Part 22

“By Saint Peter, I’ll wager a stoup of wine, that thou didst never see the light of day--eh, old rat?”

“_Day!_ what is that?--But for my song--here goes!”

And then busily plying the spade, in a cracked voice he sang the following words, in a sort of wild chaunt, which he occasionally varied by sounds that resembled the yell of a screech-owl.

THE SONG OF THE ANCIENT MAN.[8]

DIG THE GRAVE AND DIG IT DEEP.

Dig the grave and dig it deep-- Straight with the mattock dig each side, Dig it low, and dig it steep-- Dig it long and dig it wide!

As he sang, the old man plunged the spade lustily into the earth, and throwing aside the large lumps of clay, he continued with great glee--

Here while nations rise and fall, Here while ages glide, Here wrapt within its earthy pall, Must the crumbling corse abide! Then raise the chaunt, Then swell the stave, Here’s to death, all grim and gaunt, And to his home--the grave!

He wound this up with an unnatural noise, half shriek, and half yell, and the hollow and dread dungeon arches gave back the strain.

“He, he, he!--I know a merrier catch than that! List ye, my noble captain.”

He then made a motion with his hand, as if in the act of drinking, and then a shout of wild laughter sounded through the cell.

Ha, ha! Ha, ha!--Drink to the full, Drink to the sound of the clanking bone; Fill high with wine the fleshless skull, And swell the toast without a moan--

Hurra! for Death with his bony hands, Hurra! for Death with his skeleton form, He holds the thunderbolt.--On high he stands, He mows them down in calm or storm--

He swept his spade around with maniac glee, and then in a voice louder and shriller, while his shrunken breast heaved with the wildness of his emotion, he sang,

Then raise the chaunt, Then swell the stave, Here’s to Death, all grim and gaunt, And to his home--the grave.

“A brave song! Ha, ha, ha! By my faith a brave song! Where didst pick it up, Old Screech-Owl, eh?”

“Glow-worm is my name,” replied the other demurely,--“Glow-worm--ah! but this is rich earth! Look! what big, lusty clumps. He, he, he! How cold and pale he looks--he that I am to bury--See!”

“He doth look cold and pale!” muttered Balvardo. “Is the grave deep enough, Devil-darkness? Let’s house him in’ th’ earth without delay.”

“The grave scarce reaches to my middle--deeper let us dig it, noble captain--deeper!”

“I tell thee, Devil-darkness, I cannot look upon the cold and stony face of the dead! Deeper thou mayest dig the grave--but the body must be hidden from sight in the meanwhile. ‘Slife--I left my cloak in the vaults above, and I have no robe to throw over the coffin!”

“He--he--he, thou’rt a brave man, yet poor old Glow-worm knows more than thee! Look around the cell, most noble captain, and tell me what thou see’st!”

“I see the rough walls of stone, the roof of rock, the floor of clay. Not a whit more, by the Fiend!”

“Look again--pass thine eyes along the wall opposite yon oaken door. What see’st thou now, most noble captain?”

“I see a bolt of iron, rusted and time-eaten, projecting from the wall--”

“Wouldst know how to open a passage into the stone room, next to this cell? Move the bolt quickly to and fro, and yon massy stone will roll back into the stone-room! Thou canst lay the coffin within its walls, until the grave is deep enow.”

“The bolt moves--ha! The stone, the massive stone glides from the wall--another push at the bolt! There--blood o’ Mahound, I behold a dark passage into this dismal room! ‘Slife! there is a current of air rushing from this open space--what may it mean?”

“Dost wish to hide the corse? Eh--most noble captain? Lay hold of t’other end o’ th’ coffin, and I will raise this end. We’ll bear it to the stone-room!”

In a moment they raised the coffin, and bearing it toward the open space, Balvardo retreated backwards, through the passage, and in another instant was lost to view, while the foot of the coffin still projected into the dungeon-cell.

“Bear it through the passage, Glow-worm!” cried Balvardo. “In a moment we will have it laid along the floor of this dreary place!”

“It is heavy,” cried the old man; “my strength fails me. Thou wilt have to bear the burden thyself, most noble captain! Glow-worm lifts no heavy burden!”

“Be it so,” growled Balvardo. “Slife I like not to be alone with the dead! Slowly, slowly, drag the coffin along the floor of stone, there--it rests against the wall! Now for the grave.”

“What dreary sound is that, thundering far above? Oft have I heard it, yet ne’er could tell what it might mean?”

“The Convent clock strikes--one!” muttered Balvardo. “A few moments and my reward is sure!”

“Beware the secret spring!” shrieked the old man, as though his crazed mind had been fixed by some sudden thought. “Beware the secret spring! It sticks from the floor near the very wall, where thou hast laid the coffin. An’ thy foot presses the spring the stone rolls back, and--he, he, he--_thou art buried alive_!”

It was too late! Even as the old man spoke, Balvardo stumbled along the floor of the stone-room, his foot pressed the point of iron projecting from the floor, and the massive rock rolled back to its place, in the masonry of the substantial wall.

“I fear, I fear,” murmured the old man, gazing around with an affrighted look; “I fear _they_,” pointing above, “_they_ will lash me for this! He, he, he! I bade him beware of the spring within the stone-room, and he would not. I cannot turn this bolt, the old man is not strong enough. Ha, ha, here is a torch; Glow-worm has not had a torch in his hand for years! Ho, ho, ho, the noble captain came here to bury the dead, and, ho, ho, ho, he _is buried alive_!”

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.

THE FATE OF THE BETRAYER.

SWEETER THAN THE LOVE OF WOMAN, DEARER THAN GLORY TO THE WARRIOR, POWER TO THE PRINCE, OR HEAVEN TO THE DEVOTEE, IS THE CONSUMMATION OF A LONG SOUGHT AND SILENTLY TREASURED REVENGE.

“Where am I?” shrieked the Duke, as he stood upon the platform of the convent tower. “‘Tis a hideous dream, ’tis a fearful nightmare! Ha! my brain reels. I’ll gaze no longer down the fearful abyss! Is there none to awake me, none? Horror of horrors! This demon hand will strangle me, closer and tighter it winds around my throat, ah!”

A wild laugh of intense joy came from the chest of the Monk. “I feast upon thy misery,” he cried, “wretch, I banquet upon thy agony! Ha, ha, ha! _The glory of this moment I would not barter for all the joys of heaven!_ Dost thou shiver, dost thou tremble, well thou mayst! Look down, far, far below! Dost see any hope there, what says the whitened precipice? Hath the dark abyss no voice? Look above, canst glean naught from the frown of the tower that is over thy doomed and devoted head? Or mayhap the secret door may afford thee consolation? Speak--thou for whose crime earth hath no word, hell no name, speak that I may feast upon the music of thy quailing voice!”

Tighter he wound his grasp around the throat of the trembling wretch, and with his dark eye flashing with all the frenzy of supernatural revenge, he shook the form of the Duke over the awful abyss.

“Is’t thou, good Albertine? Hold, hold, or I shall fall. ’Tis a fearful steep! Behold, a flock of snow-white sheep are grazing in yon distant vale, they seem but as mice at this fearful height. Thou, thou wilt not harm me, good Albertine?”

“Look, look!--Behold her pale form is floating in the moonlight, her face is wan, and her look is that of despair! Ha! her glazing eyes are fixed upon thee--_thee_--her BETRAYER! She beckons me over the steep!--I come--I come!”

“Nay, good Albertine, grasp me not so tight!--Bring to mind the days when we were sworn friends--”

“_Friends?_ Doomed man, the memory of former days shall but hurl accumulated torture upon thy head!--FRIENDS?--Ah! like a dream it comes over my mind! I was a peasant boy--thou didst raise me to rank and power, and I have loved ye as brother loves brother. Could my life have served thee, it would have been laid at thy feet. My life thou did’st not take. No! no! But the treasured hope of years, the glowing fancies of a musing boy, the anticipations of happiness that haunted my dreams by night, and lived in my thoughts by day; these--at one fell remorseless blow, thou did’st sweep away. It was upon _her_ grave; the grave of thy victim, that one thought possessed my soul. For years and years have I planned, have I schemed, nay wept, _prayed_ for the fulfilment of that thought. And now it is fulfilled. I have thee in my grasp! Think’st thou a thousand worlds would buy thy craven life? That heaven or hell would tear thee from my hand?”

Again he gave utterance to the frenzied joy of his soul in a loud wild laugh, that burst fearfully upon the midnight air.

“Albertine spare me, spare me! Take not my life.”

“Spare thee? and yon pale form waving me onward? spare thee? wretch, I tell thee all nature is celebrating thy doom! The moon is sinking below the horizon, and the stars gleam through the gathering pall of darkness like funeral fires! _Spare thee!_”

“Ha! whence come those shouts! I may yet be saved!”

“Thou mayst be saved--ha--ha--ha! It gives me joy to drag thee o’er this steep, craving and hoping for life, to thy latest grasp! Look around Urbano, Duke of Florence, look around and behold the fair and beautiful earth, scene of thy crimes--nay, nay THY CRIME--behold the earth for the last time!”

It was a weird and awful scene.

The dizzy height of the platform rock, the vast azure with its boundless horizon, all beaming with the grandeur of the stars, the massive hills sweeping around the mountain-lake, darkening the clear waters with their midnight shadow, the pile of rocks uprising beyond the darkness of the unfathomable abyss, the silence and the awe that rested upon the hour, broken by the sound of far-off shouts, while on the very verge of the eastern sky, bloody and red, the full-orbed moon was sinking slowly down, casting a dim and lurid light over mountain and stream, convent and plain--all formed a scene of dark and fearful interest.

The Universe, awful and vast, seemed to hold a strange sympathy with the Revenge of Albertine the Monk, the stars gave their solemn light to the scene, and the blood-red moon lit up the funeral pile of the Doomed.

“I gaze around, ’tis an awful scene. And thou, thou wilt spare me, good Albertine?”

“As thou didst spare thy victim, when her voice rung in thy ears of stone, shrieking for pity!” The response came hissing through the clenched teeth of Albertine! “Betrayer, I again tell thee all nature is celebrating thy doom! The moon is sinking below the horizon, and the stars gleam through the gathering pall of darkness like funeral fires!”

Thrilled with terror and appalled to the very soul, by the erect form and flashing eye of the Monk, the Duke stood trembling and quivering like a reed, on the verge of the platform rock.

“Choose the manner of thy death! Leap from the rock, or behold, I raise before thy very eyes this dagger; the dagger of the Holy Steel!”

“Thou wilt not slay me thus, good Albertine,” shrieked the Duke. “Mercy--for the sake of God--mercy!”

“Thine own _mercy_ I give back to thee! Leap from the rock, or this dagger seeks thy heart. Ha! that pale form, that dim and shadowy face, floating in the midnight air, with the eyes of speechless woe! She beckons me onward. He comes, pale spirit--thy betrayer comes! An instant, and lo! before the bar of eternity he shall tremble at the frown of the Unknown!”

It was a scene of sickening horror, yet dignified and consecrated by the mighty revenge of the monk.

His face pale as death, his lips livid with fear, his eyes rolling and vacant in their glance, the Duke stepped tremblingly backward, while the monk strode one step forward, raising the keen steel aloft, with a slow movement, yet with a quick eye and a determined arm.

“Leap--leap--or the dagger seeks thy heart!”

The Duke looked wildly around, and, shaking his hands aloft, gnashed his teeth in very despair.

Another moment!

The monk alone stood on the platform, while a rushing sound swept through the air, far, far below, as though a weight of iron had been toppled from the rock.

Albertine slowly advanced to the edge of the platform, and gazed into the void below.

With a fixed and glaring eye, with the dagger raised aloft in his right hand, he gazed below, and beheld the folds of a garment waving through the darkened air, while a yell most fearful and maddening to hear, came shrieking from the darkness of the void, resounding to the very heavens above, until the air grew animate with the sound of despair--unutterable despair.

Then came a crashing sound, as though a heavy body had fallen against the projecting points of the rugged rocks, and then all became silent.

Silence gathered over the universe, like one vast brooding shadow of omen and doom.

The wild flush of excitement vanished from the face of the monk.

With a calm brow, a compressed lip, a cheek pale as death, and a full dark eye, that seemed blazing forth from the shadow of the brow, he folded his arms silently on his breast, and looked up to the midnight heavens.

“She beckons me over the steep, she beckons me; and, with her burning eyes fixed upon my face, she waves her hands, and bids me--on, on! She points to the scenes of the past: God of my soul, how real, how vivid, how like the pictures of memory! The cottage in the vale; the sunshine sleeping on the roof sheltered by vines; the lordly hall and the friend--_the friend_--the outrage, the lifeless form, and then comes the spirit of my desolation, laughing with scorn as he points to the shadow blackening o’er the dial plate of destiny!

“Nay, nay, wave not thy hands with that slow and solemn motion--glide not so ghastly to and fro--thine eyes burn in my very soul! I come, I come! Albertine glides onward to his bride!”

With folded arms, with calm and immovable countenance, fixing his glance upon the vacant air, without a fear, a sorrow, or a sigh, the avenger stepped from the platform rock, and with the speed of an arrow driven home by the strong arm of the archer, he sank into the darkness of the abyss.

There was a low moaning exclamation of joy, and the setting moon looked on the falling form no more.

CHAPTER THE NINTH.

THREE DAYS ELAPSE.

JOY COMES AND POWER, BUT DEATH HAS GRASPED THE VICTIM.

The morning sunshine, streaming through the deep silled casement of the convent cell, filled the lonely chamber with light.

The arching roof and the pavement of stone, the dark gray walls, thronged with monkish effigies, and the distant corner of the room, all glowed with warm glimpses of the daybeams, while a solitary soldier strode slowly along the floor, his brow darkening with a frown, as, with his clear blue eyes fixed on vacancy his mind was absorbed in painful thought.

“St. Withold! and all the Saints in heaven or earth save me now!” he absently muttered, as his right hand grasped the hilt of his good sword.--“Here’s a new wonder, a fresh mystery! Three--three days agone--we were all fighting and slashing, leading murderers to death, and pulling Dukes from their thrones, daring death in as many shapes as swords are fashioned, and all for my Lord Adrian, and lo! we bend all things to our will, dethrone the tyrant, and fill the people’s throats with an outcry for the new duke, and what comes next? Answer my good Robin--answer my old friend--where is the new duke? God knows, and the Saints might tell, an’ we knew how to ask them, but not a whit does Rough Robin know about the matter. The old priest was wont to tell me that the ways of HIM above--off with thy cap, Robin--were full of mysterie. I never knew what he meant till now--”

The small door of the cell slowly grated on its hinges, and as the yeoman turned to discover the cause, he beheld standing before him a cavalier whose form was attired in glossy purple and bright gold, yet all soiled and tarnished with dust, while his young face, pale and careworn, bore traces of the fearful struggle that had shaken his soul within the past few days.

“Ah--Guiseppo! Pale and careworn--thine attire covered with dust--thy broken plume sweeping o’er thy brow----whence came ye boy, in such attire and in such a ghastly trim?”

“I greet thee, good Robin. Yesternight I left the Castle of Albarone--this morn I journeyed from the walls of Florence!”

“Thou dost bear a message?”

“I come from the nobles and the people of Florence! Three nights agone the old walls of the fair city rang with the clash of arms and the peal of trumpet, while the tramp of contending foemen shook the floor of the ducal palace, and the glimmer of their swords was reflected in the very mirrors of the Tyrant-Duke. The morning dawned at last, and dawned on Florence, no longer oppressed by the tyrant, or awed by the vassals of his power. Then it was that the nobles of Florence named their new Duke, then it was that the people confirmed their choice, while the solemn HIGH PRIEST OF THE INVISIBLE, by a parchment scroll affixed to a pillar of the grand cathedral, pronounced his blessing on the fortune of Adrian, Count of Albarone and Duke of Florence--”

“Thus far all was well. Then ye learned the mysterious disappearance of Lord Adrian? Speak I the truth, Guiseppo? The dark scenes which three nights agone gave new legends of horror to the walls of this convent of darkness? The death-bowl administered by the hands of Albertine--the watch of the Ladye Annabel beside the corse--the disappearance of the body, and what troubles me but little, the disappearance of the tyrant-duke? A thousand such dukes might disappear, and we could tell, without a doubt, what became of them all, ‘the devil takes care of his own’ saith the adage--”

“Hast thou no word of the Lord Adrian?”

“Ask the tombs in the aisles of the convent chapel, which yesternoon we ransacked in search of his body, and let their yawning mouths tell the story of our fruitless labor. St. Withold! scarce a foot of earth in the convent garden that we did not turn to the sun in our search--not a cell in the earth-hidden recesses of this foul den, that we failed to illumine with the glare of our torches, not a wizard nook or a blood-stained corner in this devil’s hall, but was laid open to the light, in our strange chase after the body of the dead! And it was all in vain, Guiseppo, all in vain!”

“The Ladye Annabel--hast thou no word of her, Rough Robin?”

“St. Withold, I see her now! Traversed we the dark walls in search of the corse? She went with us, though her feet sunk ankle-deep in the dust of the dead, at every step. She led us on to the fatal room, where the corse had been stolen from her grasp, while bewitched by the drugged potion; she pointed the way to the dark cavern beneath the convent, and when every heart failed, awed with supernatural fear, she, even the fair and gentle Ladye Annabel, still cried on, and on! An’ the saints shower not their blessings on her head, I’ll turn Paynim-hound, and kiss the crescent!”

“Dwelleth the Ladye still within the Convent walls?”

“Since the hour of our search yesternight, she hath shrouded herself within the recesses of the apartments furnished for her use by the vassals of Albarone, when they hastened hither, two days agone. Hast thou a message for the Ladye?”

“I bear a message for the Ladye, and a parchment scroll for the INVISIBLE! Robin come hither--a word in thy ear!”

With the mystic sign of a Neophyte of the Holy Steel, he asked the way to the solemn place, where the order assembled holding their secret yet mighty councils.

“Even now they hold their solemn council, within these convent walls,” answered Robin the Rough.--“In a moment I’ll lead thee to the secret chamber. Yet stay a single moment, Guiseppo. Thou knowest I left the castle on that fearful day, when, when, od’s death I cannot name the deed--”

“That blow, Saints of Heaven! will the _memory_ never pass from my brain! Thou wouldst speak of--of my father?”

“Does the old man live?”

“When thou didst leave the castle, I stood watching silently beside the door of the chamber where lay my father, my own father, stricken down by the hand--the hand of his own son.”

“You watched beside the door, while the leech who had been hurried from the City of Florence disrobed your father, and probed the dagger wound?”

“And I--I, stood trembling beside the door waiting the appearance of the leech, every moment expecting to hear the words--‘Thy father is dead! _Dead_--murdered by his _son_!’ I stood beside the chamber door, all alive with horror, my fancy picturing the dagger, which but a few hours agone, I had drawn from his heart, the point crimsoned with one fearful stain of blood, there I stood, fire in my brain, and hell in my heart, when--”

“Ha, ha, ha--Ho, ho, ho! I have the brand, the flaming brand,” a wild and maddened voice awoke the echoes of the corridor leading to the cell, with its tones of maniac yell. “Ho, ho, ho! I have the brand, the flaming brand! Look ye how it flashes on high, ’tis a serpent, a merry serpent with tongue of fire! Ha, ha, for the brand, the flaming brand!”

The small door of the cell grated on its hinges, and in the very centre of the pavement, brandishing a fire-brand over his head, there stood, a weak and trembling old man, his thin face, with the vacant eye and hanging lip, flushed with madness, while his voice half shriek and half yell, rang echoing round the room.

The brand, ha, ha, the flaming brand! Ha, ha, ye brought the old man no food! Ho, ho, ho, Old Glow-worm and his comrades starve, yet there is a merry blaze in the vault below, I trow! Rafters are all aflame, massy bolts are red with fire, and my comrades go shouting merrily through the long vaults, waving their brands on high, and singing a joyous song as they go--

“Then raise the chaunt, Then swell the stave-- Here’s to Death, all grim and gaunt, And to his home, the grave!”

CHAPTER THE TENTH.

THE MYSTERIES OF THE CHRONICLE.

TO BE READ BY ALL WHO WOULD LOOK BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF FATE, AND GAZE UPON THE SECRET SPRINGS THAT MOVE MEN TO DEEDS OF WOE AND WAR AND DEATH.

“Florence is free!”

“Florence is free!” echoed the Monks of the Holy Steel, and the shout resounded through the circular room of the tower, repeated by the Neophytes of the Order, with one wild acclaim, “Florence the fair and beautiful is free!”

Slowly the High Priest of the Order arose.

From the dome of the tower the light fell dimly over the scene.

The Monks of the Holy Steel were seated around the square table, their faces veiled, their forms muffled in sable robes.

The figures of the Neophytes, (or Initiates) were grouped around the Superiors of the Order. They stood shoulder to shoulder, along the walls of the Tower-Room, every one with a dagger in his right hand, a torch in his left.

The torches were extinguished, for the work of the Order was accomplished.

Stately and erect, in the midst of this scene, towered the tall figure of the High Priest, veiled and muffled like the others, his hands extended over the heads of the brethren in a gesture of benediction.

And at the other end of the table sate the veiled Doomsman, his rough hand appearing from the folds of the black robe, laid upon the handle of the axe, whose steel was crusted with the rust of blood.

“Three years ago,” thus spoke the High Priest, “the cry of blood, day and night, unceasingly and forever, went up to the throne of God calling for vengeance.

“From the walls of the fair city it shrieked, from the plain it echoed, from the mountain side that low moaning voice rose up to the blue sky, pleading for the doom of the assassin, the death of the tyrant.