University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.
A VISIT TO THE DUNGEONS OF THE INQUISITION.

The thought of Don Henrique seemed to inspire
the Count of Osma with some suddenly-conceived
resolution. He rose from his chair, and demanding
of Sulem a bunch of heavy iron keys that he carried
at his belt, bade him remain in the cabinet and guard
the fair sleeper. Then, with a dark lantern in his
hand, he left the room, and, going out into the marble
passage, followed it until he came to a low door,
scarcely visible within the panneling of the wall. This
he opened by touching a spring, and entered a stairway
narrow and dark.

Guided by the rays of his lantern, he descended to
the bottom, and followed a winding, subterranean passage,
that led in the direction of the city prison. On
coming to its extremity, he opened with one of the
keys a massive oaken door, heavily secured by iron
bars and plates. It swung slowly on its hinges, and
admitted him into a sort of hall, damp and dark, which
was situated beneath the foundation of the prison. It
was octagonal in shape, and on four sides were as many
iron doors leading into cells. It was apparent that
the dungeons were no part of the prison above, and
that the only communication they had with upper earth
was by the subterranean avenue through which he had
come. He gazed about him upon the thick gloom,
which his lamp could scarcely illumine, with a smile of
malignancy.

“This is a pleasant abode for a lover so lately sighing
at the feet of his mistress. The Fathers of the
Inquisition are skilful in the construction of dungeons.
Methinks these were on a plan invented by the archfiend
himself. How fearful and awful is the silence!
How oppressive the breathing! Yet Rascas must

have placed him deeper yet, for his instructions to me
were, on arriving at the octagonal hall, to seek a trapdoor
and descend again! This assassin hath the essence
of cruelty in him. I should have been content
to have placed him in one of these cells. If Rascas
means treachery by sending me lower, I am well in
his hands!”

“Satan seldom harms Satan,” said the voice of the
assassin in his ear.

Osma's blood rushed icy cold to his heart, and he
started back several feet with undisguised alarm at
the sudden surprise in such a place.

“Villain, is it thou?” he demanded, instantly recovering
himself.

“I was sleeping on my pallet when you passed me
in the anteroom, and followed you lest you might not
find your prisoner, my lord,” he said, unmoved.

“Thou hast thrust him into a foul dungeon! Cruelty
hath no medium with thee, villain.”

“Thou gavest me my first lesson in it, signor,” he
answered, ironically.

“Thou art over free with thy speech, sirrah! Show
me to the dungeon!”

Rascas lifted a trap-door in an angle of the vaulted
chamber, and there rushed upward a cold, dead atmosphere,
that chilled the tyrant to the heart. He at
first hesitated to descend; but, recovering his resolution,
bade Rascas go down before him, and then followed
with cautious and suspicious steps. At the bottom
of the stairs was a circular vault, with a low iron
door opening into an inner dungeon. To this door
Rascas applied one of the keys of the bunch held by
the count, and, swinging heavily on its hinges, it exposed
within a cell about eight feet square, dimly lighted
by an iron lamp suspended from the moist and
dripping roof. The sides, floor, and ceiling of this horrid
dungeon were plated with iron, and its atmosphere
was like that of the charnel-house. At his first step
the foot of the count struck against something, the
hollow sound of which filled him with horror. He

glanced on the pavement at his feet, and beheld a scull,
and near it human bones fastened to chains bolted into
the iron sides of the dungeon. He felt that he was,
indeed, in the dungeons of the Inquisition, which had
early established its dread power in that province.
He saw before him the remains of victims of ecclesiastical
cruelty. He was appalled, and would have retreated
had he not already proceeded so far. Rascas
took the lantern from his hand, and, entering the cell,
approached an object lying in the corner. The lamp
showed it to be a man.

“Is it he?” asked the count, hoarsely.

“Look for thyself, signor,” answered the other, putting
the lamp near his face.

It was Don Henrique. He was calmly sleeping
upon the iron floor, as if on the couch of ease in the
chamber of luxury. It was the repose of a good conscience;
the rest of innocence! The Count of Osma
had sought his dungeon to mock and exult over him;
to lacerate his soul with recounting his triumph; to
madden him, and then to destroy him! He expected
to find him insane with grief. To see him sleeping,
oblivious of all sorrow, was a dagger to his soul. He
envied him his repose. He gazed upon him with surprise
and wonder; for he could neither appreciate nor
understand the virtue that o'ertops misfortune.

“Rascas, thou rank villain,” he said, shuddering,
and glancing around the place, “when I commanded
thee to take him to prison, I did not bid thee place him
in a tomb. This cold damp will eat into my bones.”

“Ah! thou art speaking for thyself, signor,” said
Rascas, with a sarcastic laugh; “I did at first imagine
thou wert feeling some compunction for thy rival.”

“Rival? Thou hast said the word! Ho, Signor Don
Henrique! thy sleep is sound,” he cried, touching him
with his foot.

The sleeper started to his feet awake and conscious,
and, at a single glance, seemed to comprehend the
meaning of what he saw.

“Tyrant and traitor,” he cried, fixing his eyes upon

him with fiery scorn and contempt, “dost thou come
hither to torment me with thy presence?”

“Nay, good signor,” replied the Count of Osma, not
without embarrassment in his voice and bearing,
“you do me wrong. I have sought thy prison to restore
thee to light and freedom.”

“False knight, thou liest! Thou darest not, after
this, let me breathe the air of Heaven, or behold the
blessed light! My freedom were thy ruin, and thou
well knowest it. I am prepared to die.”

“I pray thee, signor, believe me. This moment
follow me, and each footstep thou takest shall lead thee
towards liberty.”

“Lead on, and we will see what comes of this extraordinary
clemency,” replied Don Henrique, contemptuously.
“Ha! I had forgot that thou hadst
tethered me.”

“Rascas, hast thou put this chain to his feet?” demanded
Osma, sternly, yet secretly pleased at this security.
“Unlock the chains instantly, sirrah. I pray
thee bear witness, signor, that this was not done by my
command.”

“He who hath placed me in prison hath heavier
guilt. Lead on!”

Rascas, not without surprise at the count's command
to release his rival, freed him from his fetters; but,
from his knowledge of the total depravity of his nature,
he looked for a characteristic termination to his
clemency. Arriving at the upper dungeon, the count,
whispering to Rascas to guard vigilantly against the
escape of the prisoner, followed by him, led the way
along the subterraneous passage, and, ascending the
private staircase, regained his cabinet.

“Now, Signor Don Henrique,” he said, speaking in
a tone that made the young Spaniard's heart shrink
with an omen of mischief, “if thou wouldst learn
wherefore I have sent for thee from prison, and wherefore
I have kept thee there, follow me into this inner
room. Sulem! Rascas! why linger ye behind?” he
demanded, at the same time, with a look bidding them

stand ready to seize upon the prisoner if he should offer
to escape.

He then raised the drapery from before the entrance
to the inner chamber, and the unfortunate Don Henrique
followed him into the apartment. The first object
that met his eye was Azèlie, lying in gentle sleep
upon the ottoman. He neither started nor spoke. He
seemed to be paralyzed by the sight. With a steady,
vacant, stony gaze, he stood on the spot in which he
had become arrested by the sight of her, like a statue.
Osma had his exulting eyes upon him from the moment
he entered, that he might enjoy his anguish, and triumph
in his misery! An effect so opposite to that he had
anticipated surprised and vexed him; he saw that the
shock had been too sudden; that, in trying to bring
about too much, he had effected nothing, and defeated
his own ends. It was too much for his victim's reason.

The miserable Henrique continued in this strange,
horrid state for a few minutes, then broke into a peal
of wild, nervous laughter, that terrified and appalled
each one present, and fell upon the floor insensible.
The Count of Osma felt that he had been most signally
defeated in his unnatural scheme of cruelty; and,
turning away with a curse upon his lips, bade his attendants
lift him up and bear him back to his dungeon.

“He shall yet witness my triumph, and at a time
when he shall feel it,” he said, half aloud. “Bear
him hence.”

In the fall Don Henrique struck his forehead against
the corner of the ottoman upon which Azèlie slept,
and the blood, gushing freely from the wound, had the
effect of partially restoring him to his senses before
he was carried from the chamber. His eyes once
more fell upon the object of his devoted love, and,
breaking from the Moor, he was about to cast himself
upon her bosom, when, suddenly drawing back as if
he had been stung, he cried, bitterly,

“No, no, it may not be! she—she is lost to me for
ever! Fiend! that hast ruined so fair a temple—
where art thou?” he cried, looking wildly about him.

“Here, signor! Dost thou not see how calmly she

sleeps?” tauntingly said the Count of Osma, re-entering
from the cabinet at his voice. “Nay, thy struggles
are vain! Thou wilt scarce break from the
slave. Be calm; she how sweetly she slumbers on my
couch! Such sleep could only follow a willingness to
become a captive. There is no starting from fear!
no sighing! Do you see tears on her cheek? is the
cheek itself pale? is there sorrow in the face? Her
continued and quiet repose—does it not show she feels
that she slumbers securely?”

“Demon! thou hast had thy triumph! Lead me
back to my cell, and send to me thy executioner,” he
answered, with the deepest despair and wo the human
heart is capable of bearing without bursting.

“So thou feelest it! I am glad of it. Thou
shouldst thank me for giving thee a sight of the object
of thy love ere death shut her out from thee for ever!
Nay, I see thou art impatient. Rascas! lead the
prisoner to his cell. Away with him! In this matter,
signor,” he added, as the young man was carried
past him, “I repay, not only thy rivalry, but certain
passages of scorn and contempt from thee to me both in
Spain and the Havanna. I have ever hated thee; and,
now that secrets will be safe unless thou whisper them
into Death's ear, I tell thee it is for thy virtues and thy
ever-wakeful suspicion of my guilty life that I hate
thee. Thou art a better man than I, and I love thee
not for it. I speak freely, meaning to pay thee no
flattery; for thou art as one already dead, and therefore
am I careless of thy opinion.”

“Hast thou well weighed the consequences to thyself,
traitor, of my death?” asked Don Henrique, with
a look of warning.

“All men know, or, rather, believe that you fell on
the night of the occupation of the town sorely wounded,
and that you now lie at death's door from the hurt.
I have to-day taken care to circulate the rumour of
your probable death on account of it. To-morrow it
will be proclaimed, and your body laid in state with
public mourning. Think you Osma will be suspected
of striking the blow?”

“Thou hast well planned,” said Henrique, unmoved.
“Bid thy slaves lead on.”

“Nay, be not impatient. I shall address a letter of
commiseration to thy sire. He will feel that a great
responsibility is removed, and thank Heaven for taking
thee out of a world where thy continuance might be
productive of mischief, especially if thou wert to marry
and beget sons—for sons of younger sons are Discord's
grandchildren.”

“Methinks, if my memory serves me, thou art a
younger son, Sir Count; and by some foul deed, that
hath rather been hinted at than spoken out, art now
the head of thy house!”

Rascas cast a look of malicious pleasure at the
count, who was for an instant confused, and took one
or two turns across the apartment ere he replied, with
a dark and lowering countenance,

“Thou hadst spoken thy death-warrant then, had I
not already consigned thee to death! Ay, signor,
I am a younger son! And if thou hadst had the bold
and ambitious hand of Garcia Ramarez, thou wouldst
now have been—”

“Villain! silence! lead me to death. Why do ye
linger, slaves?”

“Wilt thou not take a parting look of the lady of
thy love?” he asked, with a malicious smile.

“Incarnate fiend! Hath hell disgorged its chief,
that I am thus tortured?”

“Thou dost think thy cup is full. It will hold one
drop more. Thou goest to prison and to death so
calmly, because thou believest she is lost to thee
through dishonour. Thou wouldst scarce go so resignedly
if I told thee the victim hath not yet been offered
up.”

“Monster, thou liest but to madden me, and imbitter
death!”

“She is yet worthy, Don Henrique, of thy dying
prayers and holy love! I tell thee this,” he continued,
with a smile of most triumphant malice, “to sweeten
thy cup of death, Her sleep is artificial. Behold her

there! See her unprotected state! In the power of
thy rival! Worthy thee still, yet thou unable to possess
her. Wilt thou die calmly now? Wilt thou demand
to be led to thy execution? Signor Don Henrique,
this is the happiest moment of my life. Hadst
thou not rejected the offer of my daughter to thee in
marriage, I had been less bitter with thee.”

Don Henrique struggled between the Moor and Rascas,
desperate with this moral torture he was doomed
to endure, and in vain striving to reach his tormentor.
But the ever-ready stiletto of Rascas was suspended
above his bosom, and the iron grasp of the slave was
irresistible. Osma enjoyed for a moment his misery,
and bade them drag him away.

“Shall I do it now?” asked Rascas, looking back at
his master, and then directing his glance significantly
to his stiletto.

“Not to-day; I am not ready. Leave him in his
dungeon. I would have him live to think. It were
mercy, Rascas, to slay him now.”

The assassin returned him a satanic leer; and, assisting
the silent and sullen Moor, dragged, rather than
conducted, the wretched young man forth from the
cabinet.

Such was the present triumph of guilt over virtue;
the power of wickedness, and the fulness of revenge!
Alas! what will limit the iniquity of a man's heart
when he flings the rein to his passions, and rides
whither they will! Who hath not reason to rejoice
in an overruling Providence, that wisely governs and
directs the human will, and mercifully confines it within
fixed bounds; to be grateful that God, and not man,
is the governor of the earth; that he alone disposes
all events; and that nothing is done without His permission,
who at a glance beholds both the causes and
effects of all things.

Such were the reflections of Don Henrique after he
was again left alone in his dungeon; and, though human
feelings bore his heart down to the ground, he
sought to lift his soul heavenward on the wings of

faith, and, with Christian philosophy, bear his grief as
coming from a higher power than that of the guilty instrument
that immediately caused it, and therefore requiring
his resignation and uncomplaining submission.