell above. Ha--ha--the sleeping potion!”

No thought of mercy, no whispering of pity, no silent pleading of right, for a moment restrained the purpose of the ravisher.

He gathered her form closer to that breast which had never been the home of one ennobling thought, he wound his hand around her neck; again was her bosom and cheek polluted by the plague-spot of his touch.

“She is mine!” chuckled the ravisher. “Mine, and none other than mine!”

The Ladye Annabel murmured in that fatal sleep, she tossed her rounded arms wildly to and fro; the potion was in her veins, and around her heart, and the nightmare on her soul.

Another start, and she awoke.

She slowly unclosed her large blue eyes, she fixed their glance upon the flushed countenance of the ravisher, with a look that went to his very soul, and caused the arm that encircled her form to tremble like a leaf tossed to and fro by the wind.

“Murderer!”

The solitary word broke from her lips, and her look of wild gaze was again fixed upon his face. He trembled before her glance--he quailed like a whipped hound--he unloosed his hold.

“I am not,” he muttered, springing backward from the couch. “It was not me. He is not dead; he lives--”

“Murderer!” she again murmured, in that low, deep-toned voice, while her face of calm and dreamy beauty was stamped with a weird expression that awed the ravisher to the very soul.

“Even now thy evil angel writes thee liar, in the book of thy misdeeds. Even now thy victim writhes in the throes of death within the vaults below; ay, ay, beneath thy very feet he dies. Why stand ye over the corse? Doth not the pale face and the cold brow fright ye? On whom is fixed the glare of those stony eyes--on whom? On thee, murderer, on thee; on thee they glare with the accusing glance of death!”

“She is crazed! Save me, all good saints--she is crazed! She sweeps toward me with a measured stride! Great God! she walks not--she glides slowly on; she moves like a spirit--a thing of air!”

He shrunk back, cringing before the glance of those eyes from which all reason had fled; he shrunk back step by step as she advanced, awed by the upraised arms, with the robes of white waving slowly to and fro; awed by the supernatural look visible in every line of the face of the Ladye Annabel, and in a moment found himself leaning for support against a dark stone pillar of the cell.

“Murderer!” she murmured, looking him full in the face. “I hear thy victim groan, I hear him writhe. Look ye, good angels, he denies it, and look, look how the red blood drops from his trembling hands!”

With that look which filled him with involuntary horror, she glided backward step by step, she reached the small door of the cell, and flung it open with her outspread hands.

“He denies it, he denies it; and the blood--ha, ha, ha!--hark how it patters on the floor!”

With that low, muttered laugh which chilled his very blood, for it was the laugh of madness, the Ladye Annabel again awed the Duke of Florence--the ravisher in heart--with her gaze, and then springing through the cell door, her form, with its waving robes of snow, was lost to his sight.

He saw her form no more, but a low muttered laugh came whispering along the galleries of the monastery, and half-formed words broke on his ear.

“Where is now the ravisher, flushed with wine and maddened with lust; where is now the proud Duke, haughtily attired in robes of price, with dishonor on his heart, and the foul purpose on his soul?”

Crouching against the wall, trembling in every limb, his eyes vacant with terror, his whiskered jaw half dropped upon his heart, his hand still nervously grasping the iron lamp, he listens to the low, muttered laugh creeping to his ear from the far distant corridors; he listens and shakes with fear, but says no word.

Along the dark galleries she flees, filling the old arches with echoes of that low muttered laugh; through the midnight passages she winds, stairways she ascends, and her delicate feet descend the dampened steps of stone; alone, in darkness, and in nameless fear, she glides on her flight of terror.

The cool air sweeps over her fevered brow, the dampness of the atmosphere chills her bosom, and by slow degrees the flight of madness, caused by the drugged potion, passed from her soul, and the Ladye Annabel is restored to reason and to thought.

Oh! fearful reason, oh! terrible thought, to which madness were joy, insanity, in its wildest flight, happiness the most intense.

“The bride must be widowed, ere she weds a second time!”

She rushed on, never heeding the darkness; she rushed on, never heeding the cold. She might save him yet; oh! even yet she might save him.

And through the dark passages of that deserted part of the monastery she wound, until her hands, extended on either side, touched the opposite walls, wet with moisture, and crawling with vermin; when the echo of the arches, succeeded by a dead, deafening murmur, told Annabel that she strode along a confined corridor, far under ground, growing narrow and yet narrower at every step.

A moment passed, and her extended hands were met by waving folds of tapestry, that swept across her path, and terminated the narrow corridor. Thrusting her hands eagerly among the hangings, she turned them suddenly aside, and started back with surprise, as a broad belt of light was thrown along the gloomy passage. With hushed breath and a throbbing heart, she gazed beyond the hangings of dark leather, and while her blue eyes dilated with wonder and fear, she beheld a strange and startling scene.

Two figures were kneeling upon the floor of an apartment, narrow and confined, as regards dimensions, and square in shape, hung with gorgeous folds of embroidered tapestry, dark-green in hue, with matting of strange pattern and curious device, brought from the far Eastern lands, strewn over the pavement of the room. The only object that broke the uniformity of the place, was a dark robe flung over some massive body in an obscure corner.

* * * * *

The light, clear and brilliant in its flame, placed on the matting between the kneeling men, threw its vivid beams on each face and form, over every line of their features, over every point of their apparel.

The Ladye Annabel stifled an expression of surprise which rose to her lips at the vision of this luxuriously furnished cell, in the midst of gloom and damp, and then with a writhing heart took in the details of this strange picture.

One of the kneeling figures was a soldier, the other was a monk.

The soldier, with his muscular hand laid on his bent knee, grasped a massive sword; his beetle brow surmounted by stiff and matted hair, giving a darker expression to his small and ferret-like eyes; while his companion, robed in the dark attire of a monk, with a pale, solemn face, lighted by the glare of an eye that seemed to dilate and burn, looked upon the man-at-arms with a glance meant to read more than the rugged visage--meant to read his very soul.

The Ladye Annabel listened to their low and muttered conversation with her very heart mounting to her throat.

“Thou wilt do it--eh, Albertine? Thou knowest my orders, sir monk?”

“The steel or the bowl?”

“The same, by the fiend! The hour--when the clock of the tower strikes twelve. He said so--thou knowest whom I mean. Why that dark and bitter smile? Blood o’ th’ Turk, monk, that smile shows thy white teeth--I like it not!”

“Nay, good Balvardo, be not angered with me. I was but painting a quiet picture to my fancy. Our victim, his eyes rolling in the death-struggle, his blue lips whitened with foam, his arms outstretched with the last convulsive spasm, and then--ha, ha!--the music of the death rattle! ’Tis excellent, i’faith, the picture--ha, ha, ha!”

“Look ye, monk or devil, whate’er ye be, I’m your man, when a good deed of cut-and-thrust is to be done, and the wretch is despatched with a blow. But as for this merry-making over the dead, I like it not. Blood o’ Mahound, not a whit of it! I can wet my sword in a man’s blood as nicely as your next man, but it likes me not to wet my tusks with the vile puddle, and grin while the red drops fall from my lips. No more o’ your death grins, monk, or--’s death!--we quarrel!”

“Ho--ho--ho! so the humor suits ye not, _honest_ Balvardo. Dost know the depth of the sea, or the number of the millions slain by old Death? Then know the hate I bear _my_ victim; then count the lives I would crush in my revenge, had he as many as the millions trampled under the feet of Death! Is’t not cause for merriment, _good_ Balvardo?”

“Look ye, sir monk, thou hast ever been known as the prime tool of his grace,--’s life! I should mention no names,--and therefore do I resign my part in this night’s work to thy hands. When ’tis done, thou knowest--”

“Where shall I place the body?”

“Here!” cried the hoarse voice of the soldier, and the Ladye Annabel saw him rise; she beheld him striding across the matted floor, toward an obscure corner of the apartment; she beheld him as he placed his rough hand upon the dark robe flung over the rising object.

“Here let him rest,” he cried, raising the robe, “and rest forever!”

The Ladye Annabel beheld a sight that gathered the big drops of sweat thick as the death dew on her forehead. Her heart was swelled to bursting, and she turned away from the sight for a single moment, with the impulse of overpowering horror.

When she looked again, the black cloth was again resting on that object of terror, while Balvardo was advancing toward the monk with his usual heavy and measured stride.

“Hast aught to hold the wine, _good_ Balvardo?”

“In yonder closet thou wilt find the wine. Here is--curse this cloak, how its folds tangle about my body!--here is the goblet.”

The Ladye Annabel felt the death-like feeling of ice creeping around her heart; and as she looked, she thought she beheld the monk Albertine grow pale with horror, while his compressed lip seemed to tell a story of fearful yet hushed emotion.

_The goblet held forth in the hand of the Sworder, was the goblet of gold with which the poisoner of the Red Chamber had administered death to the lips of Julian, Lord of Albarone._

“Man!” exclaimed Albertine, with a blazing eye and livid lip, “how came this goblet--this death-bowl--in thy possession?”

“‘Slife! Dost not know the story? One of the witnesses who gave testimony against that--that--I mean _he_ who sleeps in yonder chamber--received this goblet as a mark of the accuser’s gratitude. I was that witness. Blood o’ th’ Turk, there goes the clock--one, two, three. Sir monk, to thy duty.”

“Father of mercy, he is false at last!”

And as the words broke from the Ladye Annabel’s lips, she beheld the monk take the goblet in his hands; she beheld him empty a paper filled with white powder into its depths.

She could look no more; a cold, icy feeling seemed to freeze the very blood around her heart; her limbs refused their support; she sank slowly down upon the damp floor, and yet the words spoken in the adjoining room came to her ear like the echo of far-off shouts.

“Four, five, six. Monk, wilt delay all night? To thy victim!”

The monk strode across the cell, holding the goblet under his robe; he approached a spot where the tapestried hangings, slightly swept aside, disclosed the entrance into another room.

“Adrian,” whispered the monk, “dost sleep?”

“Sleep!” echoed a hollow voice from the inner cell. “Sleep, when there is fever in my brain, and fire in my heart! Dost jest, good Albertine?”

“Nay nay, Adrian, I jest not. I have a sleeping potion which will give thee rest.”

“The rest of the grave, in the arms of the skeleton-god,” muttered Balvardo, with a low chuckle.

“Would that thy potion could minister sleep eternal,” spoke the hollow voice, and a hasty footstep was heard. “And yet I would not die yet--no, no! She still lives. I would not die, save in her arms, and by her side!”

And as the voice sounded strange and hollow through the cell, the tapestry rustled, and Adrian Di Albarone stood before the monk.

Adrian Di Albarone it was, but the manly form was bent with chains, the black velvet attire of the student was soiled and torn; while the faded countenance, the sunken cheek, the lips compressed, the hollow eye-sockets, and the quick and fiery eye, all told a tale of the agony of years endured within the compass of a single hour.

He stood before the monk, and his chains clanked as he stood, while his wild eye drank in each line of Albertine’s visage.

“You spoke of a soothing potion, good Albertine.”

“_Seven, eight, nine,” muttered Balvardo._

The monk spoke not a word; he strode to the closet--he seized the flask of wine--he filled the goblet to the brim.

“Drink, Adrian,” he cried, “drink, and be refreshed!”

Adrian raised the goblet to his mouth with his chained right hand--he wet his lips with the ruddy wine; and then, as if seized by some fearful spell, he stood motionless as death, while his right arm straightened slowly out from his body, with the hand convulsively clutching the bowl of death.

“It is, it is!” he shrieked. “It is the goblet of the Red Chamber! God of Heaven, what means this mystery? Speak, Albertine. Wouldst thou betray me?”

“_Ten!” meanwhile continued Balvardo, in the background_.

“Adrian!” cried the monk, starting back with a solemn gesture, “I stand upon the verge of the cliff of Time; beneath me roll the surges of that shoreless ocean which men name ETERNITY! Ere the morrow’s dawn, I leap from the cliff; the surges of that awful sea will bear me on--on to the vast Unknown! Thinkest thou I would betray thee? Drink, and be refreshed.”

_“Eleven, twelve! the time is up!” soliloquized the sworder._

“I drink,” cried Adrian, with a wild gesture, “I drink; for thy words are truth, and thine eye bears no falsehood in its glance! I drink the goblet of the Red Chamber to the dregs!”

A shriek that might never be forgotten rang through the corridor and chamber, and a slight form, arrayed in robes of white came rushing from the folds of the tapestry.

Adrian beheld the dreamy face of the Ladye Annabel, her cheek pale as the robes she wore, while, with glaring eye and voice of horror, she shrieked:

“Drink not--in God’s name do not drink--the bowl is drugged with death!”

He flung the bowl aside, but ere it left his hand it was received in the quick grasp of the monk; he raised his chained hands on high, and ere they were lowered, his Bride lay panting on his breast!

Oh, where is the magic of human words that may picture the deep and fearful interest of that meeting, the gush of contending feelings, the rapture sparkling in the eye and beaming from the lip, the heart all pulsation, the blood all fire, the arms flung convulsively round each other’s neck, the look of the Doomed, the long, last, lingering look upon the face of the beloved, her upturned eyes, her cheek now crimson and now snow, her tresses of gold waving over her robes of white, and her form of beauty flung over his bosom, with every vein swelling with delight, every nerve quivering with joy!

They meet as lovers meet, when, standing on the opposing rocks of Time and Destiny, they fling their arms across the chasm, nor heed the vast eternity that yawns below, ready to engulf and destroy.

“Drink not, oh, Adrian, drink not--the bowl is drugged with death!”

“The time is up,” muttered the hoarse voice of Balvardo--“The guards are within call, good monk, an’ he refuses the dose.”

“Adrian Di Albarone,” cried the monk, fixing his full and solemn eyes upon the chained knight, “drink the bowl, I implore thee! By the memory of the Cell of the Doomed, by the memory of the Chapel of the Rocks, by the memory of the perils we have shared, the deaths we dared together, in the name of thy father, whose ghost now looks down upon thee, in His name, most solemn and most dread, I adjure thee--drain the goblet to the dregs!”

“Dark and mysterious man,” cried Adrian, sharing the wild glance of Albertine, “give me the bowl, I drink----”

“Adrian, for my sake touch it not--poison nestles like a snake within its depths!”

“Hold me not, Annabel--grasp not my arm--”

“For the sake of God, oh, do not, do not drink!”

“I must, I must! It is not thy hand, Albertine, that gives the bowl--it is the hand of Fate, thrust from yon blackening cloud, which all my life has thrown its shadow over my path! Give me the bowl--though ten thousand deaths were darting from each sparkle of the wine, still--I drink, and drain the goblet to the dregs!”

In vain the upraised arm of the Ladye Annabel, in vain her look of fear, her voice of horror!

As she clung to his chained arms, he raised the goblet to his lips, he drained it to the dregs.

“He smiles,” muttered Balvardo, “the monk smiles as he gives the death-bowl! I see not his cloven foot, nor do I see his horns--not a whit o’ ’em. Else might I suspect the devil were lurking in yon monkish robe.”

Adrian handed the goblet to the monk.

Albertine received it with a deep and meaning smile.

Scarce had the hand of Adrian been extended in the act, than his arm fell like a weight of lead to his side, and Annabel felt her lover leaning heavily upon her shoulder, while her fair arms might scarce stay him in his fall to the floor.

“Monk,” cried Adrian, as, sinking upon one knee, he fixed his ghastly eyes upon the face of Albertine; “monk I trusted thee, and thou art false!”

“His brow is cold,” murmured the Ladye Annabel, as, sinking on her knees by his side, she supported Adrian’s head upon her virgin bosom. “See! the big drops of the death-dew stands out from his forehead--and this, monk, this is thy work!”

As the terrible look of the dying man met his eye, Albertine seemed struggling with some terrible pang, but when the words of Annabel and her look of intense agony came like a death-bolt to his heart, he hurriedly advanced, he looked at the group, he spoke in a voice tremulous with agitation, yet deep and solemn in its every accent--

“Ye scorn me now, fair Ladye, and raise your hands in a gesture of reproach most terrible to bear; yet the day will come, when the voice of scorn will be changed to the sound of pity, when those very hands will strew fresh flowers over my grave!”

“Has ---- given up its model of devils!” muttered Balvardo, in the background. “‘Slife, I can murder a man in hot blood or cold blood, but as for this heaping taunt on taunt--I like it not--by the Blood o’ th’ Turk!”

“He is dead--cold and dead,” murmured the Ladye Annabel, as she gazed upon the pallid face of Adrian. “He does not breathe; Mother of Heaven, I cannot feel the beating of his heart!”

Ere the words had passed her lips, the dying man sprang with one bound to his feet; and while his bloodshot eyes rolled ghastlily from face to face, he flung his arms aloft, and tottered across the chamber, laughing wildly and with maniac glee, as he pointed to the dark object rising from the floor, covered with the folds of the dark robe, that swept over its surface like a pall of death.

“Monk, behold--behold the doom of Adrian of Albarone!” he shouted with a wild and husky voice, as he stooped, with a sudden movement, and tore the robe from the object which it concealed. “There, there stands the assassin, here the victim, and--ha, ha, ha!--_behold the coffin!_”

He swayed heavily from side to side; he flung his arms hurriedly aloft in the vain effort to preserve his balance, and then, with a fixed and staring eye, he gazed upon the face of Albertine with a look that froze his blood.

“Monk, I trusted thee, and thou art false!”

The sound of a falling body echoed around the room, and the lifeless form of Adrian Di Albarone lay extended across the coffin, while the out-spread hands clutched the dark panels with the convulsive grasp of death.

“Wait one hour,” muttered the monk to Balvardo; “wait one hour, ere thou bearest the corse to the grave. ’Tis now the midnight hour: an hour from this time, the Duke--ha, ha!--will wed his bride; an hour from this time, and thou mayst bear the corse to the grave!”

“Be it so,” growled Balvardo. “Then this pestilent Adrian will trouble me no more! Blood o’ Mahound, the grave is a wondrous sure prison; it needs nor bolt nor bar; old Death stands jailor at its door!”

“Ladye!” cried the monk, as he advanced to the side of the Ladye Annabel, raising the maiden, whose senses seemed stupified with horror, from the floor, “behold the corse of thy love! Advance, Ladye--rest thee by its side--gather the head of the corse to thy bosom! Watch beside the corse one hour--a single hour--and let nor man nor devil wrest the lifeless body from thy grasp!”

The Ladye Annabel opened her large blue eyes with a stare of vacant wander, and smiled as she gathered the head of the corpse to her bosom, twining her fair and delicate lingers in the golden hair of the dead.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

THE CELL OF ST. ARELINE.