 | CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH.
THE OATH. The Ladye Annabel, or, The doom of the poisoner |  |
THE VENGEANCE OF ALDARIN, THE SCHOLAR.
“It is a fair day, and the sun shines brightly.
Ha—ha! The sky above is clear, and the earth
seems laughing with joy in the very face of day!”
Aldarin smiled as he spoke, and gazed above.
It was the hour of early dawn. The first beams
of the sun shone over the eastern battlements of
the castle, mellowing the azure sky with their radiance,
while the fresh and balmy air of the summer
morn fanned the burning forehead of the
scholar. It was the last time he would behold the
beams of the dawning day; it was the last time
his burning brow should be freshened by the kiss
of the morning breeze, and yet he smiled.
Aldarin gazed around. A yell of horror broke
upon the summer air, and far along the court-yard
extended the living sea of men-at-arms, arrayed in
their sable armor, mingling with the vast masses
of the peasant vassals, while the beams of the rising
sun shone over a thousand brandished swords,
as each man swelled the reiterated shout of vengeance,
and each man shook in the light such a
weapon as the frenzy of that fearful moment enabled
him to obtain.
Look where he might, on every side, the gleam
of flashing eyes met the gaze of Aldarin; all along
the court-yard the blackened mass swayed to and
fro, like the waves of the ocean in a storm; and
again heaven gave back to earth the combined
yells of innumerable voices mingling together in
that fearful sound—the shout of a vast body of
men, maddened and crazed by the impulses of a
moment of wild excitement.
“To the gibbet!” arose that shout of doom.
“To the gibbet with the brother-murderer!”
With one glance Aldarin surveyed the scene
around him. There, grouped along the steps of
stone, stood the stout yeoman, his brow wearing
one fixed and steady frown, as, with his sword
half drawn from the scabbard, he gazed upon the
face of Aldarin; there stood two figures veiled in
robes of sweeping sable, while the erect form and
venerable face of the knight o' th' Longsword
confronted the scholar, standing on the slab of
stone.
“Sir knight,” exclaimed Aldarin, with a smile
wreathing his pinched lip, “though ye are somewhat
hurried in your work of doom, I would
make one brief request, ere I am borne hence.
Is there no one in all this crowd that will bear a
message from me to my son, the Lord Guiseppo?”
“That will I,” exclaimed the sharp-featured
steward of the castle, advancing from the crowd.
`Guilty thou mayst be, and thy hands stained
with a brother's blood, yet the request of a dying
man may not be refused. Give me the scroll.”
Aldarin bared the withered flesh of his left arm:
he drew a poignard, small and delicate in shape,
from his girdle, and while the crowd looked on
in wonder and in fear, he stained the point of the
stilletto with his blood. Another moment passed,
and, with the dagger's point, he hurriedly wrote
on the surface of a small slip of parchment which
he also drew from his girdle.
“Bear this away,” he shouted, “bear this away
to the Lord Guiseppo, and tell him that his father
is on his way to the gibbet—ha, ha!”
“Man of blood and crime,” exclaimed Sir Geoffrey
o' th' Longsword, as he advanced to the side
of Aldarin, “thy life has been full of dark and
fearful mystery; hast thou no dying words of repentance
to speak, ere the cord tightens round
thy neck? It is not well to dare the presence of
God, with so much blood upon thy soul.”
Aldarin bowed his head low on his breast, and
the bystanders whispered one to the other that the
dread old man was wrapt in thought.
“A confession I have to make—dying words of
repentance I have to speak,” exclaimed Aldarin,
as he gazed around upon the crowded castle yard.
“Thou dost remember, Sir Geoffrey, that twenty
years agone we saw each other's faces in the
wilds of Palestine?”
“I do, I do!” exclaimed the knight, as a mingled
expression of bitter memory and deep feeling
passed over his wrinkled visage. “Twenty years
agone, we saw each other's faces within the walls
of Jerusalem.”
The sound of a quick and trampling footstep
broke upon the air, then a wild shout came shrieking
from the castle hall, and in an instant the
Lord Guiseppo rushed from the massive hall door
and stood facing the scholar Aldarin, his face pale
as death, his eyes rolling madly to and fro, while
his trembling right hand shook the parchment
scroll above his head.
“This scroll, my father: what mean its words
of omen? Yon blackening crowd—their looks
of vengeance—what means it all, my father?”
Aldarin advanced, and flung his arms around
the form of his son, gathering him to his heart in
the embrace of a father. And as he gathered him
to his heart, he whispered a few brief words in the
ear of the Lord Guiseppo, that thrilled the youth
to the very soul; for his eye flashed brighter than
ever, and his cheek grew yet more pale.
“Thy oath—thy oath!” hissed the hollow
whisper of Aldarin.
Guiseppo turned suddenly round, he flung himself
at the feet of Sir Geoffrey, and looked up into
his face with a voice of anguish, as he shrieked:
“Spare my father—spare, oh! spare the weak
old man!”
“Though the angels of God plead for his life
still must he die!”
“Then die, wronger and betrayer! Then die,
midnight assassin and ravisher! The spirit of
my mother nerves my arm and points the steel!”
And as the words fell shrieking from his lips,
ere an arm could be raised, or a word of horror
spoken, Guiseppo sprang to the very throat of the
knight, grasping his long grey hair with one hand,
while with the other he inserted the glittering
dagger between the armour plates of his victim,
and drove the steel down from the left shoulder to
his very heart.
It was the work of a moment; the lightning
flash might not be swifter, nor the thunderbolt
more sudden. One instant the spectators beheld
the kneeling youth, and the warrior waving his
the prayer of mercy; the next moment their eyes
were startled by the upraised dagger, and the
blow of vengeance, while the knight tottered heavily
to and fro, looked wildly around, and then
sank in the arms of Robin the Rough, with the
haft of the dagger protruding from the armour
plates of his left shoulder.
“Father!” shrieked Guiseppo, shaking wildly
above his head the right hand that winged the
dagger. “Father, my mother is avenged: behold
the doom of the ravisher!”
“Thou hast done well!” spoke Aldarin, in a
quiet, yet trembling tone, while his lip wore an
even smile. “Boy, thou hast done well! Now,
Guiseppo, read, read the pacquet—the pacquet in
thy bosom!”
And while the horror-stricken spectators—Robin
the Rough, the figures in sable robes, the
peasant-vassals, and the men-at-arms—remained
awed into a fearful pause of silence by the scene,
—the silence that ever precedes the march of
death,—Guiseppo thrust his hand within his bosom,
drew the pacquet fram its resting place, and
with his trembling fingers broke the seal.
“Man of guilt and bloodshed,” exclaimed the
dying knight, as he convulsively placed his hands
on the wound near his heart, “I am dying—my
heart grows cold, and mine eyes are dim—thy
vengeance is gratified; now, now, tell me—”
“Hadst thon ever a child, Sir Geoffrey,” interrupted
Aldarin, advancing to the side of the knight:
“a fair-haired and soft-voiced boy, whose smile
was thy joy, whose presence was thy sunshine?”
“Speak, speak—what knowest thou of my boy?
gasped the dying knight, as a look of agony passed
over his face. “'Tis sixteen years since I beheld
his face in the land of his birth, the city of
Jerusalem. He was torn from my embrace by
an unknown hand.”
Aldarin looked around over the sea of faces,
and smiled as he beheld a peasant whetting his
knife on the very stone on which he stood.
That smile of incarnate scorn seemed to break
the spell of horror that bound the multitude.
“To the gibbet, to the gibbet with the fratricide!”
again arose the fierce yell of vengeance,
and the men-at-arms came crowding up the steps,
while a score of upraised daggers were about to
drink the blood of the doomed murderer, when
Robin the Rough threw himself before the object
of their vengeance.
“Stain not your steel,” he shouted; “stain not
your steel with the traitor's blood; away to the
castle gate with him! Let the dog die a dog's
death!”
And at the word, the Esquires Halbert and his
gallant brother Damian advanced from the crowd,
and seizing Aldarin by the arms, they dragged
him down the steps of stone, while the multitude
gave way on either side, shrinking from the touch
of the murderer, as one would shrink from the
garments of the plague-smitten.
“There is fire in my heart, there is hell in my
brain!” arose a shrieking voice, that was heard
far along the castle yard, thrilling the bystanders
to the very soul. “God of mercy, it is, it is not
true! The parchment is a lie—a falsehood written
by the very fiend of hell! I did not—no, no,
I did not—wing the blow to his heart! God of
heaven witness me, I raised not the steel for his
blood!”
And as the multitude, bearing Aldarin to his
doom, heard that shrieking voice, they looked
back, and beheld the Lord Guiseppo standing
over the prostrate form of his victim, his face pale
and colorless, his lip livid as with the touch of
death, while his eyes rolled their ghastly glance
over the faces of the crowd, and his arms hung
palsied by his side, with the fatal parchment
quivering in the grasp of the trembling hand.
“Father, father!” his fearful shriek again
arose on the air, as he knelt by the side of his
victim; “FATHER, THE MURDERER IS THY SON!”
The old man raised himself on one hand, and,
with a look of speechless meaning, grasped the
hand of the maddened boy, as he gazed silently
over his face, while his very soul seemed absorbed
in some unreal dream of horror.
“My son,” he whispered with a ghastly smile,
“and the dagger in my heart!”
“Thy son!—ha, ha!—I could laugh till the
very heavens echoed my voice!” and, as he spoke,
Aldarin, the Scholar, looked backward toward the
castle steps, where the boy knelt beside the dying
knight. “Thy son,—ha, ha, ha!—and the dagger
in thy heart! Yes, yes, it is thy son! Sir Geofrey,
a parting word: dost thou remember a blow
—aye, a blow from the mailed hand of a warrior
that felled the scholar to the floor, while the princes
of Christendom stood laughing round the scene?
Dost thou remember the insult, the contumely,
the scorn? Then look upon the face of thy boy,
whom I stole and reared to be thy murderer
and—ha, ha, ha!—think of the vengeance of Aldarin,
the Scholar!”
With cries of execration and fierce yells of
vengeance the men-at-arms gathered around the
fratricide, and as their brandished swords shone
in the light, they bore him toward the castle gate,
leaving the slab of stone before the pillars of the
castle door to the solitary companionship of the
father and son.
It was true—darkly and fearfully true—Guiseppo
was the son of Sir Geoffrey o' th' Longsword.
Guiseppo was kneeling upon the stone; his
arms were gathered around the form of his father,
and his eyes were fixed in one long gaze of agony
upon the face of the dying man.
He marked the hue of that venerable countenance
as it grew paler every moment: the lip
white and colorless, the eyes wild and wavering
in their glance, the livid circles gathering like the
taint of corruption beneath each eye; he beheld
the signs and heralds of coming death; he heard
the quick gasping struggle for breath, and yet he
spoke no word, he uttered no sound of agony.
“I see her face in thine,” murmured the old
man, as he gazed upward upon the countenance
of his son. “It is no dream,—and—and—thy
dagger is resting in my heart!”
Guiseppo was silent.
“Boy, look not upon me with such fearful agony—thou
art forgiven!” gasped the old man.
“Raise the hilt of my sword to my lips: I would
kiss the cross ere I die. And now thy hand is
firm, seize the haft of the dagger, and draw the
blade from my heart.”
Guiseppo gazed upon the face of his father
with a vacant look, yet still he uttered no word.
“Draw the dagger from my heart!” gasped the
dying man.
Guiseppo seized the haft of the dagger, and
slowly drew the blade from the heart of the murdered
man.
| CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH.
THE OATH. The Ladye Annabel, or, The doom of the poisoner | |