 | CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
THE CHAMBER OF MYSTERIES. The Ladye Annabel, or, The doom of the poisoner |  |
THE DREAM OF THE DAMNED.
He stood upon a lonely isle. His feet were
tortured by the sensation of burning, he looked
beneath in wonder, he found he stood upon a rock
of fire. He looked around—he beheld an ocean
of fire; as far as eye could see, nothing met his vision
but the waves of crimson flame, undulating
to and fro, with a gentle, yet solemn motion. Had
the waves arisen around him, in giant billows, or
swept above in mountains of liquid flame, the
dreamer would have rejoiced, his spirit would
have joined in the tumult, his soul become the
incarnation of the storm. But that strange calmness
of the waves, that quiet undulation, awed
over the shoreless sea, and saw with straining
eyes a sight of woe—unutterable woe.
From the surface of every wave, from the waves
breaking in spiral flames at his feet, afar and near,
on every side, from the surface of every wave was
thrust a discolored face, with burning eyes, that
gleamed with a strange life, while the lips were
colorless, the cheeks livid, and the brow green
with decay. As the Dreamer looked, low, faint
murmurs, unutterable sighs and sobs, broke on
the air, and a hollow whisper, more like the echo
of a thought than a sound, came to his ear—
THESE ARE THE FACES OF THE DAMNED—every
face you see, is the face of a Lost-soul—THESE
ARE THE FACES OF THE DAMNED.
Aldarin turned from side to side with a horror
he had never felt before. All around seemed turning
to fire, fire in every shape and form, fire intangible
and fire incarnate. Above, no sky with
Sun of Glory gave light to the ocean of flame,
with the faces of the damned, thrust from every
billow. A roof of brass, vast and awful, and magnificent,
arched over the waves of fire; it was
heated to a burning heat, and the eye of Aldarin
seemed turning to flame, as he looked upon the
brazen sky. The horizon of this fearful sky, was
concealed by great clouds, rolling slowly on, and
on, and on, over the waves of fire, far, far, from
the isle where stood Aldarin.
And while the hollow murmur broke over the
scene, and the wispering of suppressed voices, and
the sobs of soft voiced women, shrieking that unutterable
wail, Aldarin felt the very air burn into
his flesh, hotter, and more torturing than the air
of the simoom, he felt the rock beneath him turning
to red-hot fire, his feet were crumbling into
fragments, while agony and intense pain, quivered
along his veins, and the flame lapped up his blood.
He burned, and yet—he burned not. The air penetrated
into his flesh, entering the pores, burning
along his veins; he felt the fire at his very heart,
he drank in the flame with every breath, and yet
—he burned not. No sooner did his feet crumble
with the agonizing influence of the fire, than another
portion of his frame, seemed renewing its life,
his heart became young, and his brain flowed with
healthy blood. Again his feet renewed their flesh,
and then, with a hollow voice, he shrieked, mingling
in that unutterable wail of the damned, “I
burn, I burn, my heart is on fire, my brain is
turned to flame, and yet I am not consumed!”
A sudden change in the shape of the islet on
which he stood, attracted his attention. At first
wide and extensive in form, it was now narrow
and contracted. Every moment it grew smaller,
and yet smaller, and the waves of fire came rolling
wave after wave over its surface. Aldarin started
with a new and strange horror. Terrible it was
to stand on the rock of fire, his feet consuming, his
brain on fire, his heart aflame; air, sky and ocean,
all burning into his very soul, terrible, most terrible,
but those hollow murmurs, those fearful whispers
of the damned came breaking on his ear,
speaking of mysteries, yet more terrible, in the
Vast Beyond.
The wretched man clung to the rock. Oh!
God, how fearful was the first touch of the waves
of molten flame; how the liquid fire ate into his
flesh and corrupted his blood, as the spiral flames
cresting each wave came hissing and curling
round his limbs!
The waves rose higher and higher; the bodies of
the lost, offensive with decay, the loathsome, and
worm-eaten came floating around Aldarin. He
raised his hands, he pushed the ghastly carcasses
aside, but still they came floating on, and on,
throwing their crumbling arms around his neck
and fixing their livid lips upon his burning
cheek, in the kiss of the damned.
They hailed him—brother—with a hollow welcome,
and as innumerable voices whispered forth
the sound of awe, Aldarin missed his footing on
the rock, he felt his form changing with decay, he
raised his hands in the effort to keep on the surface
of the waves, and found the fingers with the
flesh dropping from the bones; he floated on the
surface of the boundless sea, he became one of the
damned. Forever and forever lost.
They were floating on and on, the boundless
legion of the lost, and with them floated Aldarin.
A strange distant sound burst on the ear, he heard
it grow louder and louder, now it was like the
roaring of a mighty ocean, now it was like the
hissing of a thousand furnaces.
Floating on the waves the of fire, crowded by
legion of the lost, Aldarin turned with a feeling of
intense awe, and murmured the question—“What
means yon sound of terror—yon murmur of fear?”
“We are floating on and on, toward the Cataract
living corse floating by his side, and a million
tongues, speaking from livid lips returned the
echo—“On and on toward the Cataract of Hell!”
Aldarin was carried on without the power of
resistance, with no object to stay his career, on
and on, every moment nearing the fearful Cataract,
whose roar, and hissing and surging, now
deafened his ears, and seemed to fall upon his
very brain, with the weight of a mighty burden.
Then came a pause of strange unconsciousness,
from which Aldarin presently awoke; and opening
his eyes, gazed around.
He hung on the verge of a rock, a rock of melting
bitumen, that burned his hands to masses of
crisped and blackened flesh as he hung. The rock
flung its projecting form over a gulf, to which the
cataracts of earth might compare, as the rivulet
to the mighty ocean. It seemed to Aldarin as
though the universe, with all the boundless fields
of space, was comprised in the sweep of the awful
rocks of bitumen and red-hot ore of lead, extending
for miles and miles innumerable, on either side,
with the waves of fire—each wave bearing its awful
burden of a damned soul—surging and foaming
over the edge of the precipice, while a hissing
and crackling sound, like the noise of ten thousand
forests, ravaged by flame, startled the very air of
hell, and mingled with the shrieks of the ******.
Aldarin looked below. God of Heaven, what a
sight! A gulf, like the space occupied by a thousand
worlds—deep, vast, immense, and yet perceptible
to the eye—sunk beneath him, with its
surface of fiery waves, all convulsed and foaming
with innumerable whirlpools, all crimsoned by
bubbles of flame, each whirlpool swallowing the
millions of the lost, each bubble hearing on its surface
the face of a soul, damned and damned forever.
Forever and forever. And as the lost were borne
on by the waves and swallowed by the whirlpools,
they raised their hands and cast their burning
eyes to the brazen sky, and shrieked, with low
and muttering voices, the eternal death-wail of the
lost.
Over the cataract, shrieking and wailing, were
pitched the millions and ten thousand millions or
living-dead; each one swelling that unutterable
murmur as he fell, each soul yelling with a more
intense horror as they sank below, and all around,
innumerable echoes bursting from the rocks or
bitumen and melting lead, breaking from the
heated air, gave back the shriek, the wail and murmur
of the lost. Forever and forever lost.
And over this scene, awful and vast, towered a
figure of ebony darkness; his blackened brow concealed
in the clouds, his extended arms seemed
grasping the infinitude of the cataract, while his
feet rested upon islands of bitumen far in the gulf
below.
The eyes of the figure were fixed upon Aldarin,
as he clung with the nervous grasp of despair, to
the rock of melting bitumen, and their gaze curdled
his heated blood.
Every moment he was losing his grasp, sliding
and sliding from the rock, now his feet were
loosened and hung dangling over the gulf. There
was no hope for him, he must fall—fall, and fall forever.
At this moment, when his burning hands
clung to the rock, when his feet were dangling in
the air, when his blood-shot eyes, protruding from
their sockets, glared ghastlily above, a new and
sudden wonder attracted the gaze of Aldarin.
A stairway, built of white marble, wide, roomy,
and secure, seemed to spring from the very rock
to which he clung, and winding up from the cataract,
encircled by white and rainbow-hued clouds,
was lost in the distance, far, far above.
Aldarin beheld two figures slowly descending
the stairway from the distance—the figure of a
warrior and the form of a dark-eyed woman. As
they drew near and nearer, he felt a strange feeling
of awe gathering round his heart. He knew
the figures, he knew them well. Her face of
beauty wore a smile, her dark eyes were brilliant
as ever, brilliant as when first he wooed and won
her in the wilds of Palestine. Yet there was blood
upon her vestments near the heart; and his lip was
spotted with one drop of thick red blood.
It was most fearful to see them thus calmly approach;
it was most terrible to recognize every
line of their features, every part of their vestments.
“This,” muttered Aldarin, “this indeed, is Hell.—
And yet he must call for aid, and call to the warrior
and the woman. How the thought worked
like a serpent round his very heart!
He was sliding from the rock, slowly, yet certainly
sliding. Another moment and he would
plunge below. There was but one hope. He
might, by a desperate effort, drag his carcass
along the pointed rock; by a single extension
of his arm, his hand would grasp the lowest
step of the stairway. He prepared himself for the
effort, his feet hung dangling below, it is true, and
all the strength of his living corse for that single
effort. Slowly he passed his hand along the rock
of bitumen, clutching the red-hot masses of lead
in the action, and with his heart all aflame, he
supported his trembling carcass with the other
hand, and passed the extended hand yet further
along the rock.
It wanted but a single inch, a little inch, and
his hand would grasp the marble of the stairway.
And yet that inch he could not compass with the
hand so nervously outstretched, all his strength
had been expended in the effort, and there he
hung trembling on the verge of the abyss, when
had he but the additional vigor of a mere child,
he might grasp the stairway—he might be saved.
Another and a desperate effort! His fingers
touched the carved marble-work of the stair-way,
but had not freedom of action to hold in their
grasp. With an eye of horrible intensity he looked
above him, ere he made the last effort. The
figures stood before him on the second step of the
stairway. The woman, beautiful and bright-eyed,
smiled, and the stern warrior shared her smile.
“Thou, thou wilt save me Ilmerine—my wife,
my love, thou wilt—drag—drag—my hand to thee,
and I can reach the staircase.”
She stooped, the beautiful woman, she reached
forth a fair and lily hand, she grasped the blackened
fingers of Aldarin.
“Thanks, beautiful Ilmerine. I have wronged
thee, but—the Secret—a little nearer—drag—
drag my hand—a moment—and I will grasp the
staircase—I will be saved.”
She placed his fingers round a projecting ornament
of the staircase, his grasp was tight and desperate.
“Ascend!” she cried in a sweet and soft toned
voice.
“Julian—oh, Julian—grasp this hand—aid me,
oh Julian my brother!”
The figure of the Warrior slowly stooped and
seized the other hand, and drawing it towards the
staircase wound the fingers round another piece
of the carved work of the staircase.
“Ascend, Aldarin, brother of mine, ascend!”
cried his deep toned and awful voice.
“Ascend, brother of mine, I would, but my
strength fails—seize me, by the body, and drag
me from this rock of terror—oh, seize me.”
The Warrior seized Aldarin by the shoulder,
and dragged him slowly along the rock, but the
flesh he clenched, crumbled in his grasp. Alda
rin 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
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 FIFTH.
THE CHAMBER OF MYSTERIES. The Ladye Annabel, or, The doom of the poisoner | |