 | CHAPTER THE THIRD.
THE DEATH-BOWL. The Ladye Annabel, or, The doom of the poisoner |  |
3. CHAPTER THE THIRD.
THE DEATH-BOWL.
THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE RAVISHER STARTLE,
THE SILENCE OF THE MAIDEN'S CELL,
WHILE ADRIAN PREPARES
FOR HIS DOOM IN THE
VAULTS BELOW.
It was in a lone chamber, where the dark walls
arching above and circling around, unrelieved by
tapestry or wainscotting, were rendered yet more
dark and gloomy by the fitful flashes of a taper,
placed upon a small table of blackened oak, while
the sable hangings of the couch standing in one
corner, the floor of stone, wearing the same dead
and fearful hue, the massive furniture of the room,
and the grotesque carvings ornamenting the heavy
pillars, all were in unison with the grave-like
silence of the air, heavy with doom and burdened
with death.
In the centre of the apartment, her white walls
loosely flowing around her peerless form, with
her fair and rounded arms upraised, her head
slightly inclined to one side, her cheek, now warm
with hope, now pale with fear, stood the Ladye
Annabel; her hair of sunshine richness swept back
over her neck and shoulders, while her bosom rose
heaving in the light, and her breath came thick
and fast, the convulsive gasps, breaking the death-like
silence of the apartment, with an echo of
strange emphasis.
Sleep had fled from her eyelids. She arose and
watched, she knew not why, but still she watched
and trembled as she listened to the slightest
sound.
“I listen, I tremble, and my heart is chilled
with a nameless fear,” murmured the Ladye
Annabel, pacing the dark floor of the apartment
with indecisive and hurried steps. “The hour
wears slowly on, the fatal hour after midnight,
when this unrelenting Duke will claim my hand,
this hand already given to another, by the minister
of Heaven! Great God, behold the bridal—
a lonely cell, hidden in the depths of this fearful
monastery, the altar of black, the dark-robed
monk, the tyrant-Duke and the victim; the time,
the hour after the bell has tolled midnight, no
hope, no aid, afar from human consolation, or the
voice of human friend—such will be the second
bridal of Annabel, wife of Adrian Di Albarone!”
She paused with an inward thrill of fear, as the
vivid details of the picture rose before her mental
vision, and then came another thought of horror
—the bride must be widowed ere she weds a second
time.
While dark and fearful imaginings haunted her
soul, and well nigh crazed her brain, the fair and
gentle Ladye Annabel felt a strange and deadening
sleep stealing over her frame, and with a half-muttered
prayer to the Virgin, she sank slumbering
on the couch, the hangings of sable closing
over her form, and concealing her from the sight.
All is silent within the cell. Low, suppressed
sounds break from distant parts of the monastery,
half-heard shrieks, and deep-muttered groans. For
a dreary half hour, the cell is left to silence and
solitude; when a distant footstep is heard, then a
strange echo runs along the corridors of the Convent,
and the small door of the lonely room, grating
on its hinges slowly opens, and a Figure,
buried in the folds of a sweeping robe of black,
and bearing a small lamp of iron in an extended
hand, stalks cautiously along the floor of stone.
The Figure paused with a trembling and indicisive
movement in the centre of the floor, and
then a face flushed by wine, and ruddy with excitement,
was thrust from the folds of the robe of
black.
“All silent and still,” exclaimed a voice, indistinct
with wine. “An half hour of midnight—the
sleeping potion has taken effect! It has, by St.,
Antonia!”
He approached the bedside, and with the trembling
hand of a coward, flung beck the sable hangings
of the couch. The light of his lamp, fell
vividly over the form of the sleeping maiden, as
she reclined on the sable furs covering the couch,
while her flowing robes, white as the undriven
snow, gave a strange contrast to the ebony darkness
of the bed.
“I' faith she is beautiful—eh, Aldarin? Faugh!
I forgot—the man is dead! That bloom upon her
cheek—'tis like the opening rose. How soft that
heave of the bosom as it rises from the folds of the
white robe—torn to pieces by wild horses—that
arm, with the dress falling softly around its out-lines,
the small hand, the tapering fingers—a most
accursed fate—and the attitude, the cheek reclining
on the arm, the form laid so carelessly along
the couch, the feet, small, delicate—torn into a
thousand fragments, an arm here, a leg there, and
—By the Saints I must e'en crave a kiss of this
sleeping beauty”—
And stooping slowly over the bed, with the
lamp extended in one hand, the Duke glanced
nervously around the room, and then with a rude
grasp of the flaxen tresses, he wound the other
around the maiden's neck, his unholy hands touched
her virgin bosom with its globes of beauty,
heaving and throbbing as his fingers pressed the
snow-white skin, while his sensual lips, steaming
with wine, were pressed upon her unstained
cheek, his grasp growing closer, and his eyes
gloating over the Ladye's face and form, as that
kiss of pollution rested on her cheek.
“Ha—ha!—the sleeping potion,—she is mine
—she is mine. The braggart Adrian hugs his
death in the vaults below—I gather his bride to
my arm in the cell above. Ha—ha—the sleeping
potion!”
No thought of mercy, no whispering of pity, no
silent pleading of right, for a moment restrained
the purpose of the ravisher. He gathered her
form closer to that breast which had never been
the home of one ennobling thought, he wound his
hand around her neck; again was her bosom
and cheek polluted by the plague-spot of his touch.
“She is mine!” chuckled the ravisher. “Mine,
and none other than mine!”
The Ladye Annabel murmured in that fatal
sleep, she tossed her rounded arms wildly to and
fro; the potion was in her veins, and around her
heart, and the nightmare on her soul.
Another start, and she awoke. She slowly unclosed
her large blue eyes, she fixed their glance
upon the flushed countenance of the ravisher,
the arm that encircled her form to tremble like a
leaf tossed to and fro by the wind.
“Murderer!” The solitary word broke from
her lips, and her look of meaning was again fixed
upon his face. He trembled before her glance—
he quailed like a whipped hound—he unloosed his
hold.
“I am not,” he muttered, springing backward
from the couch. “It was not me. He is not
dead; he lives—”
“Murderer!” she again murmured, in that
low, deep-toned voice, while her face of calm and
dreamy beauty was stamped with a weird expression
that awed the ravisher to the very soul.
“Even now thy evil angel writes thee liar, in the
book of thy misdeeds. Even now thy victim
writhes in the throes of death within the vaults
below; aye, aye, beneath thy very feet he dies.
Why stand ye over the corse? Doth not the pale
face and the cold brow fright ye? On whom is
fixed the glare of those stony eyes—on whom?
On thee, murderer, on thee; on thee they glare
with the accusing glance of death!”
“She is crazed! Save me, all good saints—
she is crazed! She sweeps toward me with a
measured stride! Great God! she walks not—
she glides slowly on; she moves like a spirit—
a thing of air!”
He shrunk back, cringing before the glance of
those eyes from which all reason had fled; he
shrunk back step by step as she advanced, awed
by the upraised arms, with the robes of white
waving slowly to and fro; awed by the supernatural
look visible in every line of the face of the
Ladye Annabel, and in a moment found himself
leaning for support against a dark stone pillar of
the cell.
“Murderer!” she murmured, looking him full
in the face. “I hear thy victim groan, I hear
him writhe. Look ye, good angels, he denies it,
and look, look how the red blood drops from his
trembling hands!”
With a look of wild and prophetic meaning, she
glided backward step by step, she reached the
small door of the cell, and flung it open with her
outspread hands.
“He denies it, he denies it; and the blood—ha
ha, ha!—hark how it patters on the floor!”
With that low, muttered laugh which chilled
his very blood, for it was the laugh of madness,
the Ladye Annabel again awed the Duke of Flo
rence—the ravisher in heart—with her gaze, and
then springing through the cell door, her form,
with its waving robes of snow, was lost to his
sight.
He saw her form no more, but a low muttered
laugh came whispering along the galleries of the
monastery, and half-formed words broke on his
ear. Where is now the ravisher, flushed with
wine and maddened with lust; where is now the
proud Duke, haughtily attired in robes of price,
with dishonor on his heart, and the foul purpose
on his soul?
Crouching against the wall, trembling in every
limb, his eyes vacant with terror, his whiskered
jaw half dropped upon his heart, his hand still
nervously grasping the iron lamp, he listens to the
low, muttered laugh creeping to his ear from the
far distant corridors; he listens and shakes with
fear, but says no word.
Along the dark galleries she flees, filling the
old arches with echoes of that low muttered laugh;
through the midnight passages she winds, stair-ways
she ascends, and her delicate feet descend
the dampened steps of stone; alone, in darkness,
and in nameless fear, she glides on her flight of
terror.
The cool air sweeps over her fevered brow, the
dampness of the atmosphere chills her bosom, and
by slow degrees the flight of madness, caused by
the drugged potion, passed from her soul, and the
Ladye Annabel is restored to reason and to
thought.
Oh! fearful reason, oh! terrible thought, to
which madness were joy, insanity, in its wildest
flight, happiness the most intense.
“The bride must be widowed, ere she weds a
second time!”
She rushed on, never heeding the darkness;
she rushed on, never heeding the cold. She might
save him yet; oh! even yet she might save him.
And through the dark passages of that strange
and deserted part of the monastery she wound,
until her hands, extended on either side, touched
the opposite walls, wet with moisture, and crawling
with vermin; when the echo of the arches,
superseded by a dead, deafening murmur, told
Annabel that she strode along a confined corridor,
far under ground, growing narrow and yet narrower
at every step.
A moment passed, and her extended hands
were met by waving folds of tapestry, that swept
across her path, and terminated the narrow corr
hangings, she turned them suddenly aside, and
started back with surprise, as a broad belt of light
was thrown along the gloomy passage. With
hushed breath and a beating heart, she gazed beyond
the hangings of dark leather, and while her
blue eyes dilated with wonder and fear, she beheld
a strange and startling scene.
Two figures were kneeling upon the floor of a
small apartment, narrow and confined, as regards
dimensions, and square in shape, hung with gorgeous
folds of embroidered tapestry, dark-green
in hue, with matting of strange pattern and curious
device, brought from the far Eastern lands,
strewn over the pavement of the room; while the
only object that broke the uniformity of the place,
was a dark robe flung over some massive body in
an obscure corner.
The light, clear and brilliant in its flame, placed
on the matting between the kneeling men, threw
its vivid beams on each face and form, over every
line of their features, over every point of their apparel.
The Ladye Annabel stifled an expression of
surprise which rose to her lips at the vision of this
luxuriously furnished cell, in the midst of gloom
and damp, and then with a beating heart took in
the details of this strange picture.
One of the kneeling figures was a soldier, the
other was a monk. The soldier, with his muscular
hand laid on his bent knee, grasped a massive
sword, his beetle brow surmounted by stiff and
matted hair, giving a darker expression to his
small and ferret-like eyes; while his companion,
robed in the dark attire of a monk, with a pale,
solemn face, lighted by the glare of an eye that
seemed to dilate and burn, looked upon the man-at-arms
with a glance meant to read more than
the rugged visage—meant to read his very soul.
The Ladye Annabel listened to their low and
muttered conversation with her very heart mounting
to her throat.
“Thou wilt do it—eh, Albertine? Thou knowest
my orders, sir monk?”
“The steel or the bowl?”
“The same, by the fiend! The hour—when
the clock of the tower strikes twelve. He said so
—thou knowest whom I mean. Why that dark
and bitter smile? Blood o' th' Turk, monk, that
smile shows thy white teeth—I like it not!”
“Nay, good Balvardo, be not angered with me.
I was but painting a quiet picture to my fancy.
Our victim, his eyes rolling in the death-struggle,
his blue lips whitened with foam, his arms outstretched
with the last convulsive spasm, and then
—ha, ha!—the music of the death rattle! 'Tis
excellent, i'faith, the picture—ha, ha ha!”
“Look ye, monk or devil, whate'er ye be, I'm
your man, when a good deed of cut-and-thrust is
to be done, and the wretch is despatched with a
blow. But as for this merry-making over the
dead, I like it not. Blood o' Mahound, not a whit
of it! I can wet my sword in a man's blood as
nicely as your next man, but it likes me not to
wet my tusks with the vile puddle, and grin while
the red drops fall from my lips. No more o' your
death grins, monk, or—'s death!—we quarrel!”
“Ho—ho—ho! so the humor suits ye not, honest
Balvardo. Dost know the depth of the sea, or
the number of the millions slain by old Death?
Then know the hate I bear my victim; then count
the lives I would crush in my revenge, had he as
many as the millions trampled under the feet of
Death! Is't not cause former riment, good Balvardo?”
“Look ye, sir monk, thou hast ever been known
as the prime tool of his grace,—'s life! I should
mention no names,—and therefore do I resign my
part in this night's work to thy hands. When
'tis done, thou knowest—”
“Where shall I place the body?”
“Here!” cried the hoarse voice of the soldier,
and the Ladye Annabel saw him rise; she beheld
him striding across the matted floor, toward an
obscure corner of the apartment; she beheld him
as he placed his rough hand upon the dark robe
flung over the rising object. “Here let him
rest,” he cried, raising the robe, “and rest forever!”
The Ladye Annabel beheld a sight that gathered
the big beaded drops of sweat thick as the
death dew on her forehead. Her heart seemed
swelled to bursting, and she turned away from
the sight for a single moment, with the impulse
of overpowering horror.
When she looked again, the black cloth was
again resting on that object of terror, while Balvardo
was advancing toward the monk with his
usual heavy and measured stride.
“Hast aught to hold the wine, good Balvardo?”
“In yonder closet thou wilt find the wine. Here
is—curse this cloak, how its folds tangle about
my body!—here is the goblet.”
The Ladye Annabel felt the death-like feeling
of ice creeping around her heart; and as she looked,
she thought she beheld the monk Albertine
seemed to tell a story of fearful yet hushed emotion.
The goblet held forth in the hand of the Sworder,
was the goblet of gold with which the poisoner
of the Red Chamber had administered death to
the lips of Julian, Lord of Albarone.
“Man!” exclaimed Albertine, with a blazing
eye and livid lip, “how came this goblet—this
death-bowl—in thy possession?”
“'S life! Dost not know the story? One of
the witnesses who gave testimony against that—
that—I mean he who sleeps in yonder chamber—
received this goblet as a mark of the accuser's
gratitude. I was that witness. Blood o' th'
Turk! there goes the clock—one, two, three. Sir
monk to thy duty.”
“Great God of mercy, he is false at last!”
And as the words broke from the Ladye Annabel's
lips, she beheld the monk take the goblet in
his hands; she beheld him empty a paper filled
with white powder into its depths.
She could look no more; a cold, icy feeling
seemed to freeze the very blood around her heart;
her limbs refused their support; she sank slowly
down upon the damp floor, and yet the words
spoken in the adjoining room came to her ear like
the echo of far-off shouts.
“Four, five, six. Monk, wilt delay all night?
To thy victim!”
The monk strode across the cell, holding the
goblet under his robe; he approached a spot
where the tapestried hangings, slightly swept
aside, disclosed the entrance into another room.
“Adrian,” whispered the monk, “dost sleep?”
“Sleep!” echoed a hollow voice from the inner
cell. “Sleep, when there is fever in my brain,
and fire in my heart! Dost jest, good Albertine?”
“Nay, nay, Adrian, I jest not. I have a sleeping
potion which will give thee rest.”
“The rest of the grave, in the arms of the skeleton-god,”
muttered Balvardo, with a low chuckle.
“Would that thy potion could minister sleep
eternal,” spoke the hollow voice, and a hasty
footstep was heard. “And yet I would not die
yet—no, no! She still lives. I would not die,
save in her arms, and by her side!”
And as the voice sounded strange and hollow
through the cell, the tapestry rustled, and Adrian
Di Albarone stood before the monk. Adrian Di
Albarone it was, but the manly form was bent
with chains, the black velvet attire of the student
was soiled and torn; while the faded countenance,
the sunken cheek, the lips compressed, the hollow
eye sockets, and the quick and fiery eye, all
told a tale of the agony of years endured within
the compass of a single hour.
He stood before the monk, and his chains clanked
as he stood, while his wild eye drank in each
line of Albertine's visage.
“You spoke of a soothing potion, good Albertine.”
“Seven, eight, nine,” muttered Balvardo.
The monk spoke not a word; he strode to the
closet—he seized the flask of wine—he filled the
goblet to the brim.
“Drink, Adrian,” he cried, “drink, and be refreshed!”
Adrian raised the goblet to his mouth with his
chained right hand—he wet his lips with the ruddy
wine; and then, as if seized by some fearful
spell, he stood motionless as death, while his right
arm straightened slowly out from his body, with
the hand convulsively clutching the bowl of death.
“It is, it is!” he shricked. “It is the goblet of
the Red Chamber! God of Heaven, what means
this mystery? Speak, Albertine. Wouldst thou
betray me?”
“Ten!” meanwhile continued Balvardo, in
the background.
“Adrian!” cried the monk, starting back with
a solemn gesture, “I stand upon the verge of the
cliff of Time; beneath me roll the surges of that
shoreless ocean which men name Eternity!
Ere the morrow's dawn, I leap from the cliff;
the surges of that awful sea will bear me on—on
to the vast Unknown! Thinkest thou I would
betray thee? Drink, and be refreshed.”
“Eleven, twelve! the time is up!” soliloquized
the sworder.
“I drink,” cried Adrian, with a wild gesture,
“I drink; for thy words are truth, and thine eye
bears no falsehood in its glance! I drink the goblet
of the Red Chamber to the dregs!”
A shriek that might never be forgotten rang
through the corridor and chamber, and a slight
form, arrayed in robes of white came rushing
from the folds of the tapestry, and Adrian beheld
the dreamy face of the Ladye Annabel, her cheek
pale as the robes she wore, while, with glaring
eye and voice of horror, she shrieked:
“Drink not—in God's name do not drink—the
bowl is drugged with death!”
He flung the bowl aside, but ere it left his hand
raised his chained hands on high, and ere they
were lowered, his Bride lay panting on his breast!
Oh, where is the magic of human words that may
picture the deep and fearful interest of that meeting,
the gush of contending feelings, the rapture
sparkling in the eye and beaming from, the lip,
the heart all pulsation, the blood all fire, the arms
flung convulsively round each other's neck, the
look of the Doomed, the long, last, lingering look
upon the face of the beloved, her upturned eyes,
her cheek now crimson and now snow, her tresses
of gold waving over her robes of white, and her
form of beauty flung over his bosom with every
vein swelling with delight, every nerve quivering
with joy!
They meet as lovers meet, when standing on
the opposing rocks of Time and Destiny; they
fling their arms across the chasm, nor heed the
vast eternity that yawns below, ready to engulf
and destroy.
“Drink not, oh, Adrian, drink not—the bowl is
drugged with death!”
“The time is up,” muttered the hoarse voice of
Balvardo—“The guards are within call, good
monk an' he refuses the dose.”
“Adrian Di Albarone,” cried the monk, fixing
his full and solemn eyes upon the chained knight,
“drink the bowl, I implore thee! By the memory
of the Cell of the Doomed, by the memory of
the Chapel of the Rocks, by the memory of the
perils we have shared, the deaths we dared together,
in the name of thy father, whose ghost
now looks down upon thee, in His name, most
solemn and most dread, I adjure thee—drain the
goblet to the dregs!”
“Dark and mysterious man,” cried Adrian,
sharing the wild glance of Albertine, “give me
the bowl, I drink—”
“Adrian, for my sake touch it not—poison
nestles like a snake within its depths!”
“Hold me not, Annabel—grasp not my arm—”
“For the sake of God, oh do not, do not drink!”
“I must, I must! It is not thy hand, Albertine
that gives the bowl—it is the hand of Fate, thrust
from yon blackening cloud, which all my life has
thrown its shadow over my path! Give me the
bowl—though ten thousand deaths were darting
from each sparkle of the wine, still—I drink, and
drain the goblet to the dregs!”
In vain the upraised arm of the Ladye Annabel,
in vain her look of fear, her voice of horror! As
she clung to his chained arms, he raised the goblet
to his lips, he drained it to the dregs.
“He smiles,” muttered Balvardo, “the monk
smiles as he gives the death-bowl! I see not his
cloven foot, nor do I see his horns—not a whit o'
'em. Else might I suspect the devil were lurking
in yon monkish robe.”
Adrian handed the goblet to the monk. Albertine
received it with a deep and meaning
smile. Scarce had the hand of Adrian been extended
in the act, than his arm fell like a weight
of lead to his side, and Annabel felt her lover
leaning heavily upon her shoulder, while her fair
arms might scarce stay him in his fall to the
floor.
“Monk,” cried Adrian as sinking upon one knee
he fixed his ghastly eyes upon the face of Albertine;
“monk, I trusted thee, and thou art false!”
“His brow is cold,” murmured the Ladye Annabel,
as sinking on her knees by his side, she
supported Adrian's head upon her virgin bosom.
“See! the big drops of the death-dew stand out
from his forehead—and this, monk, this is thy
work!”
As the terrible look of the dying man met his
eye, Albertine seemed struggling with some terrible
inward pang, but when the words of Annabel
and her look of intense agony came like a death-bolt
to his heart, he hurriedly advanced, he looked
at the group, he spoke in a voice tremulous with
agitation yet deep and solemn in its every accent—
“Ye scorn me now, fair Ladye, and raise your
hands in a gesture of reproach most terrible to
bear; yet the day will come, when the voice of
scorn will be changed to the sound of pity, when
those very hands will strew fresh flowers over my
grave!”
“Has — given up its model of devils!” muttered
Balvardo, in the background. “'S life, I can murder
a man in hot blood or cold blood, but as for
this heaping taunt on taunt—I like it not—by the
Blood o' th' Turk!”
“He is dead—cold and dead,” murmured the
Ladye Annabel, as she gazed upon the pallid face
of Adrian. “He does not breathe; Mother of
Heaven, I cannot feel the beating of his heart!”
Ere the words had passed her lips, the dying
man sprang with one wild bound to his feet; and
while his bloodshot eyes rolled ghastily from face
to face, he flung his arms aloft, and tottered across
the chamber, laughing wildly and with maniac
the floor, covered with the folds of the dark robe,
that swept over its surface like a pall of death.
“Monk, behold—behold the doom of Adrian of
Albarone!” he shouted, with a wild and husky
voice, as he stooped, with a sudden movement,
and tore the robe from the object which it concealed.
“There, there stands the assassin, here
the victim, and—ha, ha, ha!—behold the coffin!”
He swayed heavily from side to side; he flung
his arms hurriedly aloft in the vain effort to preserve
his balance, and then with a fixed and staring
eye, he gazed upon the face of Albertine with
a look that froze his blood.
“Monk, I trusted thee, and thou art false!”
The sound of a falling body echoed round the
room, and the lifeless form of Adrian Di Albarone
lay extended across the coffin, while the outspread
hands clutched the dark panels with the convulsive
grasp of death.
“Wait one hour,” muttered the monk to Balvardo;
“wait one hour, ere thou bearest the corse
to the grave. 'Tis now near the midnight hour:
an hour from this time, the Duke—ha, ha!—will
wed his bride; an hour from this time, and thou
mayst bear the corse to the grave!”
“Be it so,” growled Balvardo. “Then this
pestilent Adrian will trouble me no more! Blood
o' Mahound, the grave is a wondrous sure prison;
it needs nor bolt nor bar: old Death stands jailor
at its door!”
“Ladye!” cried the monk, as he advanced to
the side of the Ladye Annabel, raising the maiden,
whose senses seemed stupified with horror, from
the floor, “behold the corse of thy love! Advance,
ladye—rest thee by its side—gather the head of
the corse to thy bosom! Watch beside the corse
one hour—a single hour—and let nor man nor
devil wrest the lifeless body from thy grasp!”
The Ladye Annabel opened her large blue
eyes with a stare of vacant wander, and smiled as
she gathered the head of the corpse to her bosom,
twining her fair and delicate fingers in the golden
hair of the dead.
| CHAPTER THE THIRD.
THE DEATH-BOWL. The Ladye Annabel, or, The doom of the poisoner | |