University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER NINTH.
THE FATE OF GILBERT MORGAN.

It may not be altogether without interest, for us to follow the stout
hunter on his way, and behold the manner of his Doom.

“Come! Follow me!” said the voice of the Grand Herald, speaking
through the darkness of the passage—“We ascend these stairs, and pass
into the ante-room of the Grand Lodge.”

In silence, with his heart chilled, his senses bewildered by this
mysterious incident, Gilbert followed the unknown messenger. They
ascended the stairs, and through a doorway, where a curtain supplied the
place of oaken panels, passed into the ante-room.

It was a small apartment, illumined by a lamp, which stood on a table
covered with dark cloth, with a skull and an unsheathed sword by its
side. The place was hung with dark tapestry, on which the various
symbols of the order were emblazoned, with the “B. H. A. C.” glittering
brightly in their midst.

A man dressed in a loose garment of white linen, with a dark mantle
floating from the shoulders, confronted the Grand Herald, with the veil
on his face glowing with the mystic letters, and the point of his sword
turned to the uncovered floor.

“Pass on, Grand Herald,” he said, “the Grand Sentinel gives thee
free passage into the Hall of the Grand Lodge.”

Through the doorway—opposite that by which they had entered, and,
like it, with a curtain in the place of a door—Gilbert and the Grand Herald
silently passed.

In a circular room, hung with purple tapestry, and lighted by candles,
which were placed on four separate pedestals, covered with white cloth
and rising at intervals from the polished mahogany floor, the Grand Lodge
of the Order were assembled.

Gilbert, led by the Grand Herald, looked from side to side, and beheld
some twenty men, veiled in robes of dark purple, seated in a circle,
around the white pedestals. Their faces were concealed by a sort of cowl,
made of scarlet velvet, and glittering with golden letters and symbols.
Altogether, the effect of the scene was very impressive.

Before the Hunter arose a platform, with its three steps covered with
dark cloth. In a chair, adorned with cumbrous carvings, with wide arms,
and a high back, surmounted by a golden crown, sat a veiled form, clad
in a flowing robe of purple, glittering, from the shoulders to the feet, with
vine leaves, stars, a dagger and a skull, and other symbols of the Order.

This figure wore over his face a veil of white lace, which permitted his
bronzed features to be dimly seen: around his brow, a coronet of golden
leaves was twined, and from its centre waved a single long and slender
plume of raven darkness.

“You stand before the `Most Venerable, the Grand Master of the
Grand Lodge of the B. H. A. C.' ”

The Grand Herald, as he uttered these words, laid his hand on the
hunter's shoulder, and whispered—“Kneel! You are now in the presence
of your Judge!”

In the centre of the space, bounded by the four pedestals, the Huntsman
knelt, his plain hunting-shirt strongly contrasted with the purple
robes of the encircling figures, his rude sunburnt features with the half-veiled
face of the Grand Master, to whom his gaze was turned. By his
side, in the white robe sprinkled with stars, the Herald stood, the wand
grasped in his extended hand.

The Hunter looked wonderingly around, while the sensation of mystery,
and the terror that comes from mystery, began to crowd his brain
with images of gloom and death.

Not a word was spoken. Like lifeless effigies, those figures were
grouped around; like a corse placed erect, with a veil over its frozen
face, the Grand Master sat on his throne, the lights playing warmly over
his flowing robe, and shining on each brilliant symbol.

“Have you no word, in answer to our charge?”

It was the voice of the Grand Master, and broke with a sudden emphasis
upon the Hunter's ear. He could not answer; the mysterious

nature of the summons which had called him hither; the fear which had
fallen upon the faces of his brethren, as they heard him charged with the
unpardonable treason; the anticipation of an approaching Doom, which
would be as terrible as it was secret—all rushed upon the stout Woodsman
at once, and held him dumb.

“Of what am I accused?” he faltered at last—“What's the man that
dar' say it?”

Even as he knelt, raising his clenched hand, while the arm shook with
a ceaseless motion, he uttered the words in a husky voice, and with his
head bent forward, awaited an answer.

“Deathsman of the B. H. A. C.—advance! Prepare the cord!”

Gilbert did not see the form, which, advancing from the circle, stood at
his back, but he heard the footstep, and felt that his Executioner was
at hand.

It was indeed a hideous figure, with a death's-head mask upon his face,
the fleshless bones of a skeleton traced upon his breast and limbs, and in
his hand, covered with a black glove, painted in resemblance of a skeleton
hand, he bore a cord, which, wound once around the fingers, dangled
to the floor.

“Accuser of the Guilty—advance!” again the Grand Master's voice
was heard.

And in front of Gilbert, on the right, appeared a man veiled in a shapeless
robe, black as midnight, and with no ornament to relieve its drooping
cowl, or gloomy folds.

“Speak, Accuser, what is the Crime of the Accused?”

Without lifting the cowl, the Accuser spoke; Gilbert listening all the
while with trembling earnestness.

“I accuse Gilbert Morgan of the violation of his Oath as a Brother of
our Order. I accuse him of betraying his sacred trust, as a Knight of the
Scarlet Degree!”

“Accuse me? It's a lie—a lie, by —!” shouted Gilbert, with an involuntary
impulse of anger and profanity.

Half-starting from the floor, he flung his clenched hand toward the
Grand Master, while the pallor of his face vanished before a flush of ungovernable
rage.

“Accuse me o' violatin' my oath as a Brother, my trust as a Knight?
I don't keer who ses it—I fling the lie in his teeth! And I'll prove it to
his face, with my foot upon this box, this rifle in my hands!”

He towered in the midst of the secret band, his foot upon the box, his
own true rifle in his grasp. There was a look of defiance on his brow, a
fearless scorn upon his lip.

Yet at the same moment, a cord was thrown over his head; it tightened
round his neck; he felt himself dragged rudely backward, and sinking on
one knee, gasped for breath.

“Ah! By —! This is a coward's trick—to murder a man like a
dog!”

Struggling fiercely while that cord tightened about his neck, Gilbert
rolled his head from side to side, and saw the point of an unsheathed
sword glimmering from the folds of every robe. The Accuser held a
pistol to his throat, a grim weapon, huge in the barrel, with a stock of
heavy mahogany inlaid with silver. At the same instant, the Grand
Herald drew a dagger from beneath his white garment, and stood ready
to strike its keen point into the victim's heart.

“Let me know my crime—” muttered Gilbert, every word rendered
thick and gurgling by the tightening cord—“If I have violated the oath of
a Free Brother, or betrayed the trust of a true Knight, let me know it!”

“You have violated your oath as a Brother,” exclaimed the Grand
Master, starting from his chair—“At your initiation, you took a solemn
obligation, never to desert the Order; never to undertake any enterprise,
much less enter into bonds of marriage, without the Decree of the Grand
Lodge, affirming your purpose. To-night, without consulting your own
Lodge, or the Grand Lodge, you resolved to enter into marriage bonds
with Madeline, the orphan, who dwells in the home of Peter Dorfner.
You resolved to desert our Order, break your vows, and renounce all
allegiance to your superiors—I hold the Accusation in my hand. It is
signed by a Brother of the Knightly Degree.”

Utterly confounded by this charge, Gilbert felt the rope about his neck,
saw the dagger and the pistol levelled at his heart, and could not speak a
word in answer.

“More than this—” continued the Grand Master, as he stood erect on
his platform, with the parchment of the Accusation in his hand; “you
have perjured yourself in another point. By your vow, you are bound
to bring at once, without a moment's delay, all sums of money in your
possession, either to the chest of your own Lodge—or, in case the sum
is beyond an hundred doubloons—to the Treasury of the Grand Lodge.
Have you done this? The box at your feet contains one thousand pieces
of gold. You know—nay, you dare not deny—that it was your intention
to appropriate this sum to your own purpose. Appointed, at the last
meeting of your Lodge, to secure this money,—appointed by your
Lodge, at the Decree of the Grand Lodge—you have violated your trust.
And in proof of this also, I hold the accusation in my hand, made and
signed by a Brother!”

“I was in the Lodge, with the box in my hand, about to deliver it,
when—”

The words were interrupted by the gradual tightening of the cord.
Thrown on his back, Gilbert lay without speech or motion, his face darkening
into livid purple, his eyes protruding and blood-shotten.

“Brothers of the Grand Lodge—you have heard the Accusation, made

not only by the Venerable Accuser, but affirmed by your Grand Master?
What is your Decree?”

“Guilty!” was echoed by every voice.

“Your judgment?”

And, in chorus, they uttered the formula of the B. H. A. C.—

“Let him be stripped of all Regalia, for he has dishonored that Regalia.
Let the name of Brother be torn from his heart, for he has
covered that name with infamy. Let him be put under the Ban of the
Order, and then surrendered to the vengeance of the first Brother who
may encounter him; for he has broken his vows, and severed every tie
that bound him to our protection and our love.”

“The Grand Lodge will now prepare for the solemn ceremony of the Ban
of Excommunication,” said the Grand Master, descending from his platform.

The stout hunter uttered an involuntary groan. The cord grew
tighter; he struggled fiercely, in the effort to free himself from its stifling
coil, but the hue of his sunburnt face was changed to livid purple, his lips
became the color of bluish clay, and every vein, every muscle of his
visage was distorted by the impulse of harrowing physical torture.

`It is—false—” he groaned, and then all became a blank—his senses
failed him—there seemed a blood-red light flashing upon his starting eye-balls—and
all was darkness.

When he recovered his senses, he found himself standing in front of
the Grand Master's platform, supported on one side by the Deathsman,
on the other by the Accuser.

A pale bluish flame shone over the encircling forms, and gave their
robes a spectral and unnatural appearance. That flame was only the
combined light of the torches, which they held in their uplifted arms.

Before the hunter was a large vessel, made of dark wood, and encircled
with iron hoops. It was filled with a red liquid.

And as the Grand Master waved his hand, the Brethren advanced
between the hunter and the Grand Master, and plunged their lighted
torches into the vessel, filled with the red liquid. “Thus—” they cried,
as torch after torch was extinguished—“Thus perish the soul of the
False Brother!”

The twenty torches were plunged into the wooden vessel, their flames
extinguished, their handles projecting from the red liquid. A candle,
held by the Grand Master, shed its faint light over the scene, and dimly
disclosed the circle of shrouded forms, with the half-naked figure of the
Hunter in the centre.

His arms were pinioned; the cord was about his neck; but half-aroused
from a deathlike swoon, his senses were deadened by a leaden
apathy. As torch after torch hissed into the vessel, and flashed with a
more vivid brightness, as it sunk in darkness, Gilbert thought he was
entangled in the horrors of some unutterable dream.

“The False Brother is degraded,” said the voice of the Accuser—“His
name has been inscribed on the Book of Judgment; he has been laid
under the irrevocable Ban of the Covenant!”

“Accursed—accursed, forever!” the words broke in faint whispers
through the gloom.

“Then do I give him over to the Deathsman of our Order. Let his
death be secret; let it be speedy, so that his form may no longer pollute
the earth, and shame the broad canopy of heaven with the sight of a
Living Traitor!”

Gilbert felt the gripe of the Deathsman on his arm. Without a word,
he suffered himself to be led along the floor, and saw, with an apathetic
gaze, the shrouded figures kneeling on either side.

He reached the curtained wall, and—while the Deathsman, in his
hideous mask, with the form of a skeleton traced upon his limbs—lifted
the candle, and extended his hand, as if to point the way, he heard the
voices of the Brethren, speaking in a murmur—

“Farewell,” they whispered—“Farewell to the forsworn and fallen!”

The hangings were lifted by the Deathsman, and a narrow doorway
appeared in the light.

His arms pinioned, his neck encircled by the cord, Gilbert passed
under the raised hangings, and in an instant was enveloped in thick darkness.
A cloth had been placed on his forehead; it hung over his eyes,
and shrouded their sight.

Not a word was spoken, but he felt himself dragged onward, along a
narrow passage; dragged by the cord, which encircled his neck.

The bandage was removed from his eyes. It was some time before
the hunter could see clearly; but when he recovered the use of his
vision, he found himself in a small room, with wainscotted walls, and a
cheerful fire, smoking and crackling, on an open hearth.

A table of unpainted oak stood in the centre, before the fire, with an
arm-chair at either end. On this table were placed a bottle, a goblet of
silver, and a clay pipe.

Gilbert could scarce believe his sight. He turned from the ruddy
blaze, and beheld the Deathsman standing by his side.

“What does all this mean?” he asked—“a comfortable fire, a bottle o'
wine, a cup, and a pipe o' tobacco!”

“It means, that a half-hour of life is still permitted to you—” said the
voice, echoing from within the death's-head mask. “In that half-hour,
you are allowed the warmth of the fire, the cheerful influence of tobacco
and wine. Yet, when you have exhausted the pipe and the bottle, the
hour of your death will be at hand.—Until that moment comes, I
leave you.”

There was but one door to the room. It was opposite the fire.

Gilbert beheld it close, as the Deathsman passed the threshold, and heard
the key turn in the lock. He stood for a moment, gazing about him, with
a bewildered glance.

“Is there no way of escape?” he muttered, pacing rapidly around the
room, and feeling every panel of the wainscot. “No secret passage out
o' this cursed den? Little did I think, some years ago, when first I was
'nitiated into the order, and took the oath to rob and murder, for the
benefit of my Lodge, that I'd ever be caught in a trap like this!”

There was no way of escape; the panels were perfectly smooth, and
firmly jointed into each other. The hunter turned to the fire, and started
with a new surprise. A coat of dark-green velvet, faced with gold, was
hung over the arm-chair, and beneath it appeared a shirt of fine linen,
with ruffled collar and bosom, and a waistcoat of buff-colored cloth,
glittering with small buttons of gold.

“I'm cold,” he laughed—and shuddered at the same moment—for,
even in his merriment, the incalculable Power of the Secret Order awed
his iron heart—“An' this fine gear will do for me, jist as well as my
hunting-shirt, leather belt, and powder-horn!”

It was not long ere he stood in front of the hearth, clad in the green
coat, with the lace ruffles protruding from the buff vest. This costume
displayed the outlines of his massive figure in strong relief, and its bright
colors threw his sunburnt features boldly into the light.

He flung himself in the chair, filled the goblet, and lighted the clay
pipe, whose long stem reached from his lips to his waist.

“Anybody, to see me, now, 'ud think I was a gentleman o' fortin'
takin' my ease, and carin' a cuss for nobody!”

He drained the goblet, and the smoke of the pipe floated in bluish
wreaths above his head.

“That 'ere wine goes through the veins like melted fire! Sich tobacco
as this, a feller don't often see in these parts. Cuba, rale Cuba, from the
West Ingies, as I'm a poor miserable Devil, doomed to be choked out o'
life, in this cut-throat den!”

And as he drank and smoked—the warmth of the fire imparting its influence
to his chilled limbs—he became, by degrees, cheerful and excited,
and then a leaden drowsiness sank on his senses, and dulled his eyes
and ears.

The bowl fell from his hand, and lay upturned on the table; the pipe
was shivered into fragments at his feet. After all that he had endured,
with the certainty of death before him, the hunter sunk into a dead
slumber. His hands were crossed upon his buff waistcoat, and, with his
head resting against the back of the chair, his mouth wide open, he slept
the dreamless sleep of weariness and exhaustion.

As the pipe fell from his hand, the door opened behind him, and the
Deathsman, hideous in his mask and skeleton disguise, once more appeared.