University of Virginia Library

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 day-break! 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 o'
th' 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 day-break—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 armour
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 taloons, 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
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 thongs 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 taloon-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!” shrieked 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 carcase 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 palpitates! 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, the beating heart
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
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 tho' he saw the Spirit of the dead.
Neither spoke, 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 you 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.”