Part 5

The Warrior seized Aldarin by the shoulder, and dragged him slowly along the rock, but the flesh he clenched, crumbled in his grasp. Aldarin again trembled over the verge of the abyss--the blow of a single straw, might suffice to hurl him into the world below.

“Julian my brother. Ilmerine my wife, save me--oh, save me!”

The woman, dark-haired and beautiful, stooped, she slowly unwound the fingers of Aldarin from the ornament of the staircase. And as she unwound finger after finger, she looked upon his horror-stricken face and smiled, and pointed to the red-wound near her heart. He returned her smile with a ghastly grimace, he looked to the Warrior, and tightened the grasp of his other hand.

“Thou Julian, wilt save me--thou wilt not unwind my fingers, thou wilt hurl this beautiful demon aside.”

“Aldarin my brother!” said the Figure in a voice of awe, as kneeling on the lowest step of the staircase, he cast the glance of his full and burning eyes upon the livid visage of Aldarin, while for a moment he wound the folds of his robe yet closer around his warrior-form.--“Aldarin, my brother, I will save thee.”

He smiled--Aldarin returned his smile.

“Reach me thy hand, Julian, thy hand, or I perish.”

The Warrior slowly reached forth his hand, from beneath the folds of his cloak, he held it before the face of Aldarin, and the eyes of the doomed man saw that the fingers clenched a Goblet of Gold, that shone and glimmered thro’ the air, like a beacon-fire of hell.

“Oh--FIEND--THE DEATH-BOWL!”

As these words shrieked from Aldarin’s livid lips, he drew back from the maddening sight, with horror, he missed his hold, he slid from the rock--HE FELL.

* * * * *

A thousand fires burned before his eyes, ten thousand horrid sounds fell on his very brain, serpents loathsome and noxious crawled thro’ his hair, all around, above and beneath was fire, waves of flame eating into his soul, sky of brass, burning his eyes from their sockets, all was fire and horror and death, and--still he fell.

And a hoarse hollow voice, rising above the murmurs of the damned, spoke forth the words--“_Forever and Forever_--” and all hell gave back the echo--“EVER, EVER, EVER!”

Still he fell! The whirlpool sucked him within its circles of flame, around and around he dashed, with the bodies of the living dead floating over him, with ghastly faces, upturned to his vision, with foul arms, clenching him in a loathsome embrace, around and around he dashed, joining in the low, deep murmur of the damned, and his heart gave back the murmur. This, This, is hell!

* * * * *

Suddenly all was dark. Aldarin heard no sound, no murmur of the lost. All was dark, all was still. He touched his brow, and was amazed to find it untortured by flame. Yet big beaded drops of sweat stood from his forehead, his frame was chilled, a feeling of unutterable AWE was upon him, he feared to stir. He had been dreaming. His dream was past, his consciousness gradually returned, he found himself reclining among the foul remnants of decay, amid the carcasses of the dead.

He drooped his head low on his bosom, his face rested on his knees, his arms were folded across his eyes, and there in that lone chamber, while the silent hours of the night wore on, with his own weird soul, communed ALDARIN THE FRATRICIDE.

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.

THE CELL OF THE DOOMED.

THE DOOMSMAN.

“He dies at daybreak--ha, ha, ha--he dies by the wheel.”

And as he laughed, the man-at-arms, Hugo, let fall the end of his pike upon the dark pavement, and the sound echoed along the gloom of the gallery, like thunder, every arch repeating the echo, and every nook and corner of the obscure passage taking up the sound, until, an indistinct murmur swelled from all sides, and the voices of the Invisible seemed whispering from the old and blood-stained walls.

“He dies at daybreak! Right, Hugo--the Goblet and the Ring, sent him to the doomsman!”

“And I--I--the Doomsman will have his blood! How looked he, good Balvardo, when the sentence of the Duke rang thro’ the hall--“Death, Death to the Parricide?” Quailed he or begged for mercy!”

“Quail? ‘Slife I’ve seen the eye of the dying war-horse, when the poisoned arrow was in his heart, and the death-cry of his master in his ears, but the mad glare of his eye never thrilled me, like the deep glance of this--murderer! Blood of the Turk, his eye burned like a coal!”

“Tell me, tell me, how was the murder fixed upon him? Who laid it to his hands?”

“Blood o’ th’ Turk! Must thou know everything. Then go ask the gossips, at the corners of the streets, and hear them tell in frightened murmurs, how the Poisoned Bowl was found on the beaufet, how the Signet-Ring was found in the bowl, how the Robe was thrown over the secret threshold, and--ha, ha, how one Balvardo swore to certain words uttered by the--Parricide, wishes for the old lord’s death, hopes of hot-brained youth, and mysterious whispers about that Ring, and--”

“How one Hugo--ha, ha,--swore to his guilt in like manner. Faith did I--how I met the young Lord, in the southern corridor about high noon, how he turned pale when I told him, with every mark of respect, be sure, that he had forgotten his crimson robe, and--”

“So ye gave him to the DOOMSMAN?” shrieked the executioner, as his thick-set hump-backed figure was disclosed in the solitary light, hanging from the ceiling of the gallery--“So ye gave him--Lord Adrian--to me, to the pincers and the knife, to the hot lead, and the wheel of torture! You are brave fellows--ha, ha, he dies at daybreak--and the Doomsman thanks ye!”

The two sentinels watching in the Gaol of Florence, besides the gloomy door of the Doomed Cell, started with a sudden thrill of fear, as they looked upon the distorted form, and hideous face, of the wretch who stood laughing and chattering before their eyes.

Balvardo drew his stout form to its full height, and bent the darkness of his beetle-brows, upon the deformed Doomsman, and Hugo, clad in armor of shining steel, like his comrade, started nervously aside, as his squinting eyes were fixed upon the distorted face, the wide mouth, opening with a hideous grin, the retreating brow and the large, vacant, yet flashing eyes, that marked the visage of the Executioner of Florence. A dress made of coarsest serge, hung rather than fitted around his deformed figure, while a long-bladed knife, with handle of unshapen bone, glittered in the belt of dark leather that girdled his body.

“Sir Doomsman, thou art merry--” growled Balvardo--“Choose other scenes for thy merry humor--this dark corridor, with shadows of gloom in the distance, and the flickering light of yon smoking cresset, making the old walls yet more gloomy, around us, is no place for thy magpie laugh. No more such sounds of grave-yard merriment or--we quarrel, mark ye.”

“We quarrel, mark ye!” echoed the sinister-eyed Hugo, gravely dropping the end of his pike on the pavement.

“St. Judas! My brave men of mettle are wondrous fiery, this quiet night! Ha--ha--pardon Sir Balvardo, I meant not to anger ye! Yet dost thou know that _it_ makes my veins fill with new blood! and my heart warm with a strange fire.”

“Thy veins fill with new blood! Ha--ha--ha!--Did’st ever hear of a withered vine, blackened by flame, bearing ripe grapes, or was ever a dead toad perfumed by the south wind? Hugo, his heart warms with a strange fire? Odor o’ pitch and brimstone, what a fancy! Ha--ha--”

“Nay, nay, Balvardo. There is some life in the Doomsman’s veins. Don’t doubt it? Just fancy those talons, which he calls fingers, clutched round thy throat--W-h-e-w!”

“I say it makes my veins fill with new blood, my heart warm with a strange fire--this matchless picture! A gallant Lord, with the warm flush of youth on his cheek, strength in his limbs and fire in his heart, stretched out upon the wheel--here a hand is corded to the wheel, and there another, here a foot is bound to the spokes and there another. He looks like the cross of Saint Andrew--by St. Judas. A merry fancy--eh! Balvardo? Stretched out upon the wheel, he looks with his bloodshot eyes to the heavens. See’s he any hope there? Laid on his back, he casts his last long glance aside over the multitude--the vile mob. See’s he a face of pity there! Hears he a voice of mercy? None--none! Earth curses, heaven forsakes, hell yawns! And he is of noble blood, and on his brow there sits the frown of a lofty line. While the mob hoot, the victim holds his breath, and I--I the Doomsman approach!”

“God’s death--he makes my blood chill!” muttered Hugo, glancing askance at his comrade, who stood silent biting his compressed lip.

“He writhes, for the hissing of the cauldron of hot lead falls on his ear, he feels his flesh creep, for the red hot glare of the blazing iron with its jagged point blinds his eyes as he gazes! He utters no moan--but he hears the beating of his own heart.

“He hears a step--a low and cat-like step--’tis mine, the Doomsman’s step. The red-hot iron in one hand, the ladle filled with melted lead, hot and seething lead in the other, nay, start not, nor wince, good Balvardo--’tis no fancy picture.”

“The Fiend take thy words--they burn my heart! Hold or by thy master, the devil, I’ll strike ye to the floor!

“Hark--hear you that hissing sound? His muscular chest is bared to the light, these talon-hands guide the red-hot iron over the warm flesh, with the blood blackening as it oozes from the veins. He writhes--but utters no groan. Now lay down the iron and the lead; seize the knotted club, aloft it whirls, it descends! D’ye see the broken arm bone, protruding from the flesh? Hurl it aloft again, nor heed the sudden struggle and the quick convulsive agony, never heed them--all writhe and struggle so. It grows exciting, Balvardo, it warms me, Hugo.”

Hugo muttered a half-forced syllable, but his parted lips and absent manner, attested his unwilling interest in the words of the Doomsman, while Balvardo, clutching his pike, strode hurriedly to and fro along the floor of stone.

“Again the Doomsman sweeps the club aloft! Crash--crash--crash, and then a sound, not a groan, not a groan, but a howl, a howl of agony!

“Look, Balvardo, look Hugo, you can count the bones as they stick out from each leg, from each arm, from the wrist and from the shoulder, from the ancle and the thigh, never mind the blood--it streams in a torrent from each limb, be sure, but the hot iron dries it up. Your melted lead is good for cautery--it heals--ha, ha, ha, let me laugh--it heals the wound, each blow the club had made. The picture grows--it deepens.”

“Now, by the Heaven above, I see it all--” muttered Balvardo with a dilating eye, as his manner suddenly changed, and he leaned forward with unwilling yet absorbing interest. “This is no man, but a devil’s body with a devil’s soul!”

“His face is yet unscarred--unmoved save by the wrinkling contortions of pain. The mob hoot, and hiss, and yell--the play must deepen. Hand me the iron--red-hot--and hissing--give me the bowl of melted lead, dipped from the boiling cauldron. The Doomsman’s step again!

“The victim’s body creeps, and writhes in every sinew, his veins seem crawling thro’ his carcass, his nerves, turned to things of incarnate pain, are drawn and stretched to the utmost.”

“Look well upon the blue heavens, Parricide, for the red-hot iron is pointed, and--ha, ha, how he howls--it nears your eyes, it glares before them in their last glance. It must be done, why howl you so? Does it burn your eyes, tho’ it touches them not? Ha, ha--I meant it thus.”

“Balvardo, strike him down. He is not human--see his flashing eyes, his arms thrown wildly aside, with the talon-fingers, grasping the air!”

“H-i-s-s--it touches the eyeball, the eye is dark forever! H-i-s-s it licks up the blood, it turns round and round in the socket. Now fill the hollow socket with the lead, the hissing lead--and, ha, ha, now bring me another iron pointed like this, and heated to a white heat. Quick, quick, the victim groans, howls, writhes, and yells! Quick! Ah, ha, let the iron touch the skin of the eyeball, it shrivels like a burnt leaf, deeper sink the hissing point, turn it round and round, let it lap up the gushing blood. Now the lead, the thick and boiling lead, pour it from the ladle, fill the socket, it hardens, it grows cold--ha, ha, ha, behold the eyes of lead.”

“I see them!” faltered Hugo, trembling in his iron armor.

“And I,” echoed Balvardo--“I see them, oh, horrible, and ghastly, I--I--see the eyes of lead!”

“Quick, quick--why lag ye, man? Quick--quick, I say! The knife, the glittering knife. The Parricide howls not nor groans, but his soul is trampling on the fragments of clay. Quick, while his carcass is all palpitation, all alive with torture, all throe, all agony and pulsation, hand me the knife. I would cut his beating heart from the body.”

“There, there--the flesh, severed to the bone, parts on either side--the ribs are bared--a blow with the jagged club, and they are broken. This hand is thrust within the aperture, I feel the hot blood, I feel his heart. It beats, it throbs, it writhes in my grasp, like a dying bird beneath the hunter’s hand.”

“Quick--the knife again--I hold the heart, cut it from the carcass, sever each nerve, snap each artery. A deep, low, trembling heave of the chest; a rattle in the throat.

“I raise the heart,--still quivering on high, it gleams in the light of day, and its warm blood-drops fall pattering on the face of the felon.”

“The mob shout their curses and hoot their oaths of scorn.”

“Quick, the pincers, the red-hot pincers--but hold--that shaking of the chest, that last heave of the trunk, that quivering in every splintered limb, with that quick tremor of the lip, ha, ha, that blanching of the cheek, with the blood oozing from every pore, that thick gurgling sound in the throat, he dies, the Felon dies, the Doomsman laughs, and from the shattered clod, creeps the Spirit of the Parricide!”

Hugo turned his face to the wall, and covered his eyes with his upraised hands. Balvardo stood still as death, gazing on the vacant air with a wild glance, as though he saw the Spirit of the dead. Neither moved nor said a word. The maniac wildness of the Doomsman awed and chilled them to the heart.

“This is the fate, to which ye have given him; this proud Lord now sleeping in the Chamber of the Doomed--to me, the Doomsman, to the wheel, to the knotted club, to the knife, the hot iron, and the melted lead, to the dishonor ye have given him! Ha--ha--ha--these hands itch for his blood. To-morrow’s rising sun will gleam on the scene, this merry scene--THE DOOM OF THE POISONER.”

The Sentinels heard a hurried footstep, followed by a closing door, the Doomsman had disappeared. They turned with looks of horror, of remorse, mingled with all the fear and torture that the human soul can feel, stamped in their faces, while from one to the other broke the whisper--

“He sleeps within yon cell--the Doomsman’s cell, till the first glimpse of the morrow morn shall rouse him to this work--this work of horror and of--Doom.”[1]

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.

ADRIAN THE DOOMED.

The wierd and mystic spirit that rules this chronicle, throws open to your view the cell of the Doomed.

It is a sad and gloomy place, where every dark stone has its tale of blood, every name, rudely scratched on the damp wall, its legend of despair.

All is silent; not a whisper, not a sob, not a sound. The silence is so breathless that you fear the spirits of the condemned, who passed from this chamber to the Wheel and the Block, may start into life--at the echo of a footstep from the dark corners of the room, and appal your eye with their shapes of horror.

The cresset of iron fixed to the rough wall, threw a dim light over the form of the Doomed, as seated upon a rough bench, with his head drooped between his clenched hands, his elbows resting on his knees, his golden hair faded to a dingy brown, falling over his shoulders and hiding his countenance, he mused with the secrets of his heart, and called up before his soul the mighty panorama of despair--the wheel, the block, the doomsman, and the multitude.

Adrian the Doomed raised his form from the oaken bench, and paced the dungeon floor. He was not shackled by manacles or clogged by chains.

It was the last night of his existence; escape came not within his thoughts, the walls were built of rock; hundreds of armed sentinels paced the long galleries of the prison, and a guard of two men-at-arms watched without the triple-locked and triple-bolted door of the Doomed chamber.

Suffering and endurance, anxiety of mind and torture of soul, had wrought fearful changes in the well knit and muscular form of the Lord of Albarone.

His countenance was pale and thin; his lips whitened, his cheeks hollow and his eyes sunken, while his faded locks of gold fell in tangled masses over his face and shoulders. His blue eye was sunken, yet it gleamed brighter than ever, and there was meaning in its quick, fiery glance.

“To die on the gibbet, with the taunt _and_ the sneer of the idiot crowd ringing in my ears, my last look met with the vulgar grimaces and unmeaning laughter of ten thousand clownish faces--to die on the rack, each bone splintered by the instruments of ignominious torture, my scarred and mangled carcass mocking the face of day,--oh, God--is this the fate of Adrian, heir to the fame, the glory, and the fortunes of the house of Albarone?”

Pausing in his hurried walk, he stood for a moment silent and motionless as the sculptured marble, and then eagerly stretching forth his hands, cried--

“Father--father! noble father! I believe thy holy shade is now hovering unseen over the form of thy doomed son--by all the hopes men hold of bliss in an unknown state of being; by the faith which teaches the belief of a future world, I implore thee, appear and speak to me. Tell me of that eternity which I am about to face! Tell me of that awful world which is beyond the present! Father, I implore thee, speak!”

His imagination, almost excited to phrenzy by long and solitary thought, with glaring eyes, arms outstretched, and trembling hands, the agitated boy gazed at a dark corner of the cell, every instant expecting to behold the dim and ghostly form of his murdered sire slowly arise and become visible through the misty darkness. No answer came--no form arose. Adrian drew a dagger from his vest.

“Father, by the mysterious tie that binds the parent to the son, which neither time nor space can sever--death or eternity annihilate--I implore thee--_appear_!”

The tone in which he spoke was dread and solemn. Again he waited for a response to his adjuration, but no response came.

“This, then,” cried Adrian, raising the dagger; “this, then, is the only resource left to me. Thus do I cheat the mob of their show; thus do I rescue the name of Albarone from foul dishonor!”

Tighter he clutched the dagger; his arms was thrown back and his breast was bared; and, as he thus nerved himself for the final blow, all the scenes of his life--the hopes of his boyhood--the dreams of his love, rose up before him like a picture.

_And like a vast unbounded ocean, overhung with mists, and dark with clouds, was the idea of the_ DREAD UNKNOWN _to his mind_.

Amid all the memories of the past; the agonies of the present, or the anticipations of the future, did the face of the Ladye Annabel come like a dream to his soul, and the smile upon her lip was like the smile of a guardian spirit, beaming with hope and love.

“Oh, God--receive my soul!--Annabel, fare thee-well!”

The dagger descended, driven home with all the strength of his arm.

“_Adrian!_” exclaimed a hollow voice, and a strange hand thrown before the breast of the doomed felon struck his wrist, the instant the dagger’s point had touched the flesh.

The weapon flew from the hand of Adrian and fell on the other side of the cell.

He turned and beheld the muffled form of a monk, who had entered through the massive door, which had been unbolted without Adrian’s heeding the noise of locks and chains, so deep was his abstraction. The ruddy glare of torches streamed into the cell, and the sentinels who held them, in their endeavors to shake off their late terror and remorse, gave utterance to unfeeling and ribald jests.

“I say, Balvardo,” cried the sinister-eyed soldier, “does not the springald bear himself right boldly? And yet at break of day he dies!”

“Marry, Hugo,” returned the other, “he had better thought of making all these fine speeches ere he gave the--ha--ha--ha!--the physic to the old man.”

Reproving the sentinels for their insolence, the muffled monk closed the door, and approaching Adrian, exclaimed--

“My son, prepare thee for thy fate! The shades of night behold thee erect in the pride of manhood; the light of morn shall see thee prostrate, bleeding, dead. Thy soul shall stand before the bar of eternity. Art thou prepared for death, my son?”

“Father,” Adrian answered; “I have been ever a faithful son of the Holy Church, but its offices will avail me naught at this hour. Once, for all, I tell thee I will die without human prayers or human consolation. On the solemn thought of HIM who gave me being, I alone rely for support in the hour of a fearful death. Thy errand is a vain one, Sir Priest, if thou dost hope to gain shrift or confession from me. I would be alone!”

“Thou art but young to die,” said the monk, in a quiet tone.

Adrian made no reply.

“Tell me, young sir,” cried the monk, seizing Adrian by the wrist, “wouldst thou accept life, though it were passed within the walls of a convent?”

“The cowl of the monk was never worn by a descendant of Albarone. I would pass my days as my fathers have done before me--at the head of armies and in the din of battle!”

The monk threw back his cowl and discovered a striking and impressive face; bearing marks of premature age, induced by blighted hopes and fearful wrongs. His hair, as black as jet, gathered in short curls around a high and pallid forehead; his eyebrows arched over dark, sparkling eyes; his nose was short and Grecian; his lips thin and expressive, and his chin well rounded and prominent. And as the cowl fell back, Adrian with a start beheld the _monk of the ante-chamber_.

“Count Adrian Di Albarone, this morning thou wert tried before the Duke of Florence, and his peers, for the murder of thy sire. Thou, a descendant of Albarone, connected with the royal blood of Florence, wert condemned on the testimony of two of thy father’s vassals, for this most accursed act. I ask thee, canst thou tell who it is that hath spirited up these perjured witnesses; and why it is that the Duke of Florence countenances the accusations!”

“In the name of God, kind priest, I thank thee for thy belief in my innocence. The author of this foul wrong, is, I shame to say it, my uncle, Aldarin, the Scholar. The reason why it is countenanced by the duke, is--” Adrian paused as if the words stuck in his throat; “is because he would wed my own fair cousin, the Ladye Annabel.”

“Ha!” exclaimed the monk, “my suspicions were not false. Let Aldarin look to his fate; and, as for the duke--” thrusting his hand into his bosom, he drew from his gown a miniature--it was the miniature of a beautiful maiden.