 | CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH.
THE BURIED ALIVE. The Ladye Annabel, or, The doom of the poisoner |  |
THE REAL MORE TERRIBLE THAN
THE UNREAL.
All was dark. Not a ray of light, not even the
gleaming of a distant star, but deep and utter
darkness. Adrian awoke from his dream. Did
he awake to another dream, or to a reality yet
more terrible? He lay prostrate, and he felt his
limbs confined as though they were bound with
cords. He extended his hand, and it touched a
smooth panel of wood, extending along his right
side. A strange horror, to which the horrors of
his late dream were joy intense, gathered like a
deadening weight around his heart. He threw
forth his left hand, and felt a like panel of smooth
wood extending along his other side. Raising
himself slowly from his prostrate position, with
every nerve and fibre of his frame stiffened and
cramped by his hard resting place, he passed his
quivering hands along the panels of wood, and
with that insupportable horror deadening over his
heart, he felt and examined the shape of his—
Coffin!
Bowing his head between his hands, the wretched
man essayed toweep, but the fountain of his
tears was exhausted. He could not weep. And
then, as with trembling hands he examined his
emaciated face, with the cheek-bones pressing
hard against the parched skin, he beheld rising
before his soul, one ghastly idea, which would pale
the cheek of the bravest man that ever went to
battle, or chill with horror and despair, the heart
of the holiest Priest that ever offered prayers to
God, an idea to which all other horrors were as
nothing, all terrors, all fears, all deaths trifling and
insignificant—and the nameless thought, his husky
voice gave to the air in a hollow whisper—
“Buried-Alive!”
And a hollow echo returned the word “alive,
alive!”
“It comes back to my soul,” he slowly murmured,
“the scene in the chamber of the convent
—the Monk—oh, curses on the traitor—the potion,
all, all come back to me! Buried Alive! Devil
in human shape—he did not drug the bowl with
death, but with—sleep! This, this is the revenge
of the Duke, and, and Albertine was the tool of
the triple murderer! Buried Alive!” He tried to
arise from the coffin, but for a long time his efforts
were in vain. His frame was stiffened in every
sinew, and his limbs were benumbed by his long
repose. At last he stood erect upon the floor of
stone, and extending his hands, grasped the massive
walls.
“There is yet one hope,” he murmured, “there
may be some outlet from the funeral vault!”
With slow and leaden footsteps he passed
along the wall, measuring its length. It was five
paces long. The stones were all solid, massive,
and firm. His upraised hand touched the ceiling,
as it extended some three inches higher than his
head. Clutching the massive stones, he paced
along the other walls or sides of the room, with
weary and difficult footsteps, and at last traversed
the three sides, and leaning against the wall, he
endeavored to impress his wandering mind with
the vault.
“I stand in a small room, with floor and walls
of massive stone,” he slowly muttered, “it is
square in shape, and each side of the cell is
five paces in length, and somewhat more than
the stature of a man in height. The stones are
solid, and to all appearance are some three feet
thick. There is no outlet, no passage from the
vault. I am indeed—Buried, and buried alive!”
He passed with difficult steps along the fourth
wall of the vault, determined to repose his shattered
frame awhile, even though his resting place
was his coffin. In a moment measuring three
paces, he arrived at the spot where he supposed
he had left the coffin. Extending his foot to
and fro, in search of his late tenement, he was
struck with a new horror:
“It is gone—the coffin is gone!”
Words cannot picture the utter horror with
which this was spoken. All the despair that an
Angel of God might feel, when toppled from the
battlements of Heaven into the infernal abyss,
then visited the breast of Adrian Di Albarone.
“It is a mere phantasy,” he exclaimed, “I have
chanced upon the wrong side of the room.”
Again the sides of the vault were paced, and
yet the coffin was not within his reach. It was
gone from its position near the wall, and his physical
strength did not suffice to advance toward
the centre of the room.
What invisible hand was it, that removed the
Coffin? As the question was asked by the heart
of the wretched man, it found its answer in one
fearful doubt.
“And am I, in truth, within the bounds of that
fearful place, which wild Poets have fancied, and
dark-robed Monks have preached? Am I in
sooth lost, and lost forever? Is death a dream?
or an eternal succession of realities that seem but
dreams—horrors too fearful for even the damned
to believe? And this, this is—hell! I could bear
the tortures of the eternal fire, the lash of the
fiends I might defy, the lightnings of wrath
would inspire with me with some portion of the
Awful Spirit who winged their bolts of vengeance
—but this narrow cell this eternal confinement
in a place visited only by Dreams, while hunger
tortures and thirst burns, hope animates, and despair
holds but half the human heart—this, this is
too horrible. God of vengeance, give me, oh give,
the punishment of the undying worm, the torture
of the eternal flame, but spare, oh spare me—
this!”
He fell on his knees, and kissed the cold floor
as he bent his forehead against his clenched hands,
making the narrow cell all alive with his shrick—
“Spare; oh spare me—this!”
As he bowed low on the floor, a singular sound
—most singular in such a place—met his ear. It
was but a low sound, yet it was a fearful one. He
heard the deep breathing of a living creature!
It might be the echo of his own broken gasps, the
thought flashed over the mind of Adrian, and for
a moment he held his breath, and listened with all
his soul absorbed in the result. Again the deep
breathing of a human creature met his ear—
“Is it man or devil?” thus ran the thoughts of
Adrian—“Mayhap he may give me water to
quench my thirst, or mayhap he will—ha, ha,—
take my accursed life. Could I but speak—for my
voice does nought but murmur—I'd even ask him
to plunge his poignard in my heart.”
A whizzing sound disturbed the air, and at the
very instant the blow of a sword descended on the
left arm of Adrian Di Albarone, while a heavy
body fell to the floor, within two paces of the
spot where he knelt.
“The blood flows from the wound,” the glad
thought darted over the mind of the Buried-Alive,
“Would I had strength to tear the doublet-sleeve
from the arm, then I might drink my own blood.
Yet hold—the blood oozes through the gash in
the sleeve, and, and Great God! I may drink my
own blood!”
He raised the wounded arm to his mouth and
greedily drank the blood. In a moment he felt
the influence of the draught. His veins seemed
fired with new life, his brain became for the moment
calm and clear, his heart regained its vigor,
and gifted with temporary strength he arose on
his feet, grasping the sword of the unknown in
his good right hand. Another moment passed,
and with his right hand he wound a bandage of
linen, torn from his bosom, around the wounded
arm, securing it by a knot tied with the teeth and
hand.
Meanwhile he heard the sound of gasping
breath, not two paces distant from the spot where
he stood, and as he listened a deep-muttered groan
broke on his ear.
Calling all his powers of mental and physical
vigor to his aid he spoke in a faint yet determined
voice—
“Who art thou?” he exclaimed.
“Thy murderer!” was the gasping response.
“How long hast thou been in this place of
death?”
“Long—enough—to starve! Hell and devils!
I burn—thirst—starve!”
“What wouldst thou have?”
“Bread, bread! Water—I'd sell my soul for
water!”
“Wherefore didst thou strike me?”
“I thought ye a spirit—and—and—I wanted to
test your quality. Kill me, an' thou art a man of
flesh and blood—kill me, kill me!”
“Thy voice is strange and hollow, yet methinks
I remember your tones. Thy name is—Balvardo!”
“'Twas I that swore thy life away, 'twas I that
brought thee to these vaults to bury thy corse beneath
the earth— kill me, kill me!”
“Is there no opening to this vault?”
“A secret door—a passage—the spring, that
opens on the other side—the spring that shuts—
on this side. I—ha, ha, may hell seize my soul,
I buried myself alive—and kill me!”
Adrian shuddered with horror. He could hear
the gasping of the poor wretch as he struggled for
breath, he could hear the groans of his unseen
assassin; well he knew that long absence from
nourishment from food alone could lay the sworder
helpless as an infant along the floor.
And as his mind struggled with the mighty
horrors that gathered round him, his attention
was arrested by a singular circumstance. While
the hushed and whispered conversation had been
in progress between Adrian and Balvardo, the
room had been gradually growing warmer and
warmer, and at last the walls became heated, the
ceiling emitting a warmth almost insupportable,
while the confined air of the cell grew like the atmosphere
of a furnace.
Great God, what new horror is this!” shoutei
Adran. “Tell me, how hast thou existed thus
long in this vault of death, without air?”
“A well,” gasped the wretch, “centre of the
stone-room—current of air from under the earth.”
Impressed by these gasping words, Adrian advanced
slowly along the floor, avoiding the pros
trate body, and in a moment stood near the centre
of the room. He extended his foot—it touched
a substance that gave back a slight sound; it
was his coffin. Another extension of his foot,
and a whizzing sound assailed his ears, ploughing
the air far, far below his feet, then the rebound of
wood splintered to pieces on a pointed rock came
welling up from earth-hidden depths and echoed
around the room. He listened with hushed
breath for a long and weary moment. The
plunging sound of a pebble falling in water, far,
far below, came dimly and faintly to his ear, like
the pattering of the water-drop upon the age-worn
rock.
“Ha! A well, deep as the fathomless abyss,
sinks down from the centre of the room. Let
me measure its width—two good paces. The
coffin has whirled down into its bottomless depths
—I hear the splintered pieces falling in the water
far, far below. A slight current of air issues from
the well—and the heat of this vault of death grows
fiercer every moment—”
`Kill me, and then thank God thou hast strength
left to hurl thee down the dark abyss—I burn,
oh, fiend of hell, with thirst and flame I burn!”
Adrian sate him down on the edge of the well,
with his feet dangling in the abyss, and gave his
very soul to one long and painful effort of thought
Death clutched him with a thousand arms, death
was in the heated air, death came gibbering and
laughing in the form of famine, and from the very
depths of the abyss the doomed lord could fancy
he beheld the form of the Skeleton-God, with arms
outstretched to grasp his victim as he fell.
There was no hope.
He must die. Great God he must die afar
rom the voice of friend, afar from the sight of
earth, or the vision of the blue sky, he must die
by the slow gnawings of famine, the gradua
withering of fire, or by one sudden plunge into
the abyss below. He sate him down to die—his
arms were folded, and yet with an eager gesture
he held his face over the darkness of the abyss in
the nervous effort to inhale each breath of air.
He strove to compose his mind to prayer, but
the gasping of the wretch lying near his side diverted
his attention from thoughts of God and
the better world.
“Why didst thou hate me?” he slowly asked.
“I was afraid—thou—wouldst—live to do me
wrong. Thou art revenged—I die by inches!”
The wretch groaned in very agony, and Adrian
could hear his fingers clutching convulsively along
the floor of stone.
“My God, my God,” cried the doomed lord, as
his very soul was wrung by the woe of the forsaken
wretch; “would I had one cup of water to
cool his burning tongue—”
“Ha—ha—ha! He mocks me with the name
of water! Tell me, thou fiend, is he not revenged?”
“The heat grows fiercer—the air of this vault
is turning to fire! He gasps for breath. Man
give me thy hand. Let me drag thee near the
well—the freshning air may cool the fire in thy
heart and veins.”
And extending his hands through the darkness,
with his body inclined to a level with the pavement,
he sought the form of the famine-striken
sworder. He grasped the hands of the wretch;
the fingers were thin and wasted, resembling the
bones of a skeleton rather than the hands of a
living man. Slowly and with a careful motion
Adrian dragged the dying man along the pavement,
he laid his head on his knee, as he sat on
the verge of the well, and passed his hand over
the massive brow of his assassin. He shuddered
in the very act. Clear and distinct, like the unbared
skull of the grave, the harsh outline of the
withered brow, pressed against his hand, and he
could feel the eye sunken far in its socket, and
the cheeks hollowed by the touch of famine.
“I feel the fresh air on my brow,” gasped Balvardo;
“my feet are withering with heat, and
mine hands burn! Oh fiend of hell—I see a
fountain, a cool and showery fountain—the clear
waters are streaming over pebbled stones, and
the green moss is wet with the sparkling drops.
Hist! I will crawl to the fountain side, I will bury
my face in the waters—ha, ha, ha, I will drink, I
will drink! Fiend, fiend—curses on thee, thou
hast changed the waters to blood!”
He uttered a wild yell of horror, and the vault
of the dead gave back the echo—“Blood, blood!”
while Adrian passed his hands over the beetle-brow
of his murderer, and parting the matted hair
aside held the famine-eaten face in the full current
of the subterranean air.
All was dark as chaos ere the fiat of God spoke
worlds into being, yet here was a spectacle that
the angels of His throne, veiling their awful
faces before the Presence, might gaze upon even
through the darkness, and gaze with tears of joy.
Here was the assassin, the sworder, the false-witness,
and the foe, resting in the arms of the man
whose body his oath had given to the doomsman
and the wheel, whose footsteps he had tracked
like the bloodhound snuffing the footprints of his
victim, fierce, unrelenting, and hungering after
blood, here was the wretch who had borne him to
this vault, placed his body in the house of death,
consigned him to the famine and the fire, the
nameless horror and the agony that the cheek
grows livid to name, here was the man who had
buried him alive, and yet he held him in his arms,
fanned his withered face, and brought the fresh
air to his parched lips and burning brow. It was
as the sworder had gaspingly uttered a fierce revenge,
and yet such vengeance as the Man of the
Cross, the God shrined in flesh, would have taken
on his most blood-thirsty foe.
The end drew nigh. The moments, those moments
of horror, which seemed lengthened to
years, dragged on with steps of lead, and the room
grew like a furnace, the walls gave forth an intolerable
heat, the ceiling was rapidly becoming a
canopy of invisible fire, while the air changed to
unseen flame, began to burn into the flesh of Adrian,
as the wretch in his arms writhed and
writhed in helpless agony.
“Water—water—water!” gasped the Sworder.
A thought flashed over the mind of Adrian.
“There may be water in this well—a fountain
may spring bubbling from its depths, while we perish
on the brink! The way is deep and dark—a
single misplaced grasp or foothold, and my body
goes whirling to the abyss below; yet I am urged
on by a power I cannot name—I will descend the
well!”
A moment and the head of Balvardo lay on the
pavement of the stone-room, while the body of
Adrian hung swinging in the abyss, as, with his
hands grasping the projecting stones, he began that
fearful descent of danger and of death.
“I go to bring thee water!” he shouted in the
ear of the famished wretch—“I go to bring thee
water for thy burning tongue and brow.”
“Then, then take—this—” was the gasping response,
and Adrian felt a substance of metal pressed
hold the—the water, or, ha, —the blood!'
Hanging over the abyss by the grasp of one
trembling hand, Adrian seized the metal substance
with the other. It was a goblet, a goblet of gold,
embossed with strange shapen flowers, and heraldic
insignia, and as Adrian placed the vessel within the
confines of his doublet, a shudder of horror caused
his frame to quiver over the unknown void. It
was the goblet of the Red Chamber.
First grasping a pointed stone with one hand,
then inserting his foot in a crevice of the masonry,
then clutching another stone with the other hand,
while his remaining foot rested in another crevice,
he slowly began the fearful descent of the well.
“This then is the foul den of torture, built by the
tyrants of Florence, long, long ago!” The thought
crossed his brain. “The well hath been fashioned
by the tools of the mason, yet the damp has worn
deep hollows between the rugged stones. Hark!
he uttered the involuntary exclamation, “a stone
has fallen from my grasp—I hear no sound—none,
none! The abyss may be without bottom or
depth. Hist! a hollow murmur breaks the silence
of the air, far, far, below—the stone has sounded the
depth of the well!”s.
“Water, water—men or devils, give me water!”
the shrieking tones of the wretch in the stone-room
came faintly to his ear. “Ha, ha! Thanks, thanks—
they hand me a cup, a cup of good, clear water,
and I drink—oh, horror, horror,—it turns to
blood!”
With every nerve quivering, his hand trembling
as he grasped the stones, his foot shaking with a
nervous tremor as it sought the crevice which might
give it momentary support, Adrian continued his
terrible descent, until some twenty yards of the
subterranean well rose above his head, while the
low moans, the piercing shricks, and the hollow
laughter of the Sworder came fainter, and yet more
faint to his ear.
Extending his foot in search of a crevice, he was
astonished to find it resting on a solid rock, that
hung jutting over the abyss, at a point where the
well, diverging from its perpendicular course, made
a slight inclination to the opposite side. Grasping
the rugged stones with the eager grasp of his trembling
hands, Adrian hung swinging over the abyss,
as with extended feet, he examined the formation
of the well at this particular point, and tested the
extent of the jutting rock.
He looked over his shoulder, and a wild thrill of
surprise ran over his frame.
“Mine eyes burn with famine,” he slowly murmured;
“they deceive me! Great God they mock
me with a wild dream—I fancy the well grows
lighter and lighter—but 'tis a dream, a mocking
dream!”
As he spoke, a cold substance pressed against the
palm of his right hand as it grasped the stone—it
moved and writhed, while a hissing sound broke on
the ear. Two points of flame, like minute yet intensely
brilliant fire coals, glared before the very
eyes of Adrian, and as the hissing grew louder, he
found that a vile serpent wriggled between the fingers
of his right hand.
With a sensation of unutterable disgust, he suspended
his body by the left hand, and dashed the
monster down the abyss with one quick motion of
his hand. The impulse with which he flung the
serpent from his grasp, caused his body to quiver
and tremble over the abyss, while the sinews of
the left hand seemed bursting from the skin, as
with the nervous grasp of despair, the doomed
lord strove to recover the stone lately clutched by
the other hand. With one wild sweep he regained
his grasp, springing heavily on the jutting rock in
the action, while a deep rumbling sound disturbed
the silence of the well. Another moment passed.
Well was it for Adrian that he had refrained from
trusting to the rock for support. The massive
stone slowly swung to and fro, trembling over
the depths of the well, and then with a crash like
thunder, went whizzing down the abyss. Up, up,
from the fathomless depths, thundering and shrieking,
arose the deafening echoes, yelling like spirit-voices
in the ear of the trembling man, as he swayed
to and fro over the blackness of the void. It
was a moment ere Adrian might recall his wandering
thoughts. He looked over his shoulder, he
gazed upon the opposite side of the well. God of
Mercy, was it a dream, a phantasmal creation of
fancy, a mocking delusion of his crazed brain?
There, before his very eyes, gilding the opposite
side of the wall, a golden space, large as the human
hand, shone in his very face.
“It is the light of day!” muttered Adrian, as his
heart rose to his very throat; “it is, it is the light
of day!”
“Ha, ha, ha! water!” the shriek came yelling
from the room far, far, far above—“water, water!”
Grasping the stones below, Adrian descended
from a crevice in the wall of the well to which he
hung, trembling with a new joy, quivering in
every nerve with a new life. He thrust his right
hand into the hollow of the crevice, and as a large
flat stone fell echoing before him, a blaze of light
streamed through the wide aperture into the darkness
of the abyss.
“I stand within a rock-bound passage!” exclaimed
Adrian' “'tis narrow as the grave, narrow as a
coffin, yet twenty yards beyond I see the light of
day! Great God give me strength; do not, do not
fail me now! Streagth, a little strength, and I may
yet be saved!”
Prostrate along the floor of the narrow passage,
which the falling of the stone had disclosed, he
turned his body, and, thrusting his face into the
gloom of the well, once more gazed far, far above.
“Murderer that he is, I will not desert him!” he
cried; “he has been my comrade in the living
tomb—he shall be my comrade in the light of God's
own day!”
No sooner did the words pass his lips, than a
shriek of intense horror, came yelling down the
abyss, a mass of red fire crowned the summit of the
well, and hot cinders, and burning coals swept
through the darkness of the void, hissing by the
very face of Adrian, and marking their flight with
long lines of streaming flame. Adrian withdrew
his head from the well and listened.
A low moan, a choaking groan, and then a succession
of yells, resounded through the void. Then
the crackling of flames, then the falling of age cemented
masonry; then a wild shriek, and then a
voice of horror—
“I burn, I burn! oh fiend of hell, I burn!”
The air was cloven by the rushing of a falling
body, and thundering down the well, with arms
outspread, with his face all crushed and blackened,
stamped with a look of agony that might never be
forgotten, Balvardo was for a moment disclosed by
the light shining through the aperture, before the
very eye of Adrian, and then there was a whirling
noise, followed by a heaving rebound, and then all
was still.
The soul of Balvardo, the Sworder, stood beside
the soul of his master in the judgment halls of the
Unknown.
“Away, away!” shouted Adrian, maddened by the
sight of that ghastly face; “away from this earth-hidden
hell! Strength, my God, oh give me
strength, and I may yet be saved.”
Creeping on hands and knees, he sped along the
subterranean passage, the light growing brighter at
every step, and at last the twenty paces were left
behind, he crawled from the rock, he stood in the
open air.
His voice failed him, he gazed around. Far,
far above him, ascended the whitened steep on
which the Convent was reared, far, far above him,
he beheld the blue sky, tinted with the glow of
the dying day, he beheld the platform rock and
the frowning tower, wrapt in clouds of lurid smoke,
while tongues of forked flame, swept up to the
very azure, turning the glow of the setting sun to
bloody red.
He stood on the side of a ravine, with the deep
darkness of the wild abyss sinking far below him,
while the rugged ascent of rocks on the opposite
side rose towering before his eye, veiling the
mountain lake from his sight, and giving a faint
glimpse of the eastern sky. Dark and dreary,
tangled with gnarled shrubs, rough with rifted
rocks, a score of fathoms down, sunk the wild
abyss, with the hills, or rather the overhanging
cliff gathering around its blackness, like the sides
of one vast death-bowl of ebony.
With a wild glance, Adrian beheld the smoke
and flame, the Convent and the blue sky above,
the glimpe of the eastern horizon, the rocks
ascending on the opposite of the ravine, and the
blackness of the abyss below, and then his soul
was riveted to a spectable of horror extended at
his very feet.
There before his very eyes, a mangled carcase,
was thrown along the surface of a rugged rock,
the trunk, the limbs, the arms, the garments and
draperies of gold, all mingled in one foul mass of
corruption, while the face was buried amid a cluster
of stunted shrubs of laurel. Adrian reached forth
his hand, he raised the face, he beheld the blue
tint of corruption, the eyes lolling from their
sockets, the blackened tongue hanging from the
mouth!—
“The Duke,” he shrieked, “the Duke of Florence!”
He turned from the sight with intolerable disgust,
and as he turned, he beheld appearing from
amid the shrubs, on the other side of the small
platform of sand on which he stood, a bared arm
flung along the earth grasping a keen and slender-bladed
dagger, with a grasp that death and corruption
could not unclose.
Adrian sprang forward, he unwound the dagger
from the grasp of the hand, he beheld a
parchment scroll secured around the haft of the
glittering steel. He tore the scroll from the dagger,
he flung it open to the light, and beheld these
words written in a fair unwavering hand—
“Brothers of the Invisible! When this hand
that writes these words is cold in death, the scroll
of Albertine the Monk, will tell the story of his
vengeance on the Tyrant-Duke. The midnight
hour is now past—I go to plunge the dagger of
the Holy Steel in the Heart of the Doomed. Ask
ye for the Heir of Albarone! Three hours ago, ere
the Duke arrived in the valley, I bade him farewell
forever. Midnight came and I learned that
the Son of Lord Julian, was about to meet his
death in the vaults of the Convent. One way
of rescue alone remained. Protected by my supposed
love for the Duke, I blinded the eyes of
the assassin, and offered to do his work of death.
Then mingling a potion, which would minister
sleep,—not death,—I gave it to Lord Adrian—
even now his bride gathers his slumbering form
to her embrace in the vaults of the Convent—even
now the assassin waits to bear the body to the
grave. One hour from this ye will arrive in the
valley, and your eyes will behold the slumbering
form of your Prince—the lifeless Corse of the
Tyrant! I go to finish—”
The scroll broke off abruptly, yet there was sufficient
written to fill the heart of Adrian with an
emotion of joy, he had never felt before.
He sprang among the bushes, he dashed the
laurel leaves, he turned the blackening face of the
mangled corse to the light. He clasped his hands
on high in silent prayer, while thick burning tears
fell streaming over the face of Albertine the Monk.
Meanwhile gathered along the green sward of
a level meadow, extending from the Convent gates,
to the south of the mountain lake, a band of gallant
warriors, reined their war-steeds along the
turf, their upraised spears marking their numbers,
by long lines of glittering light, while a thousand
banners waved streaming in the sunset air, and
the peal of bugle, and the stirring notes of the
trumpet went echoing upward to the old convent
walls wrapt in smoke, lighted by giant-pillars of
blood red flame.
In front of the band of warriors, a group of noble
lords and high-born dames, plumed cavaliers
and gay-robed damosels,—all mounted on prancing
steeds, swept circling around the figure of a
fair and beautiful Ladye, whose jet-black barb,
with its watchful groom, stood reined in their
midst, while every tongue was silent, and every
eye was fixed upon the death-like paleness of the
maiden's countenance, contrasting strangely with
the gorgeous robes of purple and gold that drooped
round her young and lovely form.
Her head bowed slowly on the neck of her
steed, and the tears of a never-dying grief came
gushing between the fair and delicate fingers that
strove to veil her face. She wept, the fair Ladye
Annabel, whose steed was about to spring forward
in the triumphal procession, that would soon give
Florence its lovely queen; the coronet was on her
brow, the swords of a thousand warriors were at
her beck, and yet she wept.
Suddenly a wild murmur ran through the warrior-throng.
Uprising in the light of the burning
Convent,—that dark haunt of blood and awe,
now toppling to its foundation, a grey rock, its
base concealed by stunted shrubs, while its brow
was turned to the flame-beams, attracted the gaze
of every eye, as a strange spectacle hushed the
whispers of every voice.
A hand, ghastly and white, was thrust from
behind the rock, lifting a goblet of gold in the
light of the setting sun. Deep muttered whispers
broke along the warrior-throng, every voice spoke
of some new omen crowning the horrors of the
convent during the last hour of its existence, and
the murmurs of the lords and ladies clustering at
her side, attracted the attention of the Ladye Annabel.
She slowly turned, she gazed upon the
uplifted hand with the goblet of gold rising above
the verge of the grey rock—not more than twenty
paces from her side—she gazed in wonder
and in awe. And as she gazed, a wan and ghastly
face appeared above the rock, and a wasted
and trembling form, clad in garments of price all
soiled and torn, stood on the verge of the massive
stone, flinging the goblet wildly aloft, as a peal
of maniac laughter came thrilling to the maiden's
ear.
It was a solemn and impressive scene!
There swept the knightly host along the green
meadow, their spears gleaming on high, there
darkened the smoke and lightened the blaze of the
burning convent, there the calm lake extending
bosom to the crimson glare of the flame,
and there standing erect upon the brow of the
grey rock, his slender form boldly and clearly relieved
by the background of the convent walls, the
light of the flame, the beams of the setting sun;
Adrian Di Albarone, crazed by famine, and maddened
with new-risen joy, shook wildly aloft the
Goblet of Gold, while his maniac laugh broke
echoing on the evening air.
| CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH.
THE BURIED ALIVE. The Ladye Annabel, or, The doom of the poisoner | |