University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.
THE MONK BEHOLDS THE REVENGE.

—Texan MSS.

We will return to the chamber of the three
idols.

Not ten minutes had elapsed since Red
Ewen the sailor left its confines, when three
figures stood revealed by the light of its pine
torch.

Here Isabel, her pale face framed in the
cowl, which increased the strange lustre of
her eyes and made her features both spectral
and ghostly; by her side, Don Augustin, his
form shrouded in a dainty brown mantle, varied
with silver trappings and glittering with
a single jewelled star. Under the torch, his
bronzed visage distinctly disclosed in every
vein and nerve by the downcast rays, stood
Father Pedro, otherwise called Don Antonio,
clutching his hands in nervous intensity, as
his livid lips trembled with a soundless motion.

The cowled lady was calm and cold!—
Don Augustin red-faced and fiery ubout the
eyes.

Don Antonio a picture of remorse, carved
in black and bronze.

Around them the obscene images seemed to
live nnd move, as their forms were now darkened
by a sudden shadow and now illumined
by so ruddy a light.

Don Augustin dashed the sheath of his
sword against the hard floor of the cavern, in
a gesture of extreme impatience.

`Come!—the devil and all his imps seize
this night and all its works'—he was choice
in his cursing was Don Augustin—`we have
lingered long enough, dared danger enough,
good lady it is time for you to fulfill your
promise. Lead us to the haunt of this Texan
—heretic and pirate as he is, and we will
force the lady Isora from his grasp.'

`My sister! as my father poured forth his
blood at my feet he consigned thee to my
care!' murmured the monk.

`The brother alone may thread these passages
with me,' broke in the sad tones of the
cowled Isabel, `Father Pedro alone may rescue
his sister. Nay, scowl not, Don Augustin,
nor curl your lip with scorn—it must be
so, or I will even leave the poor girl to her
fate.'

`Await here, Don Augustin,' hurriedly exclaimed
Father Pedro. `I will track these
solitudes alone; if I do not return within an
hour, follow and avenge.'

Why that smile on the pale red lips of Isabel,
as she surveys their parting embrace—
the cheek of the monk laid against the face
of the soldier—the firm clasp of each other's
hands and the meaning glance of their
eyes.

`I will await you—if need be, avenge you,'
Don Augustin laid the paint of his sword to
his lips.

`Come!—your sister calls you.' And Isabel

led the way into the darkness beyond the
western idol.

Saw you that pale face turned to the light,
the moment ere it disappeared, the eyes and
the lips wearing the same expression, cold,
relentless, ghostly?

Now came the moment of Don Antonio's
triumph. Through these dark passages, where
the air was hot and stifling and chilled with
subterranean draughts by turns; down these
rude stairways, hewn three centuries, aye,—
perchance ten centuries ago, in the solid rock
—up these rugged ascents where the footstep
became unsteady as it encountered the stony
fragments flung over the dark path; on and
on, in darkness, the monk followed his silent
guide.

The darkness was dense, palpable, it seemed
to shut him in like the boards of a coffin;
the silence was dead and appalling, unbroken
save by the echo of their footsteps.

Isabel was silent; for a quarter of an hour
no word passed her lips, but her cold hand
was damp with a clammy moisture that chilled
the hand of Don Antonio throughout every
nerve.

How the consciousness that he was alone
with the woman whom he had so foully
wronged, pressed like a sentence of Death on
his soul!

Still, in all the wilderness of his baseness
and crime, there bloomed one beautiful flower
—more lonely from the very blackness that
encircled it—the love of a pure and stainless
sister.

At last—oh, how gladly—with what an involuntary
cry of delight he beheld it—a light
shone from afar over the darkness of their
way.

Isabel spoke for the first time,—

`That light shines on your sister's face!'

The word touched Don Antonio's heart
with new life.

`On, on!'—he shuddered—`it may be too
late.'

Nearer and larger grew that light until it
resembled a sun, so round, and full, and blazing
it broke upon their eyes, an unearthly sun
glancing over the darkness of these Aztec
vaults.

Why linger on each moment of stifling suspense?

At last they stood near the light. It shone
out upon the rock bound passage, from a circular
space, framed by rocks and lighted up
the roof, the floor, the walls of this lone corridor,
with a red, glaring glow.

`The passage ends here,' whispered Isabel.
`That light shines from a chamber, from
which we are separated by a solid wall of
rock.'

`Let us enter the chamber; my sister is
there,' gasped the monk.

`Your sister, indeed, is there, but you cannot
enter the chamber, unless you retrace
your steps, and from the chamber of the three
Idols depart by the eastern passage. It may
be well for you to do this, but first advance,
and through this crevice behold your sister.'

Don Antonio saw her look—saw her face
lighted for a moment by a smile—oh, how
wild and unearthly—and was afraid to advance.
He feared to behold the secret of that
unknown chamber.

She took him by the hand and dragged
him to the sperture in the solid wall of
rocks.

This was the sight which he saw:—

A small room, circular in form, whose wall
was formed by one undulating curtain of faint
crimson, which was supported by three slender
white pillars. From the celing—it was
like a dome, and painted to resemble a midnight
sky: blue, spotted with stars—hung a
fiery globe which bathed the place in dazzling
light.

This light, which seemed to float and wave
in waves of liquid flame, was tempered and
softened by clouds of snowy incense smoke,
which emerged from the thousand apertures
of the globe, and wrapped the room in intoxicating
odors.

Beneath the globe, in the centre of the rich
matting which supplied the place of a carpet,
was a cushion or couch of rich scarlet velvet,
fringed with gold; and near it a sofa or divan
of the same rich tevture.

On the sofa, half seated and half reclined,
was a man of some twenty-five years, he did
not seem more; his dark hair and beard, curled
and perfumed, after the manner of the
luxurious Sybarites of old. His broad chest
heaved beneath a garment of purple velvet,
flashing with gold and jewels. Fine linen
about his bold throat, and around his bronzed
hands; a broad belt of rich embroidery
across his chest; a dagger quivering by his
side.

His face glowed; it shone in every feature
with a mad delight. It was a face that could
not easily be forgotten.

Behold that downcast head, those large
eyes, whose intense gaze grows soft with
moisture, those parted lips, which seem unclosed
in the act of murmuring words of
passion.

His right arm was extended, it held aloft a
golden goblet, curiously carved and brimming
with deep purple wine.

But there was a fair hand laid upon the
wrist of that extended arm.

Well might Don Antonio gasp for breath!

A woman's form was couched upon the
velvet cushion, her head resting upon the
knee of the man, as with an intoxicating langor
stealing over her face she gazed upward
through the intervals of her soft, silken hair,
and lifted her arm, clutching his wrist as if to
seize the goblet.

She was clad in an azure tunic, or loose
frock, which fell, without a girdle, from her
shoulders to her knees, revealing by the soft
gradations of every fold, the gentlest undulations
of her shape. Below the knees her
limbs were bare, their snowy whiteness contrasting
with the scarlet rubiness of the cushion;
a delicate sandal of pink satin was bound
to the sole of each foot, leaving all beside, in
its unveiled loveliness, the delicate azure
veins, perceptible beneath the softly flushed
carmine skin.

A diamond sparkled on the tunic, where it
half and only half concealed her bust; it
sparkled with every pulse of her bosom, shone
as that bosom rose, and glittered softly like a
fading star as it fell.

No more beautiful, no more delicate contrast
can be imagined, than that which was
presented by the soft whiteness of her half revealed
shoulders, and the mazes of her silken
hair, as black as a pall.

One tress fell over her rising bosom, as i
in shame, and veiled it as it heaved, like a
creamy billow, into light.

The face told the full story of that mad intoxication
which thrilled every nerve of this
beautiful girl—this Sultana of the rock-bound
bower.

Through the lips—they were slightly parted—glowing
with moist vermillion, gleamed
the ivory teeth. Over the cheek, soft, rounded,
downy, burned a rose-bud flush, which
now contracted in one intense heat of passion
and again seemed to spread forth its rosy
leaves over the whole face,

The eyes, bright and dewy, and shining
languidly from the heavy lids, which seemed
weighed down by the intoxicating ordors of
the place, were centered upon the face,
glowering down upon that beautiful form with
a glance not to be mistaken.

`Wilt drink, Isora? Wilt drink to our
merry life upon the broad ocean, where I, thy
lover-husband, will gather spoil for thee—for
thee—from every flag, and win diamonds for
thy white brow from every clime? And after
the battle is over, the good ship, with its
royal Black Flag will tranquilly glide into the
green cove of our island home. Thou wilt
stand upon the shore, waving thy white arms
as thy Rover comes up the steep cliffs, comes
home to thee, covered with laurels and spoil!
Drink Isora, to the days when we shall dwell
on our island home!'

She raises her white arms, the goblet is in
her hand, its golden rim is pressed against her
red lip, the purple wine glides slowly, in a
rich, mellow current, through that quivering
portal.

`I love none but thee—thee only Juan!—
Wherever thou goest, upon sea or shore, I
will go with thee! In battle'—her slight nostril
quivered—`I will bind on thy sword and
laugh as the red mist waves over thee; in
peace, when the fight is over, this bosom
shall pillow thy head, as we sit at the porch
of our island home and gaze upon the young
moon rising over the waveless sea.'

She twined her white arms upon his sinewy
hands and dashed her silken hair over his
arms. All the while her bosom, veiled by
that solitary tress, rose like a creamy billow,
bearing on its creast a dark and glossy burden.

The incense smoke, agitated by a current
of air, descended and swept over them like a
veil.

Don Antonio could not withdraw his gaze
from the aperture. Oh, what fiend but would
pity him now, as the crushing agony of his
soul glares in his glassv eyeballs, and quivers
in his parched lips. He cannot withdraw his
gaze from the aperture; his eye is fixed upon
the undulating veil of the incense smoke—he
hears those kisses, those words of passionate
transport, but cannot withdraw his gaze.

Isabel—is she still cold and calm? Does
no relenting throb pulsate in her ice-cold bosom?

The light glaring around that passage revealed
that motionless form, resembling a marble
image of vengeance, veiled—all save the
face—in a monkish cowl.

Once, only, there was something like a
burning tear upon her colorless cheek—a tremor
on her lip. It was for an instant—she
was marble again.

Don Antonio turned, he seized her death-cold
hands,—

`Woman!' he fiercely shrieked, `have you
no pity? Look! my sister, my only sister's
senses drugged by maddening draughts—her
honor torn from her in a moment of delirium.
Pity—mercy—not for my sake, but for
hers!'

Isabel was silent; one word, after a pause,
she gasped; one only, and that with an evident
effort.

`Prairie Eden!'

The monk fell backward, as if blasted by
a thunder stroke. But those sounds in the
curtained chamber, those kisses of mad passion,
those raptures of voluptuous transport—
he heard them still, and was nerved with the
savage strength of despair.

`You must save my sister! By the Holy
Trinity I swear your life shall pay the forfeit
of her outraged honor. Your life! I
swear it!—'

He had grasped her wrists, and all the devil
of his soul shone from his features, horribly
distorted by passion, rage, madness.

With but a single phrase she answered
him,—

`Rancho Salado!'

The hands of the monk fell. He beat his
forehead against the rocks, grappled the cold
surface until his nails were splintered at the
finger ends; and in the pauses of his phrenzy
he shouted aloud her name—his sister's
name,—

`Isora!—'tis your brother who calls.—
Isora, in the name of your dead father,—
hear me!'

The incense smoke waved aside, the monk
looked through the aperture.

`Oh God! this is worse than eternal death
—she hears me not—kisses! His arms about
her neck—the goblet! Isora! O shame—despair!
Villain, I defy you—proclaim you
coward—monster! Will meet you face to
face in combat.—Isora!'

And like the chorus to his broken ejaculations,
was heard those whispering voices,—

`Mine?'

`Thine only!'

`But my poor brother Harry, with his pale
face and blue eyes, we'll drink to his memory
—drink to him as he kneels in presence of
his murderer, the prayer yet warm upon his
lips, as he falls cold—cold—dead! Vengeance
to the murderer of poor Harry!'

`Give me the goblet. Thine eyes madden
—thy voice whirls my soul as on a billow of
flame. I drink, Juan—death and shame to
the murderer of thy brother!'

`Isora!' groaned—not shouted—the monk
as he fell back from the fatal aperture in the
rocks, his soul stupified by the voluptuous
frenzy which burned his eyes as he beheld
it!

Isabel hears this, and does not relent? Ah,
the cold, remorseless vengeance of the dishonored
woman fail her at once. You see a
vivid flash brighten over her face; she veils
her eyes, beating the hard earth all the while
with her tiny foot.

`He murdered my father—I see his cold
face—oh God! how it glares in the rising
sun. Harry, too, went forth from home, and
came back no more. There stands the murdered.
My honor—that which is the world,
heaven, life to a woman—he crushed into the
dust, as the poisoned cup whirled its frenzy
through my brain. I know it all—confess it
my God; but his sister, she hath done no
wrong; her ravings, uttered in the madness of
passion, they madcen me. I can bear it no
nger!'

She turned aside from the glare of the light
and her footsteps echoed along the caverned
passage.

The monk raised his eyes—she was gone.
His despair was now complete. It was a horrible
sight to see him tear the flesh from his
face with his splintered nails.

Suddenly three forms veiled in blue robes,
appeared in the light, their faces lost to view
in the folds of their garments.

With one movement they seized Father Pedro,
bound him despite his frantic resistance,
and held their sharp knives at his bared
throat.

With the bandage across his mouth, the
corns on his arms, these veiled forms lifted
him to the aperture once more.

He looked.

Those who held him were thrilled with the
cold shudder that pervaded his form.

Once more!

He lay motionless in their grasp, his proud
spirit broken, his face changed and fallen, as
though the ice of death had been poured
upon it.

`You have beheld only the beginning of
justice as administered by the Free Rangers.
Now comes the end!'

Like an inanimate burden they bore the
conscious but palsied monk into a dark passage
which suddenly opened near the bright
aperture in the wall. Whether it was a secret
door or only a hollow in the rocks, which had
evaded his search, he knew not, but suffered
hem to bear him unresistingly along.