Part 24

“Fiend of hell,” shouted Adrian, “this sight will drive me mad.”

“Nay, nay, good youth,” exclaimed a soft and whispered voice at his very shoulder. “Be not alarmed, ’tis but a festal scene. One hundred years from this night we all thronged yonder dancing hall, ’tis our pleasure, or mayhap our doom to return to the scene of our former gaiety. I was master of ceremonies an hundred years ago, I am master of ceremonies, ha, ha, yet once again. Will it please ye to choose a partner?”

With a feeling of involuntary horror, Adrian turned and beheld a Figure, clad in a gay robe of purple, faced with snow-white ermine, holding the rod of office in his hand, while a group of rainbow-hued plumes, hung drooping over his brow.

Adrian dashed the plumes aside, he beheld, oh sight of mockery, the fleshless skull, the hollow eye sockets, the cavity of the nose, the grinning teeth, and the hanging jaw, while the hand grasping the wand of office, was a grisly skeleton hand.

He turned from the bowing skeleton, and was rushing away with horror, when a new wonder fixed his attention.

The master of ceremonies waved his wand, and each skeleton driver leaped from his hearse.

Another signal and the long line of skeletons, each attired in gay and contrasted livery, extended their skeleton hands, and lifting the pall on high disclosed the gloomy burden of each death car, the coffin draped in black, with the heraldic plate of gold, affixed to each coffin lid.

A third wave of the wand from the master of ceremonies, and the skeleton drivers, unscrewed each coffin lid, and Adrian beheld the occupant of every tenement of death, slowly rise from their last resting place, gazing beneath the shadow of the uplifted funeral pall, around upon the court-yard.

As they gazed, Adrian beheld each fleshless skull, wearing the horrible grimace of death, looking forth from beneath their gaudy head-gear, the plumed cap, or the jeweled coronet, while their skeleton hands, arranged the folds of their attire, brushing the coffin dust from the gay robe, or fixing the tarnished ruffle around the neck with a yet more dainty grace, while the skeleton drivers, slowly let down the steps of each hearse fashioned in its sable side. The last signal was given by the master of ceremonies.

And with a low bow, each skeleton servitor extended his hand, to receive his fair lord or ladye, his fair young mistress or his gallant young master, as arising from their coffin, they placed their feet on the steps of the hearse, and slowly descended into the court-yard of the ancient castle.

“Great God, they are thronging around me,” shouted Adrian, “skeleton after skeleton, clad in the gay costume of life, descend from the funeral hearse wending in one ghastly throng toward the hall door, on their way to the festal scene. Oh, ghastly mockery! here are the forms of those who died when young, and the trembling skeletons of those whom death summoned when bending with the weight of years. Here are the skeletons of warrior and courtier, knight and minstrel. All wear glittering costumes, all mimic the actions of life. Cavalier takes the hand of Damosel, and Lord supports the form of Ladye, while the fleshless jaws, extend and grimace but speak no word. They utter a low moaning sound like the deaf mute when he essays to speak. ’Tis horrible, most horrible, this ghastly array of mockery, and hark--strange peals of music, are floating from yon lofty windows of the banquet hall!”

And as he spoke, the spectral train disappeared within the shadow of the hall door, and he was left alone with the long line of hearses and the skeleton servitors.

“So please ye, gentle sir, wilt thou not trip a measure in the joyous dance?” spoke a voice at his shoulder, “Lo! the peals of merry music, lo! the hum of the dancers feet, moving merrily over the floor. Wilt please thee to take my arm?”

Adrian turned and beheld the bowing Skeleton-Master of Ceremonies.

“I’ll e’en secure thee a fair partner!” whispered the skeleton as he led Adrian through the hall door and along the massive stairway. “Look, good youth, the paintings are somewhat tarnished, very little tarnished since we beheld them last, and, ha, ha, well, well, such things will come to pass, the marble steps of the staircase are cracked by the footstep of time. This way, this way, my good youth. Lo! we are in the festal hall!”

With a gaze of horror, Adrian beheld the hall, whose floor he had trodden some hundred years agone. He beheld the lofty pillars, the magnificent arch, the balcony for the minstrels, all illumined by the glare of pendent lamps, all, all the same, yet still all sadly and fearfully changed.

The lofty columns were decorated with evergreens, but flowers gathered by the hand of beauty from the wild wood glade no more adorned capital and frieze.

The ivy, green companion of old time, clomb round the towering pillars, and swept its canopy of leaves along the arching ceiling, while the night-wind rustling through the worm-eaten tapestries agitated the long tendrils of the trailing vine with a gentle yet solemn motion.

“Lo! the dancers--ha, ha, the dancers!”

Circling and whirling, grouping and clustering, the skeleton-band went swaying over the floor, their gay dresses fluttering in the light, while the ruddy lamp-beams fell quivering over each bared brow, tinting the hollow sockets with a crimson glow, and giving a more ghastly grimace to the array of whitened teeth.

“Lo! the minstrels--a skeleton-band, whose fleshless skulls appear above the lattice-work of yon balcony. Merry music they make--clank, clank, clank! They beat the hollow skull with the cross-bone--clank, clank, clank! Each skeleton minstrel waves on high a human bone, striking it on the hollow skull--clank, clank. Clank, clank. Clank, clank, clank!”

And as the grinning skeleton, master of ceremonies, pointed above to the spectral minstrels, Adrian listened to the music that echoed round the hall.

A wild clanking sound assailed his ears, with a hollow mockery of music, while a deep, booming, rolling sound like the echo of a distant battle-drum broke on the air, maddening the skeleton-dancers with its weird melody.

The revel swelled fiercer, and the mirth grew louder, awaking the echoes of the ancient hall with one deafening murmur.

“Lo! the dancers divide--behold the spectacle! On yonder side extend the lords and cavaliers, on this the dames and damozels. They prepare for a merry dance--will it please thee chose a partner?”

And as the skeleton spoke, he pointed to the form of a maiden, clad in snow-white robes, who with her face turned from Adrian, seemed absorbed in watching the motions of the dancers. Adrian gazed upon this maidenly form with a beating heart, and advanced to her side.

“Behold thy partner!” cried the master of ceremonies.

The maiden turned her face to Adrian, and he stood spell-bound to the spot with sudden horror.

Looking from beneath a dropping plume, snow-white in hue, a skull stared him in the face, with the orbless sockets, the cavity of the nose, and the grinning teeth turned to glowing red by the light of the pendent lamps.

Adrian stood spell-bound but the form advanced, flinging her skeleton hands on high--

“Adrian, Adrian,” whispered a soft woman’s voice issuing from the fleshless skull; “Joy to me now, for I behold thee once again!”

“I know thee not” shrieked Adrian with a voice of fear--“I know thee not, thou thing of death! Wherefore whisper my name with the voice of her whom this heart loved a hundred years ago, and will love forever? Off--off--thou mockery, nor clutch thy skeleton arms around my neck, nor gather me in thy foul embrace!”

“And thou lovest me not!” spoke the sad and complaining voice of the skeleton--“Adrian, Adrian, gaze upon me, I am thine own, thine now and thine forever!”

“And this,” whispered Adrian, as the fearful consciousness gradually stole over his soul--“And this is my love--my Annabel! Death, oh ghastly and invisible Death, couldst thou not spare even--her!”

“Advance dames and damosels!” rung out the words of the master of ceremonies.

And at the word, the long line of skeleton-dames and damosels, arrayed in rarest silks, blazing with jewels and glittering with ornaments of gold, came swaying quickly forward, extending their skeleton hands to their partners, who half advanced from the opposite side of the hall, and then they all swept back to their places, with one sudden movement rattling their skeleton fingers with a gesture of boundless joy, as they stood beneath the glare of the dazzling lights.

“Advance lords and cavaliers!”

Quickly and with lightsome steps the skeletons arrayed in costly robe and glittering doublet advanced to the sound of the unearthly music, and gaining the centre of the hall, sprang nimbly in the air, performing the evolutions of the dance with the celerity of lightning, and having greeted their fair partners again retired to the opposite side of the hall, uttering a low and moaning sound of laughter as they regained their places.

“Minstrels strike up a merrier peal! Clank, clank. Clank, clank. Clank, clank--clank!--Merrier, merrier--louder, louder--let the old roof echo with your peals of melody! Now gentles advance, seize your fair partners and whirl them in the dance!”

With one wild bound the skeletons sprang forward from opposite sides of the hall, pairing off, two by two, lord and ladye, cavalier and damosel, and in a moment the whole array of revellers swept circling round the hall, moving forward to a merry measure, clanking their skeleton hands on high and uttering low peals of laughter as they whirled around the bounding floor.

Adrian gazed upon the scene in wild amazement, while the skeleton arms of _her he loved_, gathered closer round his neck, and as he gazed he became inspired with the wild excitement of the scene, he clapped his hands on high, he joined in the low muttered laughter, he mingled in the mad whirl of the spectral dance.

Faster and faster, whirling two by two, their fleshless skulls turned to glowing red by the glare of a thousand lights, their hands of bone clanking wildly above their heads, while the low moaning chorus of unreal laughter echoed around the hall, faster and faster circled the skeleton dancers, gay doublets glittering in the lamp-beams, robes of silk flung wavingly to the breeze.

On and on with the speed of wind they swept, these merry denizens of the grave, pacing their march of mockery, their dance of woe, with a ghastly mimicry of life, reality and joy.

And as Adrian flung his arms around the skeleton-form of his bride, gathering her to his bosom, while their voices joined in the moaning chaunt of unreal laughter, the voice which he had heard an hundred years before, again came whispering to his ear.

“Behold the Mysterie of Life and Death! To-day the children of men live and love, hate and destroy. Where are their lives, their loves, their hatreds, and their wars, in an hundred years? Behold--ha, ha, ha! _Behold the Mysterie of their life and their death!_”

CHAPTER THE TWELFTH.

THE REAL MORE TERRIBLE THAN THE UNREAL.

All was dark. Not a ray of light, not even the gleaming of a distant star, but deep and utter darkness.

Adrian awoke from his dream. Did he awake to another dream, or to a reality yet more terrible?

He lay prostrate, and he felt his limbs confined as though they were bound with cords. He extended his hand, and it touched a smooth panel of wood, extending along his right side. A strange horror, to which the horrors of his late dream were joy and peace, gathered like a deadening weight around his heart. He threw forth his left hand, and felt a like panel of smooth wood extending along his other side. Raising himself slowly from his prostrate position, with every nerve and fibre of his frame stiffened and cramped by his hard resting place, he passed his quivering hands along the panels of wood, and with that insupportable horror deadening over his heart, he felt and examined the shape of his--COFFIN.

Bowing his head between his hands, the wretched man essayed to weep, but the fountain of his tears was exhausted.

He could not weep.

And then, as with trembling hands he examined his emaciated face, with the cheek-bones pressing hard against the parched skin, he beheld rising before his soul, one ghastly idea, which would pale the cheek of the bravest man that ever went to battle, or chill with horror and despair, the heart of the holiest Priest that ever offered prayers to God, an idea to which all other horrors were as nothing, all terrors, all fears, all deaths trifling and insignificant.

And the nameless thought, his husky voice gave to the air in a hollow whisper.

“BURIED-ALIVE!”

And a hollow echo returned the word “_alive, alive!_”

“It comes back to my soul,” he slowly murmured, “the scene in the chamber of the convent--the Monk--oh, curses on the traitor--the potion, all, all come back to me! Buried Alive! Devil in human shape--he did not drug the bowl with death, but with--sleep! This, this is the revenge of the Duke, and, and Albertine was the tool of the triple murderer! Buried Alive!”

He tried to arise from the coffin, but for a long time his efforts were in vain.

His frame was stiffened in every sinew, and his limbs were benumbed by his long repose.

At last he stood erect upon the floor of stone, and extending his hands, grasped the massive walls.

“There is yet one hope,” he murmured, “there may be some outlet from the funeral vault!”

With slow and leaden footsteps he passed along the wall, measuring its length. It was five paces long. The stones were all solid, massive, and firm. His upraised hand touched the ceiling, as it extended some three inches higher than his head.

Clutching the massive stones, he paced along the other walls or sides of the room, with weary and difficult footsteps, and at last traversed the three sides, and leaning against the wall, he endeavored to impress his wandering mind with some definite idea of the shape and dimensions of the vault.

“I stand in a small room, with floor and walls of massive stone,” he slowly muttered, “it is square in shape, and each side of the cell is five paces in length, and somewhat more than the stature of a man in height. The stones are solid, and to all appearance are some three feet thick. There is no outlet, no passage from the vault. I am indeed--Buried, and buried alive!”

He passed with difficult steps along the fourth wall of the vault, determined to repose his shattered frame awhile, even though his resting place was his coffin. In a moment measuring three paces, he arrived at the spot where he supposed he had left the coffin. Extending his foot to and fro, in search of his late tenement, he was struck with a new horror:

“It is gone--the coffin is gone!”

Words cannot picture the utter horror with which this was spoken.

All the despair that an Angel of God might feel, when toppled from the battlements of Heaven into the infernal abyss, then visited the breast of Adrian Di Albarone.

“It is a mere phantasy,” he exclaimed, “I have chanced upon the wrong side of the room.”

Again the sides of the vault were paced, and yet the coffin was not within his reach.

It was gone from its position near the wall, and his physical strength did not suffice to advance toward the centre of the room.

What invisible hand was it, that removed the Coffin?

As the question was asked by the heart of the wretched man, it found its answer in one fearful doubt.

“And am I, in truth, within the bounds of that fearful place, which wild Poets have fancied, and dark-robed Monks have preached? Am I in sooth lost, and lost forever? Is death a dream? or an eternal succession of realities that seem but dreams--horrors too fearful for even the damned to believe? And this, this is--hell! I could bear the tortures of the eternal fire, the lash of the fiends I might defy, the lightnings of wrath would inspire with me with some portion of the Awful Spirit who winged their bolts of vengeance--but this narrow cell, this eternal confinement in a place visited only by Dreams, while hunger tortures and thirst burns, hope animates, and despair holds but half the human heart--this, this is too horrible. God of vengeance, give me, oh give, the punishment of the undying worm, the torture of the eternal frame, but spare, oh spare me--_this_!”

He fell on his knees, and kissed the cold floor as he bent his forehead against his clenched hands, making the narrow cell all alive with his shriek--

“Spare; oh spare me--_this_!”

As he bowed low on the floor, a singular sound--most singular in such a place--met his ear. It was but a low sound, yet it was a fearful one.

_He heard the deep breathing of a living creature._

It might be the echo of his own broken gasps, the thought flashed over the mind of Adrian, and for a moment he held his breath, and listened with all his soul absorbed in the result. Again the deep breathing of a human creature met his ear--

“Is it man or devil?” thus ran the thoughts of Adrian--“Mayhap he may give me water to quench my thirst, or mayhap he will--ha, ha,--take my accursed life. Could I but speak--for my voice does nought but murmur--I’d even ask him to plunge his poignard in my heart.”

A whizzing sound disturbed the air, and at the very instant the blow of a sword descended on the left arm of Adrian Di Albarone, while a heavy body fell to the floor, within two paces of the spot where he knelt.

“The blood flows from the wound,” the glad thought darted over the mind of the Buried-Alive, “Would I had strength to tear the doublet-sleeve from the arm, then I might drink my own blood. Yet hold--the blood oozes through the gash in the sleeve, and, and Great * * *! I may drink my own blood!”

He raised the wounded arm to his mouth and greedily drank the blood.

In a moment he felt the influence of the draught.

His veins seemed fired with new life, his brain became for the moment calm and clear, his heart regained its vigor, and gifted with temporary strength he arose on his feet, grasping the sword of the unknown in his good right hand.

Another moment passed, and with his right hand he wound a bandage of linen, torn from his bosom, around the wounded arm, securing it by a knot tied with the teeth and hand.

Meanwhile he heard the sound of panting breath, not two paces distant from the spot where he stood, and as he listened a deep-muttered groan broke on his ear.

Calling all his powers of mental and physical vigor to his aid he spoke in a faint yet determined voice--

“Who art thou?” he exclaimed.

“Thy murderer!” was the gasping response.

“How long hast thou been in this place of death?”

“Long--enough--to starve! Hell and devils! I burn--thirst--starve!”

“What wouldst thou have?”

“Bread, bread! Water--I’d sell my soul for water!”

“Wherefore didst thou strike me?”

“I thought ye a spirit--and--and--I wanted to test your quality. Kill me, an’ thou art a man of flesh and blood--kill me, kill me!”

“Thy voice is strange and hollow, yet methinks I remember your tones. Thy name is--Balvardo!”

“‘Twas I that swore thy life away, ’twas I that brought thee to these vaults to bury thy corse beneath the earth--kill me, kill me!”

“Is there no opening to this vault?”

“A secret door--a passage--the spring, that opens on the other side--the spring that shuts--on this side. I--ha, ha, may hell seize my soul, I buried myself alive--and kill me!”

Adrian shuddered--and grew cold. He could hear the gasping of the poor wretch as he struggled for breath, he could hear the groans of his unseen assassin; well he knew that long absence from nourishment from food alone could lay the sworder helpless as an infant along the floor.

And as his mind struggled with the mighty horrors that gathered round him, his attention was arrested by a singular circumstance.

While the hushed and whispered conversation had been in progress between Adrian and Balvardo, the room had been gradually growing warmer and warmer, and at last the walls became heated, the ceiling emitting a warmth almost insupportable, while the confined air of the cell grew like the atmosphere of a furnace.

“What new horror is this!” faltered Adrian. “Tell me, how hast thou existed thus long in this vault of death, without air?”

“A well,” gasped the wretch, “centre of the stone-room--current of air from under the earth.”

Impressed by these incoherent words, Adrian advanced slowly along the floor, avoiding the prostrate body, and in a moment stood near the centre of the room.

He extended his foot--it touched a substance that gave back a slight sound; it was his coffin.

Another extension of his foot, and a whizzing sound assailed his ears, ploughing the air far, far below his feet, then the rebound of wood splinttered to pieces on a pointed rock came welling up from earth-hidden depths and echoed around the room.

He listened with hushed breath for a long and weary moment.

The sound of a pebble falling in water, far, far below, came dimly and faintly to his ear, like the pattering of the water-drop upon the age-worn rock.

“Ha! A well, deep as the fathomless abyss, sinks down from the centre of the room. Let me measure its width--two good paces. The coffin has whirled down into its bottomless depths--I hear the splintered pieces falling in the water far, far below. A slight current of air issues from the well--and the heat of this vault of death grows fiercer every moment--”

“Kill me, and then thank God thou hast strength left to hurl thee down the dark abyss---- I burn, oh, fiend of hell, with thirst and flame I burn!”

Adrian sate him down on the edge of the well, with his feet dangling in the abyss, and gave his very soul to one long and painful effort of thought.

Death clutched him with a thousand arms, death was in the heated air, death came gibbering and laughing in the form of famine, and from the very depths of the abyss the doomed lord could fancy he beheld the form of the Skeleton-God, with arms outstretched to grasp his victim as he fell.

There was no hope.

He must die. He must die afar from the voice of friend, afar from the sight of earth, or the vision of the blue sky, he must die by the slow gnawings of famine, the gradual withering of fire, or by one sudden plunge into the abyss below.

He sate him down to die--his arms were folded, and yet with an eager gesture he held his face over the darkness of the abyss in the nervous effort to inhale each breath of air.

He strove to compose his mind to prayer, but the gasping of the wretch lying near his side diverted his attention from thoughts of God and the better world.

“Why didst thou hate me?” he slowly asked.

“I was afraid--thou--wouldst--live to do me wrong. Thou art revenged--I die by inches!”

The wretch groaned in very agony, and Adrian could hear his fingers clutching convulsively along the floor of stone.

“My God, my God,” cried the doomed lord, as his very soul was wrung by the woe of the forsaken wretch; “would I had one cup of water to cool his burning tongue--”

“Ha--ha--ha! He mocks me with the name of water! Tell me, thou fiend, is _he_ not revenged?”

“The heat grows fiercer--the air of this vault is turning to fire! He gasps for breath. Man give me thy hand. Let me drag thee near the well--the freshening air may cool the fire in thy heart and veins.”

And extending his hands through the darkness, with his body inclined to a level with the pavement, he sought the form of the famine stricken sworder.

He grasped the hands of the wretch; the fingers were thin and wasted, resembling the bones of a skeleton rather than the hands of a living man.

Slowly and with a careful motion Adrian dragged the dying man along the pavement, he laid his head on his knee, as he sat on the verge of the well, and passed his hand over the massive brow of his assassin.