 | Paul Ardenheim, the monk of Wissahikon |  |
1. BOOK THE FIRST.
THE LAST NIGHT.
“I will send a Deliverer to this land of the New World, who shall save my people
from physical bondage, even as my Son saved them from the bondage of spiritual death.”
1. CHAPTER FIRST.
THE WARNING.
Night came slowly down upon the wintry scene, as the travellers,
turning from the road, entered the narrow lane, which led toward the
wood-hidden stream.
It was a winter evening, sad and beautiful as a pure angel, looking
from heaven upon the crimes and agonies of Man.
Do you behold the scene?
Come—by this oaken tree, which stands beside the rude fence, built of
intermingled timber and stone—we will stand and gaze upon the valley,
bathed in the tender solemnity of winter twilight.
There is snow upon these hills; a white mantle glitters like a shining
shroud over the valley. The western sky is one soft mass of purple and
gold; it glows as with the last impassioned kiss of day. And up, into
that sky, so pure, so transparent and serene, the leafless trees raise their
dark branches.
Not a cloud in the dome, nothing to mar that vast expanse of blue,
blushing into gold. The very air is full of rest, a deep repose, scarcely
broken by a slight breeze—so keen, so bitter cold—which seems to skim
over the frozen snow, and hover near it, as it scatters the shining particles
in the light of the darkening day.
The lane leads through the valley, winding along the ridge, above the
frozen streamlet in the east. And above that frozen streamlet, on the
knoll which towers in the east, the dark grey walls of a cluster of buildings,
grow crimson in the flush of the western sky. Look upon them—
are they not beautiful? A rugged farm-house, seen through the branches
of some leafless trees; a mill, built of huge logs, with the icicles glittering
like diamonds on its motionless wheel; a corn-crib with the golden
ears peeping from its snow-white bars.
This is the view toward the east, but in the north, the course of the
lane is lost to view, amid the dark mass of rocks and woods. Do not
turn your eye from these rocks and woods, nor pass them by as devoid
of interest, for they shelter the Wissahikon.
They shroud from your sight that stream, which bears the name of a
love-maddened Indian girl, who buried her love and her wrongs in its
clear waters. By those strange waters we will discover the scenes—the
men and the women—of this, our Solemn History.
For it is a solemn history, telling in every page of the strong agonies
of love, fanaticism and madness; now gliding in the solemn chambers,
where a secret brotherhood celebrate their rites, and passing again into
the cheerful glow of an olden time fire-side. Think not that it is a history
of my own production. Think not that I have but sat me down,
on this drear winter night, to tell an idle romance, to coin a marvellous
fable—no! I but write again the dark story which is already written, on
many a dusky and blotted page—dusky with age, and blotted with tears.
I am but the translator of that dread story, which has been recorded
in mystic ciphers, for seventy years. It is my task to give the ciphers,
which look so unmeaning and sometimes appear so grotesque, the tongue
and language of every-day life. And when the shadows of this history
gloom terribly before you, and its phantoms rouse wild and contending emotions
in your hearts, and the words which fall from their weird lips, sound
in your ears like the words of the dead, do not too harshly blame, I beseech
you, the wizard craft of the author, who has only invoked—not created—
these Ghosts of the Past.
Along this valley, at the hour of sunset, on the last day of the year of
our Lord, 1774, two travellers took their way. As their footsteps broke
the frozen snow, their faces were bathed in the mild light of the winter
evening.
It needed no second glance to tell you the relation which these way-farers
bore to each other. They were Master and Servant.
It is true you gained no knowledge of this fact, from survey of their
garb. They were attired alike in the costume of humble toil.
The youngest of the two, not more than twenty years in age, was at
least six feet in stature. His step was firm and graceful; his coarse garb
could not hide the muscular beauty of his chest, nor altogether veil the
round proportions of his sinewy limbs. From his cap of coarse grey fur,
waving masses of light brown hair floated in the light. His complexion
was light, sanguine, almost florid, and his features firm and regular in
their well-defined outlines. As he turned to the western sky, you might
discern the colour of his eyes by the fading light. They were clear,
large and brilliant, and in color, trembled between a deep azure and midnight
black.
As he walked along the narrow lane—clad in a coat of coarse grey
cloth reaching to the knees and buttoned to the throat—his manly figure
cast its distinct shadow far over the mantle of glittering snow.
The elder wayfarer presented a strange contrast to his young and handsome
companion, or, to speak more correctly, his Master. There was
something intensely ludicrous in his look, his gait, the outline of his form,
the very twinkle of his small black eyes.
That outline, described on the frozen snow, was in itself a grotesque
arms whose excessive length is only matched by their intense want of
flesh; hands huge and bony; high shoulders, surmounted by a small face,
red as a cherry, round as an apple, with a wide mouth, small nose, and
diminutive eyes, shining like flame-sparks amid laughing wrinkles.
This was the servant, clad like his master, wearing the same garb, a fur
cap precisely similar, and yet presenting in every outline a contrast so
laughable. To complete the picture, you must not permit a single lock
of hair to wander from beneath that cap. No! The grey fur is drawn
tightly over the forehead, while beneath it—like a beacon—shines the
red, round face.
In the calm silence of that winter evening they journeyed on, their
faces bathed in the same mellow light, their long shadows trembling over
the snow. The red-faced servant beguiled the way, with many singular
substitutes for conversation, but dared not speak. His master had forbidden
him to unclose his enormous mouth. Therefore, while the young
man, with a stout oaken staff in hand, strode steadily on, his eyes fixed
upon the ground, a sombre thought stealing over his face—the servant
amused himself by a sort of dumb show, that gave a deeper grotesqueness
to his round face and spider-like form. He walked like a man afflicted
with a distressing lameness; he inflated his round cheeks, until they seemed
ready to burst; he rolled his eyes in their sockets, and distorted his mouth,
until his face resembled a frog in the agonies of a galvanic spasm; and
last of all, placing one hand on his hip, and twisting one leg into a serpentine
shape, he advanced with the graceful gait of a belated Muscovy
duck. Still the young Master did not pay the least attention to his antics,
nor suffer his eyes to wander to the ridiculous mimic who limped at his side.
Presently they stand on the verge of yonder bridge of dark stone,
which spans the narrow streamlet. Two roads meet beside the bridge;
one, the continuation of the lane, winds around yonder cluster of cottages
and skirts the mill-dam, which, framed in woods, sparkles before us. The
other road, a narrow path, rough with deep ruts, and scarcely wide enough
for the passage of two horses, when journeying abreast, leads over the
little stone bridge, and is lost to view on yonder hill-top, among the ever-green
pines.
“Which road, John—” said the servant, venturing at last to break the
silence, and laying a strange emphasis on the Italicized word.
“Over the bridge, and up among the pines. It is the nearest to the
farm-house.”
They crossed the bridge and rapidly approached the shadows. In a
moment they will have passed from the soft glow of the twilight into
the darkness of the hill-side, where the pines, almost touching from either
side, and depending from the high banks, enclosed the road as in two
high and almost contiguous walls.
“We are near the Wissahikon, Jacob—” the young master began.
“Jacopo, if you please,” whispered the servant, with a peculiar contortion;
“In Italy we were called Jacopo—Jacopo, you remember! Hang
Jacob. It's low, and smells like a greasy penny. Jacopo has a silvery
sound.”
“We are near the Wissahikon, Jacopo. Near the farm-house—you
understand? What course do you advise? In a few moments we will
be there—”
The young man hesitated, as though afraid to trust his voice with the
thought of his heart. He cast his eyes along the dark and narrow pass,
and seemed to feel the silence and shadow that brooded in those thick
pines, among those grey rocks. In that gloom, even the cherry-ripe face
of Jacob, or Jacopo, as the reader pleases, grew sad, and his beacon-like
nose lost its freshness.
“What course? Can it be possible that you ask me? A beautiful
pair of ankles, a fine bust, an eye like a star after a shower, and a cheek
like a peach with the sun shining on its ripest side—Bah! What have
you been doing for this month back? In Italy—Corpo di Bacco!
(Fine oath that!)—we managed these things much better—”
“Come to the point, Jacopo,” and the master touched the servant
with his oaken staff.
“I'm coming. Give me time. Here you have been for a whole
month, wasting your time in toying with this forest damsel, when—”
The pass grew darker. Some few paces ahead, a belt of light broke
through an aperture among the trees, and glowed brightly upon the summit
of a solitary rock.
“When?” echoed the young master, laying his hand upon his servant's
arm.
Jacopo halted; the strange expression of his small black eye,—that
leer, half-comical, half-satanic—were visible even in the gloom.
“When a few grains of white powder, quietly mixed in a cup of
wine, would do the work of a whole year of boyish courtship—”
“What mean you?” The voice of John sounded deep and hollow
through the silence of the pass.
“You remember Florence? She was a proud lady that—but—
Pshaw! You know how it happened, when we were in Italy. And
this is but a Peasant Girl!”
These incoherent words and broken hints had a powerful effect upon
the young man. You see his nether lip move tremulously; his bright
eye grow brighter, his broad chest heave like a wave.
“That was a proud lady, Jacopo, who first loved, then scorned me—”
he gasped. “But Medeline—”
“`But Madeline,”' mimicked the servant, speaking in a dolorous nasal
tone—“A peasant girl. Lives on this out-of-the-way stream they call
Philadelphia, disguised as a merchant's clerk. We visit the farm-house,
meet the little girl in the woods, and talk romance by the dozen. We—
that is you, Mister John—spend our time, in saying soft nonsense, when
we should trap the little bird, and cage it, without a moment's delay.
Bah! I'm ashamed of you, John. We managed these things much better
in Italy.”
As he spoke, a strange vision broke upon the wayfarers' eyes. They
started back—stood spell-bound with involuntary terror.
They had reached the rock, over whose rugged brow broke the last
glow of the winter's day. It stood alone, a bright thing among the dark
pines, its crest shining like gold.
On that crest arose a shapeless and uncouth figure. Was it a man, or
some strange beast, perched before them on the summit of the lonely
rock? It rose before them, a stunted figure, with arms folded over its
broad chest, an uncouth hump rising above its shoulders, long hair and
beard, waving black and straight in the winter wind. Two eyes, bright
as flaming coals, glared from that hideous, half-human visage, with
waving hair above, and streaming beard below.
The travellers saw those thin lips move, they felt the vivid light of
those eyes, and between them and the light, right across their path, a
long arm, with bony fingers, was extended.
“Go back!” a voice was heard speaking through the intense silence
which had fallen upon the pass—“Go back! Heir of a noble house
—last man of an illustrious race—I stand in your path, and warn ye back
from this soil. Back, I say, and never let your footsteps press this sod
again. There is danger for you here. That word Wissahikon means
death and judgment to your race. Even now, in England your father
prays for the safe return of his son—and here you come to plot the ruin
of an innocent woman, and grasp your death over her dishonored corse!”
The echo of that hollow voice died away; the travellers looked up;
the rock was there, glowing in the light, but the uncouth shape had vanished
like a dream.
It is plainly to be seen, even through the gathering gloom of the hill-side
pass, that these words of omen, uttered by the apparition, which appeared
for a moment only, on the crest of the rock, had their own effect
—strange and deadening—upon the minds of the wayfarers.
Jacopo sank on his knees, and began to pray in four or five languages.
Having exhausted the calendar of Catholic saints, implored the assistance
of Martin Luther, and other reformers, he concluded with the emphatic
ejaculation—
“Devil help me! We didn't see any thing like this in Italy!”
John tottered forward, and leaned against the rock, while the cold dew
stood on his forehead.
“Here it stood—that horrible phantom—” he madly pressed the cold
rock with his hands—“Here—and warned me back—”
The words died on his lips. Something there was in the gathering
night of that forest to impress his heart with awe; but even yet, he saw
it, distinctly pictured in the twilight air, that phantom of a deformed man,
with the face of a human being, the cold lustrous eyes of a fiend.
“Come, Jacopo,” he faltered, “we will go back! This is an unholy
adventure. Up, man! Do you not see, that the very Devil warns us to
retrace our steps!”
Jacopo, still on his knees, glanced about him, with a nervous fear.
“Let us forward to the farm-house. The night is cold as Iceland, and
we'll freeze to death. Come, my lord—”
“Fool! Dare you breathe that title in these woods? Have I not
commanded you? Remember, knave—” he finished the sentence by a
hearty admonition, administered on the cheek, with the palm of his hand.
Then, as if ashamed of his recent emotion, he led the way through the
darkness—
“Come! I am going to the farm-house. Madeline awaits me!”
Followed by his trembling servant, the young man urged his way
over the snow, and among the withered leaves, while above, the thickly
clustering pines extended their canopy, blacker than the midnight without
a star.
Soon emerging from the shadows, they stood upon the verge of a hill,
with the sublime panorama of the twilight hour spread before them.
Above, that cloudless dome, deepening every moment into a more intense
azure. Beneath, a wide waste of woods, stretched grey and dark under
the twilight sky. And over that vague mass, just where it touched the
horizon, far in the west, hung a solitary star, glittering in lonely glory,
through the silent universe.
A low, musical murmur sounded through the night. It came through
the woods, echoing from the shadows which no eye might penetrate. It
was the voice of an impetuous rivulet, forcing its way among the rocks
of ice and rocks of granite. It was the Wissahikon.
Through the leafless trees, came one long and trembling ray of light,
shining like a golden arrow over the frozen snow.
“It is the farm-house!” cried Jacopo, twirling his arms in grotesque
delight—“That's something like! Ah! I smell the good things already
—I see the fire—that hearty, good-humored fire—I inhale the incense of
the sausages! Come, John, let us forward!”
Winding along a foot-path, that led through the valley, over a frozen
brooklet, and up the opposite hill, they soon came in sight of the farm-house.
It was a massive edifice, built of alternate logs and stone, two stories in
height, with a steep roof and some five chimneys, of which the largest,
sent into the sky a rolling mass of smoke. It was a quaint structure altogether,
of rough cedar, the steep roof cumbered with many rude ornaments along
the projecting eaves.
It stood—singular as it may seem—in the lowest part of a circular
hollow, which seemed to have been scooped out from the surrounding
woods.
On one side the portly barn, looking, for all the world, like a rich and
self-complacent citizen retired from the business of active life, and given
up at once to meditation and corpulence. On the other side arose a giant
horse-chesnut tree, with ponderous trunk and many and far-reaching
branches. Near the barn, on one side of the enclosures of the cattle-yard,
the corn-crib was seen, packed to bursting with the ears of golden maize.
Along the lane, which led to the farm-house door, a line of vehicles
was discernible, with the horses attached to them, carefully tied to the
rail fence. Vehicles of every shape and pattern, from the massive farmer's
wagon, whose sides had often groaned under the heavy load of corn
and hay, to the quaint gig—sulky or calash—which shall we call it?—
that wonderful affair, with a top like a Monk's cowl, and a seat perched
high on springs, in which the village Doctor made his circuit among the
sick and suffering of the country-side.
From afar, the light of the fireside flashed through the farm-house windows,
out upon the starlight night. An air of Sabbath repose imbued the
scene,—yet hold! strains of music break on the silence, music from an
old fiddle, in the hands of the blind Negro in the chimney corner. There
is a festival in the farm-house to-night. From far and near the country
people have come, to sing and dance and drink together, and send the old
year to his grave, with a chorus of boisterous joy.
In the summer-time, this farm-house is a pleasant sight to look upon.
Say, in the month of June, when the air seems like a breeze from Paradise,
and the Wissahikon goes singing on, among the trees that dip into
it, among the oaks that shadow it, among the flowers that tremble above
it, ready to fall and bless its waters with their white bosoms—say, in the
month of June, have you ever seen the farm-house, framed in the drapery
of leaves and blossoms?
The horse-chesnut stretches forth its arms, clothed with broad leaves—
deep and rich in their virgin green—and shelters the steep roof, scattering,
all the while, its snowy blossoms around the porch below.
There is a wild honeysuckle trailing over the dark timbers of the porch,
and the very lane, leading from the woods to the door, is enclosed in its
green hedges, two winding walls of leaves and buds and flowers. Then
the roof of the barn stands boldly out from the background of the forest,
and the fields around, tufted with grass, spread their carpet in the smile
of the summer sky—that sky, which only wears a deeper blue, when
the clouds sweep over it, unfolding their bosoms to the sun.
Thus, in summer-time, smiles the quaint farm-house, a dark image
framed in freshness and verdure.
But now that dark image only looks more dark and dreary, as the gloom
of its walls is contrasted with the roof, covered with snow. The fields
around are white—look! how the rays of the fireside go sparkling and
shining over the white mantle which veils the sod, and shields beneath it
the hidden seeds of spring.
The horse-chesnut springs with leafless branches into the blue heaven,
marking each rugged limb and little branch, in black distinctness, on the
clear azure. Winter is on the scene, and the woods which encircle the
farm-house and its white fields are black and desolate.
At the end of the lane, our travellers stood, gazing in silence upon the
prospect.
The young man, with his hands clasped on his staff, his head slightly
bowed, fixed his dilating eyes upon the lighted windows of the forest
home. He was silent; but even in the dim starlight, you might have
seen his broad chest swell, his brilliant eye grow wild with a more intense
brightness.
“Only a month since first I saw this home in the wilderness?” he
murmured, and was silent again.
Only a month! And yet a great many thoughts may start into deeds
in a month. Only a month! It is but a little while, the humble twelfth
of the long year, and yet, in a month, only a month, battles may be lost
and won, nations hurled from masters into slaves, and bosoms that pant
beneath silk and velvet, may become cold and still under grass and sod.
Only a month! And yet, in a month, the heart of a pure virgin may be
robbed of its bloom; her form, the shrine of a love at once passionate and
pure, become the monument of her dishonor.
“How the image of this wild forest girl has twined itself about the
chords of my heart! She is innocent—she trusts in me—she is pure!
To-morrow—”
It is a terrible word, that to-morrow. It is murmured alike by the convict,
taking his last sleep in the doomed cell, and by the woman, who,
surrendering her purity into the arms of shame, shrieks it fearfully amid
the frenzies of her guilty love.
To-morrow! Look upon the lip of the young traveller, curving in a
smile; read his dilating eye, warming with a wild yet voluptuous light,
and tell me what means that smile, that look? A fearful “to-morrow”
for the wild forest girl!
The voice of Jacopo was heard:
“I would suggest in the most delicate manner in the world, my Lor—
that is, Mister John—and without the least desire to appear obtrusive,
that there are two of us here, one of whom—not being delighted with stars
or forest girls—stands a dev'lish fine chance of being frozen to death.
very well to smile, but all the blood in my thin legs has rushed into my
head, and from my head into my nose—Did you ever see a nose like
that before?”
He placed a long and skinny finger against that intense carbuncle which
formed the tip of his nose, and looked at his master with a sidelong leer.
“Come,” said John, with an involuntary smile, “let us hasten to the
farm-house. Madeline awaits me.”
As he hurried along the lane, Jacopo crept closer to his side, and taking
the arm of his master within his own, whispered these jocular words:
“Music yonder, John,—d'ye hear it? Supper too—Ah! One can
smell that! And—d'ye remember—if the girl is willing, why—you have
an elegant house in Philadelphia, which may be her home before morning.
If she refuses—is obstinate, or stupid—why, trust the matter to me.
`A few grains of white powder, properly prepared,' saith an ancient Philosopher,
`conveyed into the drinking-cup of an innocent maiden, will—'
D'ye hear the fiddle, John?”
2. CHAPTER SECOND.
YOCONOK.
Within the farm-house the details of a strangely interesting picture,
lighted by the warmth of a capacious hearth, await us.
Yet ere we enter, we must go back to the hour of sunset, and gaze upon
a far different scene.
The rays of the setting sun, streaming through the thick pines, gave
their faint and uncertain light to a lonely nook in the forest of Wissahikon.
It was a circular space, not more than twenty yards in diameter. The
trunks of pine and fir trees, starting side by side from the sod, formed an
impenetrable wall around it; their branches, meeting overhead and woven
together, shadowed it like a roof. It is a silent place, enlivened only by
a ray of light—that streams over the frozen snow like a golden thread,
and is gone ere you can look again.
The deep green of the branches forms a strong contrast to the slight
mantle of snow, which has drifted into this lonely nook.
Yonder, between those two huge trunks, you discern something, which
may be the resting-place of a man, and yet looks like the lair of a wild
beast.
This lair or hut, whatever you may choose to call it, is formed after the
simplest style of architecture. The trunks of those trees supply the place
of door-posts; the skins of wild beasts stretched from branch to branch,
compose the roof; some wild moss scattered on the sod beneath, at once
the bed and floor of the rude home.
Beside that hut, or lair, stands a rifle, with a stock of dark mahogany
inlaid with silver.
In the centre of the scene, seated on the trunk of that fallen tree—
blasted last summer by the lightning—you behold the figure of a Man.
A Man, though his dark-red visage wears the wrinkles of an hundred
years. A single tuft of snow-white hair waves from the centre of his
skull. A blanket, much worn and tattered, falls back from his shoulders
and discloses the shrunken outlines of that once broad and sinewy chest.
His thin limbs are cased in leather leggings, and he wears moccasins on
his long, straight feet.
The downcast head, sunken on the chest in an attitude of stolid apathy,
at once arrests our attention. The high cheek-bones, the nose curved
like an eagle's beak, the bold arch of the brow, the forehead lofty in proportion
to its width, all indicate an organization once full of physical and
mental power.
But age has fallen on that noble head and iron form. The deep wrinkles
on either side of the compressed lips, the cavernous hollow beneath
each cheek-bone, the muscles of the neck, resembling cords of iron, all
speak of that stern life, whose sands have been falling for an hundred
years. Those sands are well-nigh run. A little while, and those dark
eyes, now glaring with vacant despair upon the sod, will be darkened forever
by the shadow of the falling clod.
It is an Indian that we behold. One hundred years ago he was born,
in this very forest, the child of a King. Seventy years gone by, he strode
this soil, and looked, with a quivering pulse, upon the forms of his dusky
warriors. His wigwam was here; here his squaw, with the brown cheek
and sad, deep eyes, and his child, encased in its rude cradle, quivered in
its slumber upon yonder tree.
They are all gone now. His race has passed; they are forgotten by
the strange white race, who now people the woods, and rear their stone
wigwams on the plain.
Of all his race, he is the Last.
Think of the powerful People, who walked these woods an hundred
years ago—the smoke of their wigwams rising from every dell, the gleam
of their many-colored wampum belts seen from every hill-top—and then
behold this stern image of their Destiny—
—An old man, withered by the long winter of an hundred years, seated
alone in the silent forest, suffering at once from intense hunger and cold,
and dying by inches!—
Go to the white man's home, and beg for bread! The old Indian is
too proud for that, even though no morsel has passed his lips for two
days. He will die—Hark! you hear that low murmur from his thin,
cold lips?
It is the Death-Song of Yoconok, the last of his tribe.
He will die,—alone,—desolate as the winter which howls around him—
but die proud and uncomplaining.
“Ghosts of my fathers, hear my voice, for it is your child, it is Yoconok
that calls!
“The old man is cold—no corn, no fire! But he is coming, Fathers
of the Red Men—he is coming to the happy hunting-grounds, he is
coming to the land of Manitto! He is cold now, but soon he will be
warmed by the sun that never shines upon winter or snow! He is
hungry, the old warrior, but there, the deer wander without ceasing,
through woods whose greenness never dies!
“You are there, my fathers. Yoconok sees you, as you stand upon the
high mountain, which guards the happy hunting-grounds. The sunlight
is upon your faces. The smoke of the calumet encircles your heads.
Yoconok sees you all—he is coming! There, the squaw of Yoconok,
there his child—his People—all! Ghosts of my fathers, sing the song of
the war-path, for Yoconok is coming to the happy land, where the sun
never sets, and the leaf never dies!”
Thus, in our imperfect way, have we endeavored to translate the stern
and simple death-song of the old Indian chief. When he spoke in the
tongue of the pale face, his words were few and grotesque, but in his
own tongue, the language of his fathers, Yoconok was eloquent. Look
upon him now, with that glassy eye brightening into new life, that chest
throbbing with quick pulsations, that brow raised proudly in the wandering
gleam of the setting sun!
Fired with that last impulse of life, he started to his feet and seized the
rifle, and stood erect, with his chest thrown forward, as if in the act of
confronting a mortal foe. His eye was lighted with fire of forty years
ago, his nostrils quivered with a quick nervous motion.
“Yoconok is on the war-path once more! Let the foe come—the old
warrior is young again—he knows no fear!”
It was a glorious picture in the history of the Red Man; that solitary
nook, walled and roofed by trees, mantled with a slight covering of snow,
with the dying warrior erect in the centre, his chest bared, his arm raised
in the act of battle.
But it was only for a moment. The impulse died away, and the old
warrior sank helpless and exhausted upon the blasted tree. The rifle was
in his grasp, but his arm was nerveless, his sight dim and fast failing.
As he sank upon the log, the blanket falling from his shoulders, he
murmured in his Indian tongue —
“She was the only friend of the old warrior, but she comes to the wigwam
no more. The White Doe dwells in the home of the pale face.
When Yoconok was sick, the White Doe came—when he was cold, she
built his fire—her hands fed him, when the old man could go forth on the
hunting-path no more. But Yoconok is dying, and the White Doe comes
not. The warrior is forgotten; the home of the pale face has fire and
water. The wigwam of Yoconok is dark!”
Chilled by the intense cold, fevered by the want of food, the old warrior
sank exhausted and insensible on the log. His eyes were glassy;
his arms hung nerveless by his side.
There was a step upon the snowy moss—a light, soft-echoing step, like
the rustling of a withered leaf. From an interval between the trees, toward
the west, the form of a woman appeared, and a woman's face looked
in upon the gloom of the lonely covert.
A wandering ray of sunlight shone over her brown hair, and gleamed
upon her humble garb, as she stood, with her hands raised in a gesture of
surprise and alarm.
She was a girl of not more than eighteen years, clad in the boddice and
coarse linsey skirt, which formed the costume of a peasant woman, in the
early days of Pennsylvania. Yet that boddice displayed the outline of a
full bosom, and from beneath that coarse skirt appeared two small feet
encased in rude moccasins.
From the folds of the brown cloak, which hung from her shoulders,
her round bare arms were visible, with a glimpse of the white neck and
fairer bosom rising slowly into view.
“Yoconok!” she cried, and, springing along the sod, stood over the insensible
chief.
The sunlight, gushing suddenly through an opening in the boughs,
lighted up her face, while her form and the figure of the old man were
wrapt in soft shadow.
In that sudden light, which played over her brown cheeks, and shone
upon the unbound masses of her chesnut hair, the face of the young girl
looked like the countenance of a virgin saint, encircled in a glory.
“Yoconok!” she cried, in the Indian tongue, “awake! the White
Doe is here—she has not forgotten you! She brings you food—ah!”
she exclaimed, in English, “he does not hear me, he is dead—”
Her voice seemed to call back to the old warrior's heart, the last impulse
of life. His glassy eyes glowed with faint lustre; his motionless
lips were unclosed again.
“Good!” he muttered in English, with a deep guttural accent—“Madlin'—White
Doe—Good!”
It would have made your heart beat quicker, to behold the angel-like
tenderness of that brown-cheeked maiden.
“You are cold, Yoconok”— and she pressed his chilled hands to her
beside him, she drew some corn bread from the small basket which she
carried on her arm, but the old man could not eat.
“The fire-water!” he cried, clutching her cloak, as he pointed to his
throat. “Yoconok is dry—Yoconok has not drank for two days—”
“I have forgotten the flask!” she exclaimed, as she tossed the contents
of the basket on the ground—“The fire-water is not good for the Red
Man. It burns his heart, and puts the Evil Manitto in his veins! Wait,
Yoconok—I will bring you water from the Wissahikon—”
As she whispered these words in the Indian tongue, bending her lips to
his ear, a quick, pattering sound broke the deep silence of the shadowy
nook.
The young girl raised her eyes and stood spell-bound with surprise.
There, not ten paces from where she stood, a wild deer was gazing in
her face, with its large eyes dilating as in wonder and alarm. It was a
beautiful doe, with sleek brown skin and slender and tapering limbs.
The maiden stood like a statue; the gloom shadowed her from the view
of the cautious animal, while the sunlight fell like a scarf of gold over its
quivering nostrils and dilating eyes.
At once the brave girl's resolution was taken.
“The old warrior has told me many a time, that the warm blood from
the neck of a dying doe, will save the life of the sick and starving.”
The doe gazed for a moment around the covert, with that peculiar
glance of fear and alarm—its short ears quivering all the while—and then,
stooping her head, began to browse the soft and fragrant moss, which
started from the intervals of the snow.
Even as the doe lowered her head, the young girl raised the rifle.
Her bosom heaved tremulously; it seemed a terrible sin to kill that
gentle thing, which fed so innocently before her eyes.
Again the doe raised her head, again elevated her ears and gazed
around, and all the while the rifle, lifted in the soft arms of the young
girl, was levelled at her breast.
Her aim was not the most certain in the world, yet as she raised the
rifle she murmured—“It is for Yoconok's life!” and placed her finger
on the trigger.
At this moment the sunlight, shifting, played more freely over the
beautiful head and graceful limbs of the doe. She stood encircled by
light, while all around was twilight gloom.
“For Yoconok's life!” murmured the girl, her finger placed upon the
trigger, when a sharp, quick, almost imperceptible sound echoed from the
opposite side of the forest. As quick as thought, Madeline turned, and
her blood grew cold.
For, glaring from the shadow of a pine branch which touched the ground
two brilliant points of flame sent their rays to her very breast.
These brilliant points of flame, were the eyes of a female panther
which, crouching on the snow, was about to spring upon the unconscious
deer.
The young girl saw that crouching form, darkly defined on the snow-covered
sod.
I need not tell you that her heart beat quickly, that her color went
and came, while the rifle was grasped by arms, that seemed suddenly
frozen into stone.
She could not stir; terror held her paralyzed and dumb. A moment
fled! Still those fiery eyes glared from the covert; still, on the opposite
side, in the sunlight browsed the unconscious doe, raising every moment
her mild eyes into the sun—glancing round—and then stooping her head
to feed again.
“The doe must die, or else Yoconok's life is gone! If I kill the doe,
the panther will spring upon me—if I turn the rifle upon the panther, the
doe will escape!”
Thus ran her wandering thoughts; but at once she was resolved upon
her course of action. While her bosom heaved in gasps, while the hands
which grasped the rifle, seemed chilled in every vein, with the ice of death,
she still had the presence of mind to retain her statue-like position.
Again the doe raised her head. It was for the last time. For even as
her large mild eyes glittered in that passing ray of sunshine, a whizzing
sound disturbed the dead silence—a dark body swept through the air, before
the very eyes of the maiden—and the doe lay mangled upon the sod,
its warm blood spouting over the panther's jaws.
The maiden beheld it all. Saw the fur of the wild beast glow sleek
and glossy in the sun, as, with a deep growl, she mangled the neck of the
quivering deer.
The rifle was raised. Hush! That sharp, quick report; how it
crashes on the silence!
Woe to the young girl now, woe to her, if her trembling aim has failed
to kill. For then, the jaws of the panther, which tore the palpitating
heart of the doe, will rend the bosom of the maiden, and grow crimson
with her blood.
She drew the trigger, and fell swooning on the ground.
But the sound of the rifle called the old warrior back to life. As we
gaze, in dumb surprise, he raises his head, starting into a sitting posture.
At a glance he beholds the dying doe, with the blood smoking as it pours
from the mangled throat. He does not heed the panther, which writhes
upon the sod, its skull cloven by the fortunate ball.
But tottering forward, he falls upon the sod, gathers the warm body of
the doe in his arms, and applies his lips to the wound in the throat.
He drinks the blood—aye, pure and fresh, as it pours from the palpitating
heart of the deer—he drinks the crimson current, with a mad delight.
“Ugh! Yoconok is a warrior! Yoconok will follow his foe on the
war path and drink his blood!”
It was some time before the young girl unclosed her eyes. Starting
from her swoon, Madeline saw that dark night had fallen upon the woods,
but the light of a cheerful flame shone in her face, and baptized those
giant trunks, the green canopy overhead, with a crimson glow.
She passed her hands over her eyes, and glanced hurriedly from side
to side. Before her, in the centre of the covert, a mass of ponderous
logs were blazing, their heat imparting a delicious temperature to the air
of the place, while by her side, crouched upon the sod, his face glowing
in the ruddy light, was Yoconok.
In one hand he held the calumet, from which he inhaled the peace-inspiring
fumes of tobacco; in the other a piece of peeled hickory, which,
inserted in a slice of venison, held the savory morsel over the hot coals.
There was a calm expression—a look of deep quiet, and dreamy composure—upon
each corded wrinkle of Yoconok's withered face.
When Madeline awoke, she discovered that her head was resting on
the Indian's knee. He had built the fire, and, like a kind nurse watching
over a sleeping babe—placed her head upon his knee, so that the full
light of the fire would shine into her face. In silence he guarded her
unconscious form.
“Ugh! White Doe is good”— he said in English, as she unclosed
her eyes—“White Doe kill deer. Blood save Yoconok life. Manitto
told the White Doe, old man hungry, old man dying. White Doe came,
Yoconok strong!”
With his fingers he tore the half-broiled venison, and devoured it with
all the eagerness of famine.
Madeline rose, and placed her hand upon the Indian's shoulder, and
stood in silence. The light of the fire streamed over her, and you might
freely read the expression of her face, and gaze upon each waving outline
of her form.
Around that face, whose rich brown hue deepened into vermilion on
the full lips and swelling cheek, swept the unbound masses of her brown
hair. Her eyes were large and shaded by long lashes. Their color was
a soft brown, darkening sometimes into black, but always brilliant and
sparkling as the stars that come forth in the purple of the twilight hour.
She was by no means tall, but that which her form lacked in height,
was supplied by its full and flowing outlines.
Her shoulders are seen above the coarse boddice, and like a wave that
swells without breaking, her young bosom comes gently into view.
The skirt of coarse texture which descended but a short distance below
the knee, gave some indications, by its folds, of the warm beauty of the
maiden's shape. Her cloak had fallen aside, and her arms glowed with
the clear hues and round outlines, in the light of the fire.
Altogether, a picture more interesting in its varied details cannot be imagined.
That fire, flashing over the bark of the encircling trees, and
lighting up the dark green branches above. The snow blushing into
crimson. Here the old Indian, a stern image of decay, seated on the
earth, his arms clasped on his knees, the smoke of the pipe winding
about his wrinkled features; there, a young girl clad in peasant attire,
yet with a ripening bloom glowing freshly from her brown face, and
waving in the outlines of her virgin form.
“You must forgive me, Yoconok”—she laid her hand upon the old
warrior's arm—“For two days I have not seen you. But I have not
been myself for two days. I have been wild—mad! There is a dark
cloud upon the path of your White Doe.”
As she spoke sadly in the dialect of the Indian, he inclined his head to
one side and listened in evident anxiety.
“Does the old man hear the voice of the child—or does the White
Doe speak the language of Dreams?”
Madeline crouched on the earth by his side, and clasping her hands
over her form, murmured with a faltering voice—
“Yoconok is my only friend. For years his words have been life to
the poor orphan girl. She comes to him now. She, who never saw the
face of father or mother, who has lived all her life, by the fire of the
stranger, in dependence on others, now comes to the old man for counsel.
—Tell me, father, what I must do, or I will die!”
Her cheek was flushed, her bosom panting; she looked very beautiful,
with her large eyes veiled in moisture. The old chief turned; something
like affection shone in his lustreless eyeballs, as he placed her soft palm
in his bony fingers.
“Shall the White Doe become the squaw of Gilbert the Hunter, the
Man who dwells in the forest, or of this Stranger, who comes from the
cities of the pale face, and has no name?”
“Yes—that is the question I would ask of you—three days since,
before I fell sick, I told you the whole story—”
“The heart of the White Doe inclines to Gilbert, the Man of the
Forest, but her soul wanders against her will to the Stranger who has
no name?”
“Yes”—faltered Madeline—“Yes—that is it! I love Gilbert; we
were children together; I have always loved him. But this stranger,
who, a month ago, appeared for the first time in our farm-house—ah!
His eye deprives me of all power; his voice fills me with a wild terror!
Wherever I move, I see him—at night he is in my dreams! I fear him, and
yet an unknown power draws me toward him, and makes me—No!
No! Not love him! For I fear him too much. I cannot gaze into his
eye without a shudder!”
The old warrior did not reply. His eyes were fixed on the fire, the
her agitation Madeline had not so much addressed the Chief, as involuntarily
shaped her thoughts in words. Wondering at the continued silence
of Yoconok, she laid her hand lightly upon his arm—it was cold as ice.
With a shudder she looked into his face—the eyes were glassy.
“Yoconok! Speak to your child! Do not leave me alone, in the cold,
dark world!”
He spoke not, but a faint light, like the last ray of the expiring taper,
glanced from his motionless eyeballs. She flung herself upon him,
girded his gaunt form in her bared arms, and pressed her downy cheek
against his withered face. Cold the form, cold the cheek, cold as the ice
upon the Wissahikon.
“He is dead!” The wild shriek of Madeline rung through the woods
—“Mine only friend! The blood of the dying deer only called him
back to life for a moment—he is dead, gone to the land where his fathers
dwell, and without one parting word to his child!”
She was an orphan, one of those wandering children of God, whom
no one calls, Child! Alone in the world! Those words are full of
meaning, but to the orphan they speak in tones of horrible emphasis. To
the orphan they mean poverty and neglect, temptation and despair.
But she was not yet altogether alone. A few muttered words quivered
from the cold lips of the dying Indian. With the last gleam of life
playing over his motionless balls, he spoke—
“Fear this Stranger! as the Manitto of Evil fear him! Do not
put your trust in Gilbert. He is brave, he is true, but hands that he cannot
see, guide him on to a deed of falsehood and blood. Fear the stranger
—do not trust Gilbert—but dread the old man, whose roof gives you
shelter, dread him worse than hunger—cold—or death!”
With these words,—spoken not as we have written them, but in an Indian
dialect, which compresses a hundred separate ideas in a sentence,
—the old Chief, who had once grasped the hand of William Penn, lay
on the snow, as cold as the wind which swept his tawny cheeks, as motionless
as the great trunks which encircled the scene, rising in the fire-light,
like the unhewn pillars of a pagan temple.
Madeline was alone.
The same cheerful glow, which lighted up her young face, shone over
the mangled deer, and revealed the cold features of the dead Indian.
The woods were very still. Now and then, a gust of wind howled,
like a war-blast, down some midnight ravine, and again, every sound
save the crackling of the wild-wood fire died away, in an unearthly
stillness.
Her arms clasped, her beautiful profile cut distinctly on the dark background,
her large lustrous eye, her warm nether lip tinted by the fire, she
stood in an attitude of deep sorrow, gazing into the face of the corse.
As the old man died, he had folded his arms, and knit his brows; he
looked stern and unrelenting, even as a corse; there was a warrior's defiance
upon his red visage.
“He was my only friend! True, the old man at the Farm-House
gave me food and shelter, since the hour when I was discovered in these
woods—a poor, forsaken babe. But Yoconok was my friend; to him I
brought my sorrows, of him I asked advice. While he lived, I felt that
I was not alone! Now it is changed! This cold winter night is not
more desolate than the fate of the poor Orphan Girl!”
Beside the fire she knelt, and raised her eyes, and spread forth her
hands, and through the canopy of overarching pines, looked up to—God.
O, how softly, over her brown face, that expression of child-like Faith
stole, like a veil of light!
A step aroused her from her prayer—a hand was laid upon her shoulder
—with a half-uttered cry of fear, she sprang to her feet.
“The Wizard! The Ghost-seer!” she cried, clasping her hands to
her breast, with an accent and a gesture of shuddering fear.
“Nay, maiden, do not fear me. Old Isaac harms no one. He is but
a Watcher, in this dreary world. The Lord hath told him, “Watch
and I will come to thee;” and lo! Isaac watches evermore, seeking
the knowledge of the Life which is Eternal! Dost fear the old man,
maiden?”
In the light of the fire, stood a stunted figure, not more than five feet
in height, the chest narrow, the back bent, as if with years, the veins
swelling black and distinct on the pale face and dead-white hands.
That face—sunken on the breast—was marked by deep wrinkles, which
traversed the cheeks and brow, and added to the spiritual look of those
blue eyes, which seemed not so much to shine, as to burn, beneath the
white eyebrows. From a small cap of black cloth, which covered the
head of the stranger, long locks of straight hair fell like snow-flakes, and
waved in white masses, in the light of the fire.
He was clad after the costume of the olden time. A dark coat, much
faded and worn, with buttons of polished metal; a vest with white lappels,
descending half-way to the knees; black stockings, which fell in wrinkles
around the sunken limbs, and large shoes, glittering with silver
buckles.
This was the costume of the old man, whose form indicated extreme
old age, or premature decrepitude, while his blue eyes and white hair,
gave an almost hallowed look to his wrinkled face.
And yet the maiden shrunk from that withered form, with her hands
clasped on her bosom, and felt her blood grow chill, as she encountered
the glance of those mild blue eyes.
“Do not fear me, maiden. I am an old man—a poor withered frame
—and a brain, eaten by much toil, and the labors of long and dreary winters.
and this aged Indian: indeed I saw him gasp his last, as I was about to
come to his aid.—I will secure Christian burial for his corse.”—
“Do not—do not touch him!” cried Madeline, rushing forward, as the
hands of the old man were placed upon the arms of the dead Indian—
“For the sake of God, do not place your hands upon him. For they
say”—a shudder pervaded her form—“they say, that you”—
“What do they speak ill of me?” asked the old man, raising his mild
eyes—“Of me! A poor old withered man, who lives apart from the great
world, and cares not for its idle uproar, nor for its petty joys?”
“They say, that you have sold yourself to the Enemy of Mankind,”—
gasped Madeline, her eyes enchained, against her will, to the tranquil
glance of the stranger.
“Is that all?” and a smile stole over his wrinkled face—“Never heed
such fire-side gossip, my good girl. Now mark me—I will take the dead
body of your friend—will have it conveyed to my house on the other
side of the Wissahikon, near the Schuylkill—and bury it, with all the
rites of Christian burial.—Does that look like the act of one who is sold
to the Devil?”
“But let Yoconok rest among his woods and trees. What need of a
cold graveyard for him? Let him be buried among his pines, where the
Song of the Wissahikon will cheer his slumber, and a granite rock will
pillow his head.”—
The Maiden, in her earnestness, advanced and laid her hand upon the
“Wizard's” shoulder.
“Yoconok shall go with me!” he calmly said. “He has no friends;
I will be his friend, after he is dead. Hah! What is this I see?”
With a sudden gesture he seized the white hand, which rested on his
shoulder, and—his blue eyes dilating until they seemed fired with madness—turned
the palm towards the fire:
“No Bridal ring shall ever cross this hand! No child shall ever bless
your sight! I read it, in the lustre of your eye, which is lighted with
the fire of a changeless Destiny! Alas! Alas! I pity and I rejoice! Dishonor
and a Sudden Death will soon be yours!”
“It is false!” gasped Madeline, her cheek pale as marble—“In the
name of God, who loves us all, I defy your Master, who only hates and
cannot love!”
She covered her face, and stood with her head bowed, near the fire.
The old man gazed upon her trembling form with a look of overwhelming
compassion, which was soon displaced by an expression of singular
triumph. There was an unnatural joy in his parting lips, his eyes sparkling
with light, his face flushed with crimson.
Not a word was spoken; a silence, unbroken by a whisper, deepened
the interest of the scene.
“Pity me!” cried Madeline, as she raised her eyes—“Do not doom
me to an early death, and of all deaths,—ah! I dare not speak it!”
Isaac did not answer; still the mingled expression of triumph and
pity agitated his aged features.
“Come hither, Black David,” said Isaac the Wizard, turning toward the
darker recesses of the covert—“Take this body and bear it to my house.
Dost hear?”
From the shadows advanced a form, which Madeline—already appalled
by the words of the old man—beheld with indescribable fear.
It was a miserable wreck of humanity, not more than four feet in
height, with the crooked limbs trembling beneath the huge body, the
back rising in a shapeless hump, and the long, unnatural, we had almost
said, horse-like face, resting on the breast, and hidden beneath a shaggy
mass of straight black hair.
“Y-e-e-s, Master! I'se here! What wouldst do with 'un?”
From that mass of hair, two large eyes shot a strange unnatural gleam,
as the fire, rising in a sudden flame, tinted with strong light, the grotesque
points of this deformed figure.
He was clad in a coarse garb, a kind of mantle, wrapping the deep
chest and the protuberant hump, with the arms appearing from its folds,
covered with loose sleeves of dark cloth. His straight black hair, falling
in tangled masses, formed the only covering for his head.
Strange to say, the hands were small, white and delicate, presenting a
strong contrast to the chaotic physical vigor of the deformed man.
“Take the body of Yoconok—dost hear me? I would give him Christian
burial. Bear it to my mansion. I will reward you. Go!”
Madeline for a moment seemed deprived of all power of motion or
speech. All the wild legends which she had heard, concerning the old
man, Isaac the Wizard, and his Familiar Spirit, Black David, crowded on
her brain; she felt a creeping awe pervade her veins and pale her cheek.
In this pale-faced old man, she beheld a Servant of the Evil one; in
the poor wretch, whose physical deformity was at once hideous and pitiable,
she saw an Incarnate Demon.
Such was the Superstition of the olden time, when every old woman,
not remarkable for personal beauty, was burned as a Witch, and old men,
not regular in attendance at Meeting, and somewhat given to burning candles
late at night, were choked to death, as Wizards.—
“Do not touch him! He was my friend!”
Madeline started forward, and laid her hand upon the arm of the
wizard. A faint smile was visible on the old man's face; he regarded
for a moment her countenance, glowing with an intensity of fear, and
then taking her arm gently within his own, led her from the fire.
“Come,” he said, “the wood is dark, the way lonely. I will wait
upon you to the farm-house door. Come—never fear me! They tell
linked with me, in an infernal compact! Come—there is more wizard craft
in those black eyes of thine, than in all my lore.—Remember, David!”
He led the trembling girl—who looked up into his face with something
of reverence for his age, more of fear for his supernatural character,
manifested in her gaze—he led her into the shadows of the covert, and
the light streamed over the mangled deer, the dead chieftain, and the deformed
man.
Through the meshes of his tangled hair, he gazed after the old man
and the maiden, and then, like a beast on its haunches, crouched beside
the fire, his white hands supporting his cheeks, while his elbows rested
on his knees.
The hair was swept aside from his face, and his features appeared
distinctly, in the ruddy fire-light.
It must be confessed that the face was hideous, and its unnatural length,
the manner in which it seemed to rest directly on the chest, made the
resemblance which it bore to the head of a horse, more palpable and
repulsive.
The brow was heavy; the nose long and thin, the mouth small, the
chin round and full; the eyes deep-set and full of intense light. Such
was the general character of that face, with the hair falling in thick
straight masses on either side; but the sudden glow of the fire made the
cheek-bones seem unnaturally prominent, the hollow beneath more deep
and cavernous, and gave the brow a bolder outline, the lips a more decided
scorn, the eyes a wilder light.
He crouched by the fire, his distorted form darkly defined against the
snow-mantled earth. The pine-branches above bent slowly to the
winter blast, and the massy trees around, glowed from black into crimson.
Spreading forth his hands, which looked as white and delicate as the
marble hands of a sculptured Venus, he seemed absorbed in his own
wandering thoughts.
He spoke; the echo of his voice broke the deep silence, with a startling
emphasis, and yet that voice was soft, thrilling and musical, as the
tones of a beautiful woman.
“Three hundred years—it is a wilderness of strange memories!” thus
he murmured, without the slightest indication of ignorance or vulgarity in
his manner or his language—“In truth, it is a long while to—look back!
There was the bluff Harry, renowned for the number of his wives, and
the establishment of the Reformation. Pale-faced Edward, too young
to be criminal; Lady Grey, who passed from the throne to the block;
Mary called Bloody, and Elizabeth called Virgin; James the Pedant;
Charles the Martyr and Charles the Libertine—all are gone long ago.
Dust and ashes, despite their fine linen and royal blood. Yet I see
them all again, see them as plainly as when—Tut! Tut!”
He glanced around the covert, with his deep-set eyes kindling in a
more vivid light:
“They may hear me—call me Madman—ho! ho! Then to the
prison or the scaffold with the old dotard! Three hundred years! A
great while to live, but wearisome, very, very wearisome! To see one
century whirling along, bubbling and frothing just like the others, and
only bubbling and frothing with a more pitiful uproar as it goes down in
the great abyss, called Time Past, which has swallowed up the Dead
Ages! I am weary of it all, and”—
The body of the Indian Chief, resting stiff and motionless in the
warmth of the fire, met his gaze.
“He sleeps well! But as for me”—
And as he bent his face nearer to the fire, and clasped his white hands,
as in a gesture of supplication, it might be seen that there were tears in
the eyes of the Deformed Maniac.
3. CHAPTER THIRD.
THE FARM-HOUSE.
“Come, folks, help yourselves! It's the last night of the Old Year,
and we'll send the dull old fellow to his grave, with a hearty store of
good things under his belt, and a bowl of good liquor to make him sleep
easy! Some of the turkey, Parson? Hey! How are you comin' on
down there, at 'tother end of the table? Try a slice of this ham, neighbor
Spurtzelditscher?—a-h! There's fat and lean! By Thun-der!
You see, neighbor, I swear in English! I sometimes wish I could swear
in Dutch. There's something that stirs the heart, in a solid, deep-chested
Dutch oath! Now then, who's for the cider?—a-h, that's the stuff!
hisses and froths like an old maid, who has been caught lying about her
neighbors—the rale October juice of the red-streaked Spitzenberger, as
I'm an honest man!”
The old man, at the head of the table, raised the hot poker with one
hand, while the other rested upon the edge of the broad bowl, which was
filled to the brim with the steaming cider. It was a curious-looking
bowl, fashioned of some strange wood, hard as iron, with an uncouth
name, and crowded all around its capacious sides with carvings of the
most grotesque character.
He was an old man, but you must not picture to yourself a spare form,
or lantern jaws, or eyes bleared and glassy.
Beneath the ample folds of his brown waistcoat, a rotundity that would
have made the fortunes of a dozen Aldermen, was hidden; his hair, eyebrows
and long beard, were all white as snow, yet his round cheeks
glowed with tints as warm and rosy, as those which make an unbroiled
sirloin steak look lovely in the eyes of a good liver. The eyebrows
were white, as though the snow had fallen on his forehead, and hung
there for a moment, ere it melted before the summer of his cheeks. And
yet, from beneath those shaggy outlines, two eyes, very small, very black,
and piercing as daggers' points, glittered like newly lighted coals. Altogether
it was a face that would have warmed a hungry man, with its
plump outline, and unctuous look, to say nothing of the nose, which shone
like a huge red pear, ripening in the autumnal sun.
As to the form of the old man, it would have scared a famine into
nothingness, by its very picture of eloquent fatness. His broad shoulders,
his sinewy arms, his chest that shook with laughter, deep and sonorous,
beneath the lace ruffles of his shirt, his hands round and plump,
glowing to the very finger tips with corpulence,—ah, he was a hale old
fellow, who seemed to grow younger with time, and catch new bloom on
his cheeks, from the very icicles of age.
He was seated in his great arm-chair, at the head of the table, which
extended along the sanded floor, from the fire-place to the doorway. In
one hand he raised the poker, with its blazing point; in the other he
grasped the corpulent bowl, frothing to the brim with fragrant cider.
“Your health, my good folks! A-a-h!” with a sigh of deep satisfaction—“That's
the stuff to warm the heart and set the brain a-fire! And,
while I think o't, here's a health to his Majesty, King George!”
As he set down the bowl, he slightly inclined his head to one side, and
smoothing down his white beard, with his plump fingers, he glanced with
one eye half-closed, along the well-filled board.
It was an interesting scene. In the foreground, a huge turkey, brown
and smoking; the view was lengthened out with a savory panorama of
boiled ham, chickens and venison, interspersed with white pyramids of
home-made bread, and bowls of steaming cider. This long table, groaning
under the weight of substantial cheer, was framed by the faces of
some twenty-five or thirty guests. Here the parson, with his red face
glowing between his black cap and blacker gown: there the portly
farmer, with bony hands and iron frame; yonder a group of rosy-cheeked
country girls, and beyond them, a Philadelphia lawyer, lank as a bean-pole
and devouring as a Famine. The clatter of knives and forks deafened
the ears, and was only interrupted by a chorus, something like this:
“A little more of the ham!” cried the Parson; “red lean and white
fat—very—”
“Some of the chicken, Dolly?” exclaimed a gallant country beau—
“legs or breast?”
“Cider? Your health, neighbor! Royal stuff, that!” was the remark
of a city merchant, whose broadcloth shone beside the country
home-spun—“Did you say, you would like a piece of this chicken?”
“The salt, if you please. A little ham. There. Some turkey. A
touch of that rabbit. Thank you for the corn-beef. Pass the venison.
Cider—yes, sir, cider. Health, sir. Little more ham! Pass the pepper.
Some more turkey—no! Just a hint of that 'possum.”
This was the Philadelphia lawyer, whose knife and fork seemed impelled
by a mechanical power of unknown capacities, while his plate
went round the orbit of the table like a planet, somewhat hasty and
irregular in its motions. His lank jaws were never still. He seemed to
have been placed upon this earth, only to solve a great problem, to wit,
how much can a man devour whose body resembles a lath or a bean-pole,
and how long will it require for him to eat himself into an apoplexy?
“Dat rabbit ish nish! Mein Gott! Neighbor Perkenpine!” was
the remark of Neighbor Spurtzelditscher, a short, thick, brown-faced
farmer, in linsey-wolsey, who was commonly called “Spurtz” for the
sake of brevity and an easy life.
Two farmers sat beside each other, engaged in earnest conversation,
which it must be confessed was carried on with perseverance and ingenuity,
worthy of a wider field. You may see them, near the lower end of
the table, both very old men, alike thin, withered and greyhaired, and
attired in linsey-wolsey. The one this way, cannot speak a syllable of
any language but English, and his friend understands never a word, that
is not spoken in German. But still, with all these obstacles, which to
the vulgar mind might appear insurmountable, they maintain a very intelligible,
nay, interesting conversation.
Neighbor Wampole, the farmer who speaks English and English only,
poises the white breast of a chicken on his fork, gazes intently in his
neighbor's face, and utters distinctly his condensed opinion—
“Good!” he cries, and the chicken disappears.
To this emphatic remark, neighbor Schneider, who cannot speak a
word, that is not German, replies by elevating a savory slice of the
opossum, and displaying it for a moment before his neighbor's eyes;
after which he significantly remarks—
“Goot!” and the opossum vanishes.
The bowls are touched; one drinks to the other's health; again that
significant glance, and again that interesting interchange of thought—
“Good!”
“Goot!”
Near these intelligent and communicative neighbours, and opposite the
parson, was seen a gentleman of some forty years, remarkable for his
and prominent nose, curved like a parrot's beak. This was the
Doctor of the country-side, famous for the potency of his “hum—ha!”
which was supposed to comprise a whole encyclopædia of medical knowledge,
and for the peculiarly dexterous application of his gold-headed cane
to the side of his nose.
He never had much to say, and on the present occasion, merely interrupted
the important duty of supper, with such remarks as—“Soberly
and in verity, this stewed rabbit is a tooth-some dish!”
For his almost unbroken silence, he seemed to continually apologize
by drinking deep draughts of the steaming cider. Indeed, a superficial
observer of human nature would have supposed, at first sight, that the
Doctor was in liquor, or that the liquor was in the Doctor; for his head
went bobbing from side to side like a cork on a wave, and he brushed
imaginary flies from the tip of his nose, with great energy and perseverance.
And while the supper-party went gayly on by the light of the home-made
candles, which were placed along the board, there was a fire of
huge logs, blazing and crackling within the broad arch of the spacious
hearth.
The light of that roaring fire fell in crimson flashes over the faces of
the guests, and lighted up with its hearty glow every nook and corner of
the farm-house hall.
Would you like to look upon that Picture of Comfort in the Olden
Time?
Then strip your imagination of all modern ideas, and prepare for a
picture of 1774, as widely contrasted with 1847, as a hale old Revolutionary
soldier, with his rosy cheeks and snow-white hair, compares with
a Chesnut Street dandy, remarkable only for his slim waist and sublimely
insipid face.
Do not expect to behold any thing like imported carpet on the floor.
No carpets from Brussels or from Smyrna conceal the sanded boards,
nor are the walls covered with hangings of French paper. There are
no chairs with narrow seats and dangerous backs, looking like chairs
that never were healthy, but stricken with consumption from the moment
of their birth. Nor is there any diminutive stove glaring with the
pestilence of anthracite; nor do you behold tables with marble tops, or
mantel-pieces, unworthy of the name, adorned with showy lamps, or windows
with Venitian blinds, and sills as narrow as a bigot's soul.
Look around this farm-house hall and see what comfort was like, in
the olden time.
The light of the great hearth-fire sparkles upon the sanded floor, and
glows along those huge rafters which support the ceiling. The walls
are white as snow, and the window-frames deep-sunken and capacious.
store of burnished pewter; opposite you discern the old clock, with its
round Dutch face, and its new moon rising over a broken cloud.
But the hearth is decidedly the centre of the picture. It looks like a
great sacrificial fire built beneath some pagan archway. Above the arch
hangs a rifle, resting on the antlers of the wild deer, and within the recess
on either side of the fire, benches of substantial oak are placed.
A blind negro sits on the bench to the right, his fingers outspread toward
the flame, which imparts its red glow to his ebony features, and
reveals the fiddle laid with its bow across his knees.
Opposite is seated a corpulent old dame, whose black face is contrasted
with a flaming red handkerchief wound about the temples, while her
withered hands are crossed upon her linsey dress.
“I say, Phillisey, dis am comfor'bl'!”
“It ar, Sam, you blind niggar!”
Near the hearth, seated on huge arm-chairs, behold three white dames,
whose rotund forms and full-moon faces, do not indicate any deprivation
of the comforts of life. Their heads bent together, their white caps
touching each other, they pass the snuff-box, and converse in earnest
whispers.
“It is a strange world, Betsy!”
“And, Nancy, we've all got to die—sometime!”
“But, Sally, it was not so when I was a girl!”
You will at once perceive, that their conversation is of the most interesting
character. The snuff-box passes, and the thoughts of the old
ladies take a different turn.
“Queer world! Laws-a-massy, Betz!”
“We must all go! `Dust to dust,' as the Parson sez!”
“When I was a girl—”
But at this moment of absorbing interest the conversation is interrupted
by the bluff, hearty tones of the host:
“I say, Parson, did you ever hear the story of Old Hontz and his
New Year's supper?”
By way of commanding attention, he brought the handle of his knife
upon the table, with all the force of his right arm.
“Never did!” responded the Parson, from the other end of the table,
as he raised a dainty piece of rabbit to his lips.
“Nor you, Lawyer Simmons? Nor you, Doctor Perkenpine? Hello!
Did none of you ever hear the story of Old Hontz and his New Year's
supper?”
For a moment the great work of eating and drinking was suspended.
At least twenty faces were turned toward the jovial host. There was a
wicked twinkle in the old fellow's half-closed eyes, and even the inclination
of his head to one side looked suspicious.
“Never heard the story, friend Peter!” was the burden of twenty
voices.
The old man settled himself easily in his huge chair, smoothed his
white beard with his fat fingers, and took a hearty draught of cider.
Then, taking a pipe from a side pocket, he quietly filled the bowl with
tobacco, lighted it at the candle, and resting comfortably in his chair,
seemed at peace with all the world, as the smoke floated in wreaths
around his red face.
“As you're all done supper, I'd like to tell you the story. It's a short
story, but very, very good; especially to those, who have eaten heartily
of stewed rabbit. Talkin' o' rabbit, how d'ye like it, Parson?”
“I have feasted plentifully upon this dish, friend Peter,” replied the
Parson.
“It is savory—very toothsome,” echoed the Doctor.
“Could not be better! where did you get the rabbits?” inquired the
lawyer.
“That's the fun of it, Lawyer Simmons. Where did I get the rabbits?
That's the very cream of the joke. Now mark me, everybody here,
when I've told my story, they will be sorry that they did not try the
stewed rabbit. For, as you will see, this story is apt to give one a ravenous
taste for stewed rabbit—”
“But concerning this unknown person whom you call Old Hontz?”
suggested the Parson.
“I want you all to be very still, while I tell this story. G-a-ls!
(turning to the three corpulent dames,) stop babbling and listen!” The
guests were all attention; you might have heard a pin drop. “Once upon
a time, there lived a jolly old fellow named Hontz, who had a house in a
woods, and was well-to-do in the world; his neighbors almost died of
spite, when they looked at his barn, or saw his sleek cattle. He was
rich, was old Hontz, and fond of fun, and of a glass! But he was a
bachelor. Therefore every gossip in the neighborhood lied about him—
lied murderously, telling strange stories of Old Hontz, the rare jovial
fellow. They said he gained his money—not from his farm, or his
horses, or his oxen, or his cows—but in unheard-of-ways, horrible to
think of, and most dreadful to tell. Now, among those neighbors, there
were three persons, who fed at the old fellow's table, and drank of his
cider, and yet lied more horribly about him, than all the world together—”
The jovial Peter paused, and smoothed his beard, emitting a volume
of smoke, as he glanced over the faces of the wondering guests. Even
the three aged dames by the fire bent forward, in attitudes of absorbing
interest, and the old Negro in the chimney corner remarked, in an under-tone,
to Phillisey—“Berry bad neighbors, dem!”
“Now one of these persons was a lawyer—”
“Su-r-e!” exclaimed lawyer Simmons, dropping his cider bowl.
“One a doctor—”
“Remarkable!” and the Doctor, in his surprise, permitted a savory
slice of rabbit to fall from his fingers.
“And the other was a parson!”
“A parson? Eh! Neighbor Peter?” cried the Parson, rubbing his
nose, and fixing the black cap more firmly on his head.
“Yes—by —! The lawyer, the doctor and the parson, who fed at
the old fellow's table, and drank of his cider, never spoke of him, save
with a shrug of the shoulders, or a wink of the eye, and it may be, some
such kind remark as this—`A very clever old fellow, who lives in the
woods alone, but'—here was the sore point—`Where does he get all his
money?”'
It was a very interesting thing, to remark the twinkle of neighbor
Peter's half-closed eye, as he paused again in his story.
A singular silence had fallen on the supper guests; they gazed in each
other's faces, and then cast their eyes down upon their folded hands.
“Now, do you want to know how this jolly old fellow (with a white
beard and a great round paunch, mark ye) revenged himself? He knew
the doctor, the lawyer, the parson, to be very fond of good eating, but of
all kinds of eating, stewed rabbit, and of all kinds of stewed rabbit—”
The story began to be very interesting. Why it was we cannot tell,
but certainly the greater portion of the guests began to cast stealthy
glances at the doctor, the lawyer and the parson, who sat among them, at
the supper-board.
“Yes—you were saying—” hesitated the Parson. The Doctor arranged
his flowing wig, with a somewhat nervous movement, and the lank
face of the lawyer was lengthened out, by an expression of apathetic
wonder, most ludicrous to behold.
“And of all kinds of stewed rabbit, they most admired that kind of
stewed rabbit, which is smothered in onions—”
The jovial host took a hearty puff at his pipe, and placed the cider to
his lips, coolly remarking—
“There's my story. What d'ye think o't, anyhow?”
It was wonderful to behold the amazement pictured on the faces of the
guests. A dead silence prevailed.
“What d'ye think of it, I say?” and the bluff Peter rapped the table
with the handle of his knife.
“Dat is no shtory at all!” faintly remarked neighbor Spurtzelditscher.
“I confess, I do not see its point—” the lawyer exclaimed.
“Nor its wit—” added the parson.
“In soberness, and in truth, I can't see what you are driving at!”
The doctor turned his parrot nose, and looked his host full in the face.
“Why, how stupid you are! Don't you see that the jolly old fellow
great supper, one New Year's Eve, and invited the doctor, the parson,
the lawyer, to come and eat stewed rabbit, smothered in onions?”
The Parson blushed to the tips of his ears, while the Doctor looked
in his plate, and the lawyer described lines on the table with his fork.
“Dat ish better!” cried Spurtzelditscher—“Yah! y-a-h! Dat ish
goot!”
“Indeed, Mr. Peter Dorfner,” exclaimed the Parson with marked politeness—“I
must confess that I don't see the point of your story.”
“Nor I! Nor I!” chorussed the Doctor and the Lawyer.
A faint smile began to steal over the faces of the other guests.
“But you will presently. I know you love a good story, Parson, and
I'm sure, the lawyer and doctor don't love any thing better, except good
living or fat fees. Soh, my hearties, I will tell you the point of the
joke—while the doctor, and the lawyer, and the parson were eatin' away
like so many buzzards, and a thinkin' that they were eatin' stewed rabbit
smothered in onions, the old fellow, that jolly dog of a bachelor, was
laughin' in his sleeve, for—for—”
“Y-e-s”—gasped the Parson, bending forward.
“For”—the old host, even Peter Dorfner, bent forward also, his little
black eyes twinkling with a sort of demoniac glee—“For well he knew
that these three jovial fellows were eatin'—eatin'—”
“E-a-ting—” echoed the Doctor, looking over his spectacles. The
old fellow sank back in his chair, and resumed his pipe, saying mildly
between the puffs of smoke—
“Cats. They were eatin' cats! Fine old Toms, which the old
bachelor had caught in his farm-yard, killed and cooked—all done by
himself—cats, smothered in onions! Fine dish, gentlemen—for them as
likes it.”
A roar like thunder shook the room. It was the sound of some
twenty boisterous laughs, joined in one. For a moment nothing was
seen but mouths wide open, and eyes rolling tears.
With one movement the Doctor, the Parson and the Lawyer started to
their feet.
“Cats!” shrieked the Parson, pitching forward with a sea-sick movement—“Did
you say cats?”
The Doctor uttered a horrible oath.
“Feed me—a member of the Faculty—ME! on CATS!” He shook
his clenched fist over the table. “You shall pay for this! You
shall”—
The Lawyer looked around with a very sickly attempt at a smile.
“Neighbor Wampole, will you allow me to pass you? It seems to me
that I want a little fresh air.”
“Why, gentle-men! what is the matter?” cried the corpulent Peter
does not allude to you. Pooh! You never abused me, you”—
But a fresh explosion of laughter drowned his words. It cannot be
denied that the scene was in the highest degree picturesque. There
foamed the Doctor, tearing his flaxen wig, in very despite, while on the
opposite side of the table, the Parson still continued to ask, whether Peter
Dorfner had said cats? In the background, Lawyer Simmons' lank
face was visible, pale as death, and distorted by convulsive twitchings.
And around the table were the guests, convulsed with the grotesque
picture, all echoing the laugh, until the rafters shook again. Near the
fire the three aged dames sat motionless, gasping for breath, the tears
rolling down their round fat cheeks.
Within the chimney the Phillisey with the red handkerchief round
her brow, displayed her teeth—or at least, all that time had spared her—
while blind Sam, seated in the opposite corner, seized his fiddle, and
played several tunes, through each other, and all together, as if for life.
And in the midst of the uproar, calm and smiling sat Peter Dorfner,
in his arm-chair, at the head of the table, the pipe between his lips, and
volumes of pale blue smoke wreathing around his red cheeks, and snow-white
hair.
“Was de rabbit fery nish, Toctor?”
“I thought you ate ray-ther hearty, Parson!”
“O! Lord! a doctor, a parson and a lawyer sittin' down to stewed cats!”
“An' sich an appeytite, too!”
While these, and various kindred exclamations, echoed round the
room, the Doctor quietly left his seat and approached the head of the
table. There was a wicked light in his pale blue eyes; a sort of determined
malice in the very compression of his large sensual lips.
Peter Dorfner received him with a calm smile, smoothing down his
white beard with the palm of his hand.
“This is very w-ell!” he whispered, bending down, until the curls of
his wig nearly touched the cheek of Peter: “A fine joke, sir, ve-r-y fine!
But shall I tell these good folks a finer one? Shall I tell them of the
twenty-third of November, in the year 1756?”
Swelling with rage, he shook his cane in the old farmer's face.
“If you dare,” Peter remarked in a whisper, as a change passed over
his face, as sudden as it was startling. He grew pale; his dark eyes flashed
from beneath the sleepy lids. His right hand was clenched as if by an
involuntary spasm.
At this moment, the roar of laughter, which echoed round the place,
was succeeded by a cry of surprise.
“Madeline! Gilbert!” resounded from every lip.
The Doctor leaned his head over his shoulder, and saw the persons,
who that moment had entered the room.
“Do you remember her Mother?” he whispered the words into the
farmer's ear.
“Dare you violate the Oath?” was the response uttered by the old
man, through his clenched teeth, with that wicked light flashing in his
eyes.
And while this singular conversation was held by the Doctor and the
farmer, the guests, starting from their seats, welcomed the new-comers
with many a hearty though rude salutation.
They stood in the centre of the circle, the Hunter and the Maiden, their
faces glowing in the light of the hearthside flame.
She, clad in her peasant garb, which could not altogether conceal the
flowing outlines of her form, nor turn your gaze away, from the sad, tender
beauty of her face. Her dark hair, swept plainly aside, relieved those
firm and winning features, and gave a deeper warmth to the glow of her
brown cheeks, the voluptuous redness of her lips.
By her side the Hunter stood, his brawny chest and gaunt, sinewy arms,
presenting a strong contrast to her maidenly form.
Almost a giant in stature, he was clad in a hunting-frock, dark blue in
color, and edged with white fur. In one hand he grasped the Maiden's
hand, in the other his well-tried rifle, with its dark tube, and mahogany
stock, relieved by ornaments of polished silver. He wore the leggings
and moccasins of an Indian; his broad chest was crossed by a buckskin
belt; on one side of his waist you beheld a hunting-knife, on the other a
powder-horn.
But it was not on his attire, but his face, that you fixed your gaze.
A broad, square forehead, a straight, firm nose, slightly inclining to the
aquiline, a mouth somewhat too wide, and a bold, rugged chin, half-concealed
by a brown beard. Such was the Hunter's face. His complexion
had once been fair and sanguine, but now it was bronzed by exposure to
the wind and sun, the toil of the chase, and—perchance—the fever of
the battle.
Around this boldly featured face, which indicated, at first sight, a bluff,
honest nature, his chesnut hair gathered in short, luxuriant curls.
“Come, Parson; 'cordin' to promise I'm here. So are you. So is
Mad'lin'. We want you to say a few words from a book, so that we can
go an' live together as man an' wife.”
He rested one arm upon his rifle, and with Madeline's hand clasped in
his own, confronted the New Year's guests.
“Yes—yes—I'll be there, in a moment,” cried the Minister from the
opposite side of the table. “Cats!” he added in an undertone—
“A-u-g-h! So you want to be married, Gilbert—eh?”
With the book in his hand, he stood before the Hunter and his promised
Wife, now fixing his eye upon the almost gigantic form, now resting
his glance upon the Maiden, whose soft brown cheek began to
lips.
Her eyes were downcast; the black fringes rested on her cheek. Altogether,
she presented an appearance, at once so virginal and so beautiful,
in her humble attire, that every eye was enchained with the sight.
“Ho, ho! So you're goin' to be married, Madeline!” laughed the jovial
Peter Dorfner, as, leaving his chair, he advanced with a step that showed
at once, that he had not lost any vigor of nerve, or physical power, in his
increasing corpulence. “Goin' to leave the old Bachelor alone? Well
—well—my blessing go with you, at any rate!”
He stood behind the Parson, a pleasant smile agitating his round cheeks,
and twinkling under his half-shut lids.
But the maiden did not raise her eyes, or answer him with a word.
She trembled; yes, they could see her bosom heave from beneath the kerchief
which bound it, and from her downcast lids a single tear sparkled
into light.
Did she remember the warning words of old Yoconok? “Yes, Uncle
Peter”—she called him Uncle, for he had been her only protector, from
the hour of childhood—“I am—I am.”—
Her nether lip was agitated with a tremulous motion; her bosom rose
with one tumultuous throb. She stood silent and trembling, her downcast
eyes filled with tears.
The rude Hunter by her side, wound his iron arm about her waist:
“Mad'lin', do not fear,” he whispered. “Don't I love you, gal? I
know I'm but a rude fellow, but Gilbert Morgan will never see harm
come to you, while God leaves him one breath in his big body! There
now, look up, and let the Parson say his words—”
These words look rude, but the dark hazel eye of the woodsman lighted
up with a fiery eloquence, as he spoke, and his voice—broken by a tremor—indicated
strong emotion.
“Well, girl, well, I can only say, that I approve of this marriage, and
hope you'll do well, wherever you go. There—take an old bachelor's
blessing on your head, and let the Parson begin; that's a good girl.”
As the bluff old Peter placed his fat hands upon the glossy locks of
Madeline—his face all the while overspread with smiling wrinkles—the
Doctor drew near, and bending over his shoulder, whispered these words:
“How long is it since you blessed her Mother?”
The jovial old fellow started, as though a snake had bitten him in the
throat; he grew pale, and then red again, and observed with one of his
pleasant smiles:
“Oh—ho! Doctor Perkenpine—always at your fun!”
But turning suddenly round, he darted a look into the Doctor's face
which had something beside good humor in its sudden fire.
“You'll leave the old man, Madeline. I shall be alone with Phillisey
Get married, girl—Gilbert will make a good husband!”
Why did the Orphan Girl shrink from the pressure of his hands, and
turn pale and gasp for breath as his kindly words fell on her ears?
The Parson arranged his cap, while the guests—stout farmers, and
buxom damsels—circled about the Hunter and his betrothed. The old
dames suspended their tattle, Black Sam his fiddle; even the lawyer and
the doctor forgot their unutterable wrongs, in the deep interest of the scene.
“You love Gilbert,” he kindly whispered, wishing to calm the Maiden,
whose agitation was perceptible.
“I do!” said a soft, low voice, that was scarcely audible.
Gilbert felt a soft, warm hand, return the pressure of his rude grasp,
and saw that the face upraised to meet his gaze, shone with an expression
of calm confidence and child-like trust.
“You are mine, Mad'lin',” he whispered, bending down nearer to her,
and girdling her waist with his brawny arm.
“Yours—ever!” she whispered, and then continued, in a tone inaudiable
to her lover—“Yours in spite of the warning of Yoconok—yours in
spite of my own heart!”
“Hem! Suppose we commence—” said the Pastor, making a great
display by turning over the leaves of his Prayer-Book.
At this moment, the farm-house door—behind the girl and the woods-man—was
suddenly opened.
She did not see the intruder, but she heard his footstep.
“Save me, Gilbert!” she cried, turning deathly pale—“I am falling—”
And like a flower, suddenly snapt on its stem, she sank, and lay unconscious
at her lover's feet, her eyes closed, her form as motionless as
death.
Gilbert saw her sink, so pale and lifeless, at his feet, and felt the blood
whirling in a torrent through his brain. He turned his head over his
shoulder; his face was flushed with crimson; his hazel eyes discolored
by injected blood—
“O, sir, this is your work!” he cried, and ere an instant, the hunting-knife
flashed in his hand.
A mingled cry of surprise and horror echoed from every lip. There,
before the half-opened door, stood a young man, clad in plain grey, his
handsome face wearing a pleasant smile, as he brushed the snow from
his curling brown hair. Over his shoulder appeared a red, round face,
with a wide mouth, distorted in a grotesque grin.
“What mean you, Gilbert?” cried Uncle Peter—“It is John and his
friend Jacob. Surely, your senses have left you. Put away your knife,
and greet our friends with a New Year's welcome!”
As the corpulent host spoke, he laid one hand gently on the Hunter's
arm, and greeted the strangers, with a cordial grasp.
“New Year's welcome!” growled Gilbert, as his flushed face writhed
in every feature. “To whom? To men who have no name? For
what? For poisoning the mind of this innocent girl—By * * *! This
is my welcome!”
Leaving the swooning girl extended on the floor, he fiercely turned,
and confronted the young man, whom we have known by the simple
name of John.
“You are a purty-built fellow, and, I guess, know how to fight;”—his
manner was taunting, and a mocking sneer curled his lip—“Do you see
this knife?”
“I see it,” answered John, with a pleasant smile upon his handsome
face,—“It seems a very good blade. The hilt, I believe, is bone.”
A dead silence prevailed; every eye was centred upon the young
man; the contrast between the huge hunter and the slender stranger was
palpable.
For a moment they surveyed each other, while Gilbert clenched the
hilt of his knife with an iron grasp—
—That moment was soon gone, but while it passed, our friend Jacopo,
with the round face and enormous mouth, stole quietly behind the hunter,
poured some white powder in a goblet filled with water, and applied
it to the lips of the fainting girl, as he raised her from the floor. The
action passed unobserved; every eye was fixed upon the hunter and his
antagonist.—
A scene occurred which baffles description. Suddenly the dead silence
was broken by the screams of women, the voices of men mingled in
confused cries.
The young stranger was on the floor, the knee of Gilbert on his breast,
the knife flashing above his face.
“Do not strike him,” cried Peter Dorfner,—“Take care, Gilbert, it
will be a Murder—”
“Stand back! Woe to the man who meddles in this quarrel!”—the
hunter was hoarse with rage; his voice, yelling through the farm-house,
sounded more like the howl of a hunted buffalo, than the voice of a
human being. “I tell you, he belongs to me! He has stepped between
me and Mad'lin'! Stand back—Now, Mister, will you tell your name,
who you are, and whar' you b'long? Quick!”
John's face was very pale. Stretched on the floor, his back against the
hard boards, the knee of the hunter pressing the life out of his chest, he
made a desperate effort to free himself, gathering all his strength in the
attempt. It was in vain. The knee pressed heavier and firmer upon his
heart; a convulsive movement agitated the muscles of his throat. As his
face grew paler, his eyes began to protrude from their sockets.
“Quick! Your name, I say!”—and the uplifted knife flashed into
the very eyes of the helpless man.
His lips moved; he uttered a word. Gilbert bent down to hear it—
“Coward!” he exclaimed, and a scornful smile crossed his pale
features. There was something so resolute, in this solitary word of the
helpless man, that a murmur of admiration escaped from the spectators,
who were held terrified and motionless by the interest of the scene.
“Then, take this!” The knife descended, urged by the impulse of a
madman's fury, and the prostrate man closed his eyes, as he saw the steel
flash over him, ere it fell.
A sharp, piercing cry was heard; it came from Jacopo's lips, as, with
the fainting maiden in his arms, he beheld the danger of his Master.
“Strike him at your peril!” he screamed—“it is the Lord—”
But his voice was drowned in the shout of wonder which echoed from
every lip, and filled the wide hall with a sound like thunder.
The knife had been dashed aside. Turned from its aim by a fragile
stick, which lay, severed in twain, on one side of the prostrate man,
while the knife glittered on the other, from the sand which covered
the floor.
One cry murmured from every lip, a sound which mingled wonder
with fear, and was remarkable not so much for loudness, as for depth
of tone:
“The Monk of Wissahikon!” These words were distinguishable
amid its clamor.
Even the bluff host started back, as though seized with sudden fright;
the guests, the doctor, lawyer, parson, the buxom damsels, and the hearty
farmers, all moved backward, with the same impulse.
At the sound, Gilbert the Hunter rose, and stood with his head bowed
and his arms motionless by his side. He, the strong man, who, only a
moment ago, had stricken his knife at the heart of a helpless man, now
trembled in every iron nerve.
Jacopo alone, gazing around upon the circle of affrighted faces, could
not comprehend the cause of this sudden change, this universal terror.
The young man, relieved from the pressure of the giant's knee, and
with the knife no longer flashing death into his face, rose into a sitting
posture, and looked around with a blank stare, his eyes dilating in his
ashen visage.
Before him stood the cause of this strange terror; a voice marked by
its musical emphasis, melted gently on his ears:
“It was wrong, Gilbert, and the good God will not love you for the
guilty thought! To raise your hand against your brother's life—a
murderer's deed!”
Not an eye but was riveted to the face of the speaker; and again the
whisper was heard—
“The Monk of Wissahikon!”
In the centre of the circle described by the spectators, stood a young
athletic, clad in a coat or tunic of black velvet, which, leaving his throat
bare, fell in easy folds from his broad shoulders to his knees.
His hair, long and flowing, in hue as black as the robe which he wore,
was crowned by a circular cap, also made of velvet; and, framed by the
cap and the dark hair, a face appeared which at once enchained the gaze
of every eye.
It was a young face, the forehead broad and high, the eyebrows arched
like a crescent, the nose straight and regular, the lips warm and full, the
chin round and beardless.
Such was the general description of the face; but there was a look
upon its brown skin, an expression woven with its firm features, a light
shining from its eyes, so piercing and impetuous, so much like magic or
magnetism, that no words can depict the Power which it held, at once
and for ever, upon the souls of those who looked upon it.
That face, in a word, linked with a form whose boyish outlines were
just ripening into young manhood, seemed like the face of one set apart
from the herd of mankind by some supernatural power. It bore the
stamp of Destiny.
In the eastern lands it would have been said, at once, that the brown
face was gifted with the terrible fatality of the Evil Eye.
Few could gaze steadily into that eye, and mark its colour; it was
either dead, with a vacant, glassy stare, or lighted up with a flame, that
shot its power to the gazer's heart, and held him dumb and motionless.
Most strange it was to see the terror which that face excited in the
farm-house of Wissahikon.
Not a word was spoken, as those large eyes roved from side to side, nor
did a solitary voice bid the young man welcome to the New Year's festival.
He stood in the midst of the scene, his right hand looking like marble,
contrasted with his dress, resting absently upon the silver cross, which,
suspended from his neck, rose and fell with every pulsation of his chest.
“Your name?” cried Joh, as he slowly rose to his feet, and took
the stranger by the hand. “You have done me a service which I shall
never forget. I owe my life to you—”
He spoke hurriedly, but his face was flushed, his voice broken by sincere
feeling.
“They call me Paul Ardenheim.”
He uttered these words in a voice whose deep melody charmed every
ear; and then turning, sought the door by which he had entered. As
he walked away with an even stride, his back toward the gazers, it
might be seen that his velvet garb concealed a form of manly vigor, and
almost womanly beauty.
On the threshold he paused; once more they beheld that bronzed face
with the large eyes, shining with that intense light—
“Do not war upon each other, my friends. The cloud of war is
darkening over our land. It will be a long and bloody contest. If war
you must, if you cannot live without the sword, let your war be waged
against the invaders of our soil; let your swords be sharpened for their
throats.”
The door closed; he was gone; his place was vacant, yet still they
seemed to behold him in his dark garb, standing in their midst, the sad
look upon his face, the vivid light in his large eyes.
“Remain here, Jacob,” cried John, as, with his face moved by strong
emotion, he rushed to the door. “I will return in a moment!”
The door had not closed after him, when Gilbert took his knife from
the floor.
He was moving to the door, when Uncle Peter laid his hand on his arm:
“Which way, Gilbert?”
“What's that to you?” was the hurried reply.
“A great deal, my good friend:” the host whispered a word in his ear,
and with a rapid motion described a sign on his forehead. “Now go!
Harm the stranger at your peril! You know your duty! Go!”
The countenance of the hunter fell.
“You, too, Uncle Peter? You among us? Then these stories are
true—”
“Sirrah! Don't you see these people are listening with open eyes and
ears? Go! You remember—”
The other answered in a whisper—
“The house of old Isaac, on the hill near the Schuylkill! But
Mad'lin'?”
He cast his glance toward the unconscious maiden, who still reposed
in Jacob's arms, her brown hair falling neglected over her pale cheeks,
while her arms hung by her side.
“Girls, you will carry Madeline to her room,” said Peter, in a loud
voice—“This marriage cannot take place to-night! Go! Your duty
is before you—I command you!”
The girl started from her swoon, even as her hunter lover stood with
his face turned toward the door. She dashed the flowing hair from her
face as she sprang from Jacopo's arms, and looked around with a frightened
glance.
“I saw it all!” she said in a whisper, that went to every heart—“I
saw her led, pale and beautiful, in her white dress, which was also her
shroud, into the half-lighted room, with rude wainscot on its narrow walls,
and a couch in one corner.—”
“Do you hear? Take her to her room—she is out of her head”—the
face of Uncle Peter grew crimson, as he waved his hand, and with that
emphatic gesture, and angry voice, bade the country damsels remove the
bewildered girl.
“O, the scene was very sad, and it seemed to me, as I looked on, my
eyes were filled with bitter tears. For she was a Mother, and no friend
was near to watch over her agony; afar from her country and her home,
and not one kind hand to wipe away a tear! Yes, there was one friend—
a faithful negro, who fought for his mistress. But I see it yet—ah God!
They blind him with their knives—his eyes are dark—dark forever! He
cannot see the Babe, which is torn from the Mother's arms, ere it has
blessed her with a smile—ah! Spare her, pity her, for she is a mother,
and no friend is near!”
“Must we hear these ravings all night?” Peter Dorfner forced the
bewildered girl into the arms of two red-cheeked damsels, and pointed to
the door. “To her chamber, and let her sleep away this crazy dream!”
As she was borne through the door, which opened upon the stairway,
Gilbert, with his head bowed down, and his right hand clasped upon his
knife, while the other grasped the rifle, left the farm-house without a word.
The bluff Peter, with his red face and white beard, found himself standing
alone among his wondering guests.
“Hey, folks? Why do you stare so? Is it such a wonder to see two
boys pick a quarrel with each other, or do you get frightened at a love-sick
girl's faintin' fit? Come—draw your cheers around the fire; and let
the women make mischief, while the men smoke. A pipe, doctor? Come,
don't be snappish—parson, forgive that little joke about the rabbits—here,
lawyer Simmons, let's have a social chat, I say!”
In a moment, a circle was formed around the fire. The centre of the
picture, sat the jovial Peter, his red face and round form glowing in the
light. On one side the Lawyer, with a most lugubrious face; on the
other the Doctor, who arranged his wig, and looked steadily into the fire.
Next to the Doctor, the Parson was seen, his limbs crossed, and his hands
folded pleasantly upon his stomach.
The four, every one with his pipe and his bowl of cider, smoked and
drank as if for their lives. A constantly accumulating cloud hung over
their heads.
Around these figures, to the right and left were displayed the three aged
dames, the young girls, the stripling farmers, and the good neighbors
Wampole and Spurtzelditscher. Far in the chimney, Phillisey was
sleeping, nodding portentously, and every moment making a strong demonstration
of throwing herself into the fire. The blind fiddler, Black
Sam, also seemed drowsy; his sightless eyeballs glared in the light, and
his fiddle lay neglected upon his knees.
But Jacopo—where is Jacopo, with that face shining like a beacon, that
form resembling a barrel, mounted on bean-poles? Behold him yonder.
Bending over the table, cramming himself with the wreck of the supper
dainties, now paying his respects to the fragments of a sausage, now
drowning his sorrows in a brimming bowl of rare October. All the
of his grotesque face. You see it in the distortions of his enormous
mouth, in the twinkling of his small black eyes.
“Poor girl! Such a vivifying powder—good for fainting spells! Better
for unknown lovers!”
Broader and brighter grew the great fire on the hearth, and thicker and
darker rolled the tobacco cloud over the room.
“Why d'ye all sit here, like leaden images in a Dutch church? Not a
word has been spoken for this five minutes. Where's all your fun, Doctor?
Parson, you sit moping like an owl; and as for you, Lawyer,
one 'ud think that your rich gran'mother had just died, and cut you off
without a shillin'! Here, Phillisey; go up into the garret; under the
eaves of the roof, you will find certain bottles of rare old wine, which a
Philadelphy marchant gave me some years ago. Sam, I say, S-a-m!
Wake up and giv's a tune!”
Did the blind negro hear the jovial Peter? Certainly he did not raise
his head, but, with his sightless eyeballs turned to the fire, remained as
motionless as a rock of anthracite coal.
“Are you sleep, nigger?—come, I say! Giv's a tune!”
Was it a shudder that agitated the withered form of the black man?
His face, marked by the characteristic features of his race, the flat nose,
thick lips, and receding chin, quivered in every nerve, and the wrinkles
on his low forehead were woven together, as though by a sudden and
intense pain.
“Sam, I say; stir up, and play's a tune”—the cheerful Peter shook
him roughly by the shoulder—“You ha'nt forgot all your music, man?”
The negro's fingers, cramped and bent by severe labor, moved with the
same convulsive tremor which agitated his entire frame.—
“Dis nigga am sick, Massa. He am gettin berry old. Dese cold nights
driv' all de tune out of um head.”
A cloud was visible on Peter's rotund visage, and something very much
like an oath came through his fat lips.
But at this moment, every ear was attracted by the sound of an opening
door, and with heads turned from the fire, the New Year's guests gazed
upon the new-comer.
“Hah! It's John,” said Peter, with one of his deep chuckles—“Why
so changed, man? Your step is heavy—bless my heart! You're pale
as a corpse. Hey? John—don't you know me?”
“Who”—whispered the young man, as he leaned for support upon
Peter's arm-chair—“Who is he?”
He wiped the cold perspiration from his forehead: the light, shooting
up in a hearty glow, showed the death-like pallor of his handsome
features.
“He? Of whom do you speak?”
“This Paul—how do you name him? This Monk of Wissahikon?”
At the word, a strange gloom fell upon the faces near the fire-side.
Not a word was spoken in answer to the question.
Peter, with his habitual gesture, smoothed his beard, and inhaled a
hearty draught from the tube of his pipe, glancing sidelong, from his
half-closed eyes, toward the faces around him.
“Can none of you answer? You surely know him—certainly can give
a reason for the terror which overspreads your faces, when you hear his
voice, and feel his eye upon you! A knife is at my throat, and with the
knee of my enemy pressing upon my chest, I feel that the hour of my
death is come. When lo! a mere boy clad in black appears, dashes the
knife aside, his only weapon a withered stick—and you all start with
fear. Even my antagonist seems stricken with palsy. Have you no answer?
Who is the Monk of Wissahikon?”
The Doctor looked cautiously toward the door, and took his pipe from
his lips—
“He—that is—you ask—why, indeed—he is—the Monk of Wissahikon.”
“The explanation is lucid,” and a sneer quivered on the young man's
lips—“I almost know as much as when I first asked the question.”
“Sit down, John. Take a pipe, and draw a cheer. You shall watch
with us the comin' of the New Year, while the girls wait upon poor
Madeline in her chamber above us. There now, that's a hearty boy—
smoke away, and let your cares fly with every puff! The Monk of—
you want to know who he is? P'r'aps these good folks can tell us.”
John slid into a chair, took the proffered bowl and pipe, while Jacopo
crept to his side, his diminutive black eyes peering, with nervous intensity,
into every face.
“Young man, there are some questions, which it is not profitable to
ask on a New Year's Eve.”—The Doctor's visage was elongated beneath
his wig, into a most refreshing solemnity, reminding you of some strange
creation of fabulous history, linking the prominent characteristics of the
donkey and the owl. “About one-fourth of a mile from this place, on
the other side of Wissahikon, stands an old house. In that house lives
the Monk. His father lives there, too.”
“Per-fectly satisfactory!” whispered Jacopo.
“Dish house—Gott forgives me! I never likes to pass him late at
night!” was the profound remark of Neighbor Spurtzelditscher.
“Been by there often”—chorused Neighbor Wampole, starting a sly
glance toward the door. “Often. Late at night and airly in the mornin'.
Heerd strange sounds within that house. They say its ha-a-nted.”
It was now the Parson's turn. Touching the young man on the arm,
he knocked the ashes from his pipe, and gave utterance to a profound
ejaculation—
“Let us pray that we may be saved from selling our souls to the Enemy
of Mankind!”
By way of enforcing this excellent idea, he placed the bowl to his lips,
and drank in solemn silence.
“Per-fectly satisfactory!” again whispered Jacopo.
“The old man, the father of the—Monk—has a daughter?” asked Lawyer
Simmons, whose features manifested the sleepy period of drunkenness.
“By-the-bye, Dorfner”—he whispered these words in the ear of
his corpulent friend—“Certain they were n't cats?”
John sat moodily in front of the fire, his face shaded by his uplifted
hand, while his form was enveloped to the throat, in his grey coat. Yet
beneath that shadowing hand, his pale features were wet with cold moisture,
and the trembling of the nether lip, the wavering light of the full
eye, indicated some powerful emotion. Jacopo, as he stood at the back
of his chair, bent over him, and placed his lips to the ear of his master—
“The Potion!” he whispered. “All is right. While I play the fiddle,
do you plead weariness, and retire to your room. The sound will
attract the attention of the girls up stairs; they will flock to the dance.
Your room is next to the chamber of Madeline!”
All at once, a warm flush chased the pallor from the young man's
face: his eye grew steady, intense in its glance; his full lips wreathed in
a smile.
“Ah—Jacopo! What would the Devil do, were there no such imps
as you, in this beautiful world?”
The minute hand of the Old Clock in the corner, pointed to the hour
of Twelve. In a moment, 1774 would be buried with the dead years,
and 1775, a newly born baby of a year, come chirping into light.
This was the scene which the Old Clock saw, in the last moment of
the dying year.
Beside the table, huge and portly, his coat thrown aside, and his shirt
sleeves rolled up, stood the jocund Peter Dorfner, his face like the full
moon on the clock, as, with extended hands, he poured bottle after bottle
into the colossal punch-bowl, made of some unknown wood, rimmed with
silver, and carved all over with drunken satyrs and reeling fauns.
Madeira and Sherry, Brandy and Hock, he poured them all into the
great bowl, and added spices without number, until the steam of the hot
liquors filled the very air with a drunken flavor.
—Well is it for the topers of 1848, that the great Secret of the Peter
Dorfner Punch is lost forever, in the abyss of Time! Oh, my amiable
friends, whose noses bloom with carbuncles, whose very cheeks bear the
red blossoms of Brandy, had you seen old Peter mix his Punch, composed
of all the liquors in the world, and fragrant with the spices of
every clime, you would have grown merrily drunk with the very flavor,
bowl! But the secret is lost, and the topers of 1848 must be content to
drink Pure Poison, such delectable liquids as vitriol, creosote, spiced with
cocculus indicus and freshened with putrid water, and go reeling to their
graves, without the knowledge of the great Dorfner Punch.—
And while Peter mixes his great Punch, yonder, in the arm-chair,
crouches Jacopo, writhing in the agonies of the fiddle, which he clasps
with one hand, while the other plies the bow, and sends the dancers
whirling over the sanded floor.
Only steal one look at his face, the mouth distorted by a thousand
changing grimaces, the sharp black eyes, leering from the wrinkled lids,
the round cheek resting lovingly against the fiddle!
Then his spider legs are crossed, while the round paunch undulates
with laughter, and the long right arm seems impelled into activity by
some galvanic battery.
The dancers—it were worth your while to look at them. Now huddled
in a crowd, now scattered over the floor, heels and heads and
arms, moving like clock-work run mad—saw you ever such dancing?
Here the Doctor without a wig, there the Parson holding up his gown,
yonder Spurtzelditscher without his coat, and Perkenpine, his sallow
face burning with an incipient apoplexy, round and round they whirled,
entangled in a maze of young damsels, with the three old ladies skirmishing
on the frontiers of that drunken circle!
Jacopo's fiddle did it all.
How it screamed, and roared, and yelled and laughed, putting gunpowder
in every heel, and firing it off in every vein. It was a wicked
fiddle, and Jacopo cheered it on, with curses and shouts, until the whole
mansion shook, the very windows rattling like a thunder-storm of broken
glass.
And round and round, and up the sanded floor, and down again, and
over against the clock and across upon the table, caps flying, skirts tossing,
and faces steaming with damp crimson, they kept it up, while jocund
Peter mixed the punch, and Jacopo lashed the fiddle. Lashed it with
the bow, as with a whip, until it seemed to beg for mercy, and roar with
agony!
And as the dance went on, in drunken frenzy, the clock struck
Twelve.
“Come, boys and gals,” shouted the jovial Peter, smoothing his white
beard, and looking like a wood-cut of Christmas in some old Dutch
Almanac—“We danced the Old Year out—let's drink the New Year in!”
The clock struck Twelve, and in the room above—only separated
from the scene of drunken mirth, by a layer of planks, and a few stout
rafters—a Maiden was extended on her virgin bed, the light held in the
so warm, along the bosom, stealing in glimpses from the robe, that
trembled with the life throbbing beneath its folds.
Poor Madeline!
Of all the hours in her young life, the hour of Twelve, when the bell
struck 1775 into being, was most dangerous to her soul.
4. CHAPTER FOURTH.
PAUL THE DREAMER.
There is a grey old rock, rising above the brown dust of the road, its
granite breast turned to the west, while all around it bloom the summer
leaves, and above it, the slanted pine flings its thick shadows.
It stands alone, huge, massive and colossal, like the altar of some forgotten
religion, rising in sullen grandeur from the roadside earth, with
many a tender flower peeping from its crevices, while its summit
spreads beneath the sky, level as a floor.
You may stand upon this rock in the summer morning, and feel your
heart praise God, as, encircled by the freshness of the woods, lulled by
the music of the waters, you turn your gaze to the sky, whose tranquil
azure—just touched by the rising sun—contrasts so beautifully with the
bright green of the leaves, the soft darkness of the waves.
To the west—suddenly turning from its northern course—the Wissahikon
flashes on, shadowed by broken rocks, with great walls of verdure
towering on either side, into the clear morning sky.
On the south, at the distance of but one hundred yards, an ancient mill
looks forth with its black walls, from the leaves that hang around its roof,
and near the mill, a waterfall glimpses into light, for an instant, ere it
plunges into the shadows. Beside this mill three roads meet; one
comes from the south, peeping abruptly from the world of foliage; one
leads to the north, along the base of the great rock; the other to the
west, skirting the Wissahikon, on her way to the Schuylkill.
But at the spot where the roads meet, a sight of fresh rustic beauty
meets your eye. It is an oaken trough, filled with clear cold water,
fresh from the caverns of Wissahikon, with the shadow of overhanging
branches between it and the light of day.
The mill-stream, which dashes into the shadows, to the south of the
the oaken trough, sparkling with clear cold water.
Such are the general features of the scene. Yet there are no words
in language to paint its full beauty. Who shall tell how the leaves, rising
in trembling pyramids of foliage, almost shut out the sky above us?
How the stream, now spreading in a pool as clear a mirror, set in a
frame of granite, now breaking in foaming waves against the rugged
rocks, passes into the shadows of the trees, and is seen, far beyond,
flashing into light again, like a soul risen again from the shadows of the
grave?
Or, what pencil shall paint the slow-moving clouds that sail over the
deep blue, and hover above the Wissahikon, as if gazing upon their white
bosom, reflected in the clear waters, far below?
It is beautiful to stand upon the rock, in the summer-time, and feel
that God is there, in the white blossoms that float along in the air, as
well as in the glimpse of blue sky, seen from overhead, but there was a
Night, when the place seemed tenanted by the Good and the Evil Angels
of the shadowy world.
The moon rose over the eastern woods. A globe of pale golden light,
she hovered on the tops of the leafless trees, and shot her sad beams
along the summit of the giant rock, and far down the glen of Wissahikon.
That sad light shone upon the stream, as it chafed onward,
among rocks of ice, and rocks of stone; it gave a spectral glare to the
leafless woods, and revealed a sky, which, deepening into an intense
blue, and strown with points of light, looked like a tremulous curtain,
hung between man and Eternity. A tremulous curtain, veiling the awful
secrets of the World Beyond, and quivering in soft light, ere it was rolled
aside.
On the last night of 1774, as the moon rose in the east, you might
have seen two figures crouching under the giant rock, and have heard
their subdued whispers, breaking the Sabbath stillness of the air.
At their feet dashed the mill-stream, plunging into the Wissahikon,
with no bridge shadowing its tumultuous foam. The mill rose in the
south, its dark walls encircled by leafless branches. Above them, projecting
as it rose, the giant rock flung a deep shadow over the wide forest
path.
Seated on a log, beneath that rock, they conversed in whispers. One,
a stunted and withered form—like a strong oak, blasted by lightning—
brushed the long hair from his face, as he gathered the coarse mantle
around his distorted figure. The other, a tall and robust man, in the
prime of his manhood, grasped his rifle with a firm hand, and turned
his frank, earnest face, toward the horse-like visage of his companion.
“At what hour?”—said a bold voice—it was the voice of the Hunter,
Gilbert Morgan.
He gazed into the face of the hunchback, with a sensation of involuntary
awe. That long visage, shadowed by the matted hair, and resting on
the muscular breast, with the shoulders rising on either side, had a wild,
unearthly look. The small white hands were pressed against the hollow
cheeks, and a lurid light played around the eyes. It was more like the
face of a demon, than the visage of a man.
Stout Gilbert, whose tall form combined, in every outline, a rude beauty
with an iron vigor, was awed, not only by the vision of this deformed
figure and unnatural face, but by the awful night which encircled him,
the deep blue sky, made spectral by the light of the rising moon, the
Wissahikon, filling the dell with a never-ceasing echo, the trees, with
leafless branches, standing like wierd sentinels by its waters.
“At what hour?” he whispered.
“At the hour of twelve—” said Black David; his voice was soft and
musical. “Through the grove of pines, in front of the mansion, into the
front door—by this key—and up the stairs. Then, you will turn to the
right, traverse a corridor, and discover the small door leading to the
tower. The old man—”
“Isaac the Wizard?” asked Gilbert, his voice broken by a tremor.
“Isaac the Wizard!” a smile displayed the white teeth of the Deformed—“Yes,
Isaac the Wizard. You will find him in the tower.
Secure his gold. And at the hour of one, present yourself at the House
on the opposite side of the Wissahikon—you remember it?”
Gilbert shuddered. Was it from fear, as a dark Memory rushed upon
his soul, or did the accent with which Black David pronounced the italicized
words, strike him with involuntary awe?
“You are—you—” he began, but the words died on his lips.
“What am I? Tell me. I have a vast curiosity to know what the
good people of the valley and the dell say of me. A poor, deformed
wretch—eh?”
He pronounced these words with an inexpressible bitterness.
“Now look you, my friend—” Gilbert spoke in rough yet manly tones
—“No one ever yit caught me a-makin' fun of any man's personal appearance.
Don't keer how sticky the burr is, only so there's a good
chesnut inside. But I was goin' to say—”
“Well?” Black David drew nearer to him. The hunter imagined
that he felt the intense light of his eyes, shining into his face. “That
you're a queer fellow,” whispered Gilbert, as though he had relieved
himself of an important secret.
“Queer? How?”
“To day, you're seen in the service of Old Isaac. To-morrow, you are
found in the Black-House 'way up the Wissahikon, in the service of the
Priest and his Son—the—the—Monk of Wissahikon. You don't seem
to have any place to live, and nobody knows much about you, anyhow!”
“Would you like to see me raise the Devil?” said that low musical
voice, and again the expression, which we cannot depict, passed over
Black David's face.
Gilbert started to his feet, and clutched his rifle with a firmer grasp.
“Take keer, I say! None of your dark tricks here!” and he brought
the rifle to his shoulder.
The deformed arose. He raised his white hands. The moon, streaming
over the top of the rock, bathed them in soft light, while his face and
figure were wrapt in shadow.
There was something horrible to Gilbert, in that face veiled in shadow,
while the uplifted hands glowed in the pale moonlight.
“Take keer!” he shouted again, his form agitated by a perceptible
tremor—“None of yer devil's tricks on me, I say!”
“Shall I invoke his presence from the stream, which spreads black and
vague beneath us? On this rock shall I stand and say the words, and
speak the spells which will bring to your side—to yours, strong man—the
Enemy of Mankind? Oh, you feel your blood curdle, you grow cold
with fear—you—you—the stout hunter, who never felt before what it is
to fear!”
The moon shone upon Gilbert's face. Those brown features were
agitated with an intensity of fear. The eyes glassy, the lips parted, the
veins along the bared throat writhing as if in extreme physical torture—
he looked like an embodied image of fear.
“Take keer!” he growled again—“One word more, and I fire!”
“You have dared to prate of me? You, a miserable earth-worm,
whom I can crush with a word? By my soul, I have a strange whim, to
punish you for your impertinence. Shall I give you into the power of
the spirits who people this wintry air? Shall I speak, and lo! do you
not feel it already? That invisible hand, cold as death, pressed against
your cheek?”
The stout hunter shook as with an ague-chill. And yet, in his very
trembling, he was firm and brave. Awed by Black David's words,
chilled by his voice, fascinated by the strange power of his eyes, he
raised his rifle, and took deliberate aim at the breast of the hunchback.
“Now raise your Devils, if you kin. Just try it, and I'll put this
bullet through yer breast!”
Black David murmured some words in an unknown tongue. A sharp
report broke the grave-like silence, and was redoubled in a thousand
echoes. Up, slowly into the moonlight floated the blue smoke of the
rifle. The aim was deadly; the muzzle almost touched the breast of
the victim.
As the smoke rolled away, Gilbert—his brow damp with moisture—
started forward, and looked, with dilating eyes, for the mangled form of
that victim.
Black David was there, but neither mangled nor bleeding. There, before
the affrighted hunter, his horse-like face framed in his matted hair
and beard, his small hands uplifted in the moonlight.
The rifle fell from the Hunter's palsied hands.
He had endured much in his time; wandered far away among the gorges
of the Alleghanies for days, without food; he had tracked the panther into
his lair, deep in the shadows of some pathless cavern, and faced the Red
Savage, in his deadliest rage; he was a man of iron nerve and fearless
soul. It may be, that his hands were stained with innocent blood, for his
life had been nurtured into robust vigor, among scenes and with men of
the darkest and most lawless character.
But now he trembled like a child in the dark, frightened at its own
footstep. He did not fear the hunchback, with his distorted form, and
long unnatural face, but he was afraid of that which palsies the stoutest
arm, and chills the firmest heart—that terrible something, which we express
in the simple words—
“The other world!”
Therefore, as the rifle fell from his stiffening fingers, he stood trembling
in every nerve, with arms outspread, and face bathed with cold moisture,
while the moonlight still glowed upon the white hands of the Deformed.
“Yer no man, but a Devil! I aimed at yer breast—and my eye's good
to snuff a candle at a hundred yards! I loaded the rifle myself; 'twas
a sure ball, and there yo' ar', 'live as ever!”
In answer to his incoherent exclamations, the voice of Black David
broke softly on the stilled air.
“Do you feel the hand upon your cheek? It is cold—very cold, for it is
the hand of a dead man. You may turn—but you cannot see it! Still
it is there, pressing its icy fingers on your cheek, invisible, yet palpable as
life, and cold as death!”
With his small hand, he lifted the matted hair from his forehead. Gilbert
beheld it, saw the fair white skin—much fairer and clearer than the
lower part of the face—marked by a livid cross, like the half-healed cicatrice
of some hideous wound.
“And did you think to kill me?” he cried, in that voice, which, scarcely
audible, thrilled the listener to the heart, and startled the stillness with its
unearthly accent. “Me? Do you behold that sign?” His eyes gleamed
a sad and tender light. “Take the knife from your belt; strike at my
heart—strike!”
He flung the mantle from his shoulders. The hideous deformity of his
figure was made more painfully distinct, by a close-fitting dress of dark
hues, which revealed the large body supported by crooked and slender
limbs, the wide chest, with the face resting upon it, the long arms, high
shoulders, and back rising in a shapeless hump.
“Take your knife. Strike. Do not fear—the sharp blade may drive
the life from this distorted form!”
Gilbert did not touch his knife. His senses were enchained by the
eyes of the Deformed; that steady gaze held him, dumb and motionless.
“Let—me—go!” he faltered in a whisper. “Take yer eyes off o'
me—I can't move. Mercy—if yo' b'lieve in a God—mercy!”
He fell on his knees, yes, sinking on the snow which covered the sod,
and, by its spiritual white, made the clear Wissahikon look black and
spectral, he folded his arms upon his brawny chest, and his head drooped
slowly, until his face was hidden from the moon.
It seemed to him—the hardy woodsman—as though all power of mind
and body had passed from his form into the breast of the hunchback.
Even the power of speech failed him. His senses were dulled by a
drowsy languor; the sound of the Wissahikon, roaring over its rocky bed,
seemed afar off, and soon died away in a hollow murmur.
Gazing upon the prostrate huntsman, Black David stood erect, with the
moonbeams—stealing over the edge of the rock—slowly lighting up his
strange face, and brow seared by a livid cross. Around his lips, a smile
of inexpressible scorn played fitfully, while the light of his eyes grew
more intense and spectral.
“Rise!” he said, after some moments had passed.
The herculean hunter slowly rose, stretching forth his arms with a
gesture of pain, like a man who has lain for hours in a cramped and
uneasy posture.
“Take up your rifle!”
Gilbert obeyed.
“Go on your way. Do your duty, without fear. At the hour of One
—remember—the House of the Brothers! Go!”
Retreating toward the rock, Black David pointed to the west, with the
delicate fingers of his right hand.
Slowly, Gilbert passed him. Without looking to the right or left, he
hurried into the shadows of the narrow dell, through which the mill-stream
poured into the Wissahikon. He crossed the brook, now leaping
from rock to rock, now passing securely over the ice. Ascending the opposite
hill, with one foot advanced towards the west, he turned his head
over his shoulder, and, with a shudder, looked back.
Beneath the rock, Black David stood, his form lost in shadow, while
the moon played freely over his face, and revealed his white forehead,
marked by the livid cross. With his left hand, he raised the matted hair,
with the right still pointing to the west—
“When I call, you will come to me!” Gilbert heard his voice, rising
in deep emphasis—“Miles may separate us, mountains may intervene,
rivers howl between us, still you will hear my voice, and you will obey!”
At the same moment Gilbert saw a form advance from the pines, and
figure of a man, whose black attire was tinted by the rays, as, with hands
clasped, he stood motionless upon the level summit of the granite mass,
his shadowed face turned toward the Wissahikon.
“The Monk!” he cried, and—utterly bewildered by the events of the
last hour,—rushed on his westward way, his head bent upon his breast,
and his rifle on his shoulder.
Meanwhile, upon the summit of the rock stood the motionless form,
clad in a sombre robe reaching to his knees,—the face turned from the
moon—and the long, flowing black hair, surmounted by a velvet cap.
His hands were clasped, and the silver cross gleamed faintly on his
dark dress. It was a noble form, and the face, wrapt in half-shadow, was
softened by an emotion which parted the lips, and gave the large eyes a
light at once sad and tender.
Alone upon the rock—the wild woods around—the intense sky above—
he stood, while his dark form rose boldly into light, from the snow-covered
earth.
He raised his gaze to the sky—it was there, so deep, so bright, so beautiful,
like a great curtain, hung between his eyes and that awful World of
Eternity, crowded with spirits of Light and Darkness.
The air was breathlessly still. The long prolonged howl of the watchdog
came from afar with an unearthly cadence; the waves of the Wissahikon
filled the hollows in the rocks with faint murmurs.
Save these sounds, all was still.
The eyes which gleamed from that bronzed face grew brighter and
more lustrous, even as they were wet with tears.
For the soul of the young man was elevated and purified, by the supernatural
solemnity of the winter night upon the Wissahikon. To him,
the great sky was no vague blank in the Universe. It was crowded with
the Spirit People of many tongues, tribes and forms. The Stars above
were the Homes of Souls, many good, many evil, some lost in crimes,
and some pure as the light of God.
And even through the blue sky, he could look up, and see these spirits
—or to speak in language which may be more intelligible—these Men
and Women of a purer and diviner creation, circling in myriad throngs
of light and darkness. Some with their faces glowing ineffable love, and
others wearing upon their foreheads the fiery scorn of passion, defiance
and despair.
For, from very childhood, he had been taught to believe, that even as
the chain of physical existence begins with rudest beasts and almost
imperceptible reptiles, and extends upward to Man, so from Man up to
God, the chain of Spiritual Life extended in one unbroken line, creation
crowding on creation, and tribes of spirits rising above other tribes,
Father of Eternity.
Therefore, to him, the beautiful sky did not seem a vague blank in
creation, peopled only with stars, that were desert worlds.
Nor did the rivulet, tossing among its ice-covered rocks, nor the leafless
trees around it, rising bleakly from the snowy earth, nor the deep glens,
sunken here and there on the borders of the gorge of Wissahikon, wear
only their external forms of wildness and beauty.
They were peopled with absorbing associations; not a rock but had
its own interest, not a tree but waved in the moonlight, stirred by some
hand, to him invisible. The very air was thronged—dense—with the
Spirit People.
Ere you smile at the young man, and scorn his spiritual belief, let me
impress a few facts distinctly on your minds.
He has never passed the space of an hour's journey from the gorge
of Wissahikon.
His mind has been shaped in solitude; in an ancient mansion, centered
among these woods, he has lived since that hour of childhood, which has
but a faint mist, in place of Memory.
For some reason—hereafter to be explained—a solemn charge has
been laid upon his soul, never to permit his footsteps to wander from the
valley of Wissahikon, nor to gaze long upon the faces of men, much less
to enter into the spirit and the purposes of their every-day thoughts.
Within the Block-House, with no companionship save the aged man,
his father, and the fair girl, his sister, he has grown up to young manhood.
That sister he loves, but it is with a love, calm and serene as the stars.
That Love which burns and devours and maddens, has yet to come!
And he has yet to behold that horrible libel on the Universe of God,
that ulcer on the bosom of creation, that foul Congress of demoniac passions,
some tinseled with gold, and others naked as unveiled Devils—
he has yet, and for the first time to behold—the Great City.
Look upon him now, as he stands upon the rock, so serene in his
young manhood, his bronzed face softened by emotions vast and ineffable
as the great Universe which shuts him in.
His voice is heard; he speaks aloud, while, crouching in the shadow
of the very rock on which he stands, Black David hears his every word,
and smiles.
“Shall I—I—that have been nurtured among these solitudes, and taught
to see God in every flower, to hear his Spirit in every breeze—shall I
ever share the tumult and the hatred of the great world, which lies be
yond the Wissahikon!”
He paused, and raised his eyes to heaven.
But, in the shadow of the rock, Black David spoke—
“You shall! With the hilt in your hand, and the point to the heart
of your foe, you will wield the sword, and feel how deep the joy of
shedding blood!”
He did not hear that voice, which, like a mocking echo, spoke, ere his
words had died away.
“And woman—shall I ever look upon her, but as some Pure Angel,
enshrined in the light flowing from the fountain of her own holiness?
This madness of passion—of which the Poets speak—this devouring
frenzy, which tramples alike on truth and honor, and reaps its harvest
in the desolation of some virgin soul, in the infamy of some unpolluted
body—shall it ever burn within my veins?”
Still, from the shadow of the rock, the hunchback answered, with his
smile, that was cold as the moonbeam playing on the snow:
“It shall! Even at this moment, she gazes proudly in her mirror,
and surveys the passionate beauty of her heaving breast, and wonders
when he that is to love her will appear!”
Still this voice, speaking its scorn and its prophecy from the shadow,
did not reach the ears of the young man who stood upon the rock.
With his face, so bold and thoughtful in every outline, hallowed by an
emotion that was very much like Prayer—Prayer at once sublime and
voiceless—he uncovered his brow, and his long black hair floated freely
on the wind.
His lustrous eyes upraised, he stretched toward the sky his
sinewy arm, and again his bold deep voice startled the Sabbath stillness—
“Here be my lot forever, O Father! Here, where Thy name is written
by the stars in the bosom of the waters, and the heart dwells with
itself, and has no ambition but to tremble nearer to its God! Here, as
long as my soul wears this drapery of mortality, may I dwell, and seek
no purer joy than to lead my father softly down the last steps of life
that lie between him and the grave, and know no deeper care than to
watch the soul of my stainless sister—and love it more serenely—as it blossoms
into its perfect bloom!”
As he spoke, a voice, sudden and abrupt, sounded at his side—
“Lord of Ardenheim”—
He turned with a sudden gesture, and saw a deformed figure, bending
respectfully, nay, in an attitude of servile obedience, before him.
“It it you, David?” he cried, somewhat startled by the voice, and the
strange words, which had been uttered, so abruptly, in his very ear.
“The poor hunchback, whose reason is lost in a hopeless chaos!” he
muttered to himself.
At the same time, clasping his hands and bending his head, until the
matted hair concealed his face, David stood before the young man, like a
servant who awaits his master's commands.
“What were those strange words which you uttered, but a moment
past?” he said, looking in compassion upon the deformed wretch.
“Nothing—my good master, nothing—only—but poor David's mind
wanders. David is cold—he cannot remember what he has heard. An
old man in danger. Yo' see the robbers are a-goin' to murder him; so
I heard them say. An old man with white hair—alone in a big house—
and a daughter—poor David's brain is very—very dark—”
“There is some dark truth in this chaos of confused memories”—the
thought flashed over the mind of Paul Ardenheim—“Robbers, did you
say? An old man in danger? Where, David—speak to Paul—he is
your friend. Tell him of these robbers.”
In his compassion for the wandering intellect, the bodily and mental
decrepitude of Black David, Paul was wont to speak to him as to a way-ward
child.
“It was—it was—” and the hunchback laid his hand upon his forehead,
as if in the attempt to fix some vagrant memory.
“Yes—the robbers—the old man—” gasped Paul, with impatient
earnestness.
“On the Wissahikon—” slowly exclaimed Black David—“The
mansion on the hill near the Schuylkill, under the tall pines—”
“Isaac Van Behme?” asked Paul, laying his hand on the hunchback's
arm.
“Yes—Isaac the Wizard!” cried Black David, with a sudden joy
flashing from his eyes—“That's the old man. I heerd 'em jist now—
under the rock—they've gone to murder him. You see, poor David is
weak. Paul is strong. And—”
There came over the young man's face an expression of determination,
which compressed his lips, and gave a deeper light to his eyes.
His arching brows—black and almost crescent-shaped—were shadowed
by a slight frown. As he turned to the moonlight, the silver cross rose
and fell, on his heaving chest.
“Thanks, good David,” he said, kindly pressing the hunchback's
hand. “By the blessing of God, I will save the old man!”
He descended from the rock, and presently, his form, attired in its
sombre robes, was seen on the opposite side of the mill-stream, on the
very spot where Gilbert had stood and looked back, but a few moments
before.
And from the top of the solitary rock, Black David contemplated him,
folding his arms, and standing as motionless as the great mass beneath
his feet, as he beheld that commanding figure—the face whose features
were shadowed in the gloom—the breast glittering with the silver cross.
The eyes of Black David grew vivid in their light, as, brushing aside
the matted hair from his forehead, he disclosed the Dark Cross, traced
on its fair hues.
“You go on a strange pathway, my Lord Paul, Count of Ardenheim
and Baron of Lyndulfe! Nero was once a dreaming boy, and Judas a
pure Disciple! Borgia, the Pope, was, in his young manhood, an example
of generous friendship and chivalrous honor. And yet Nero
made merry music while Rome was in flames—Nero looked with licentious
curiosity upon the dead mother, whom his own hand had slain.
Judas betrayed the Lord, who had broken bread with him, and sent the
Man-God who had loved him, to an ignominious death. Borgia became
the Demon-Pope, the lover of his own child, the—”
He paused, and the moon, shining upon his brow, scarred by the livid
cross, revealed the strange agitation of his large eyes, his quivering lips,
and hollow cheeks, as once more he whispered in his musical voice—
“You go on a strange pathway, my Lord Paul, Count of Ardenheim
and Baron of Lyndulfe!”
And the words had not passed his lips, when Paul disappeared among
the shadows of the leafless trees.
5. CHAPTER FIFTH.
THE MONASTERY.
Ere we follow the footsteps of Paul Ardenheim, let us turn back in
our history, and behold a scene which occurred some months before, when
the blush of June was upon the Wissahikon woods.
It stood in the shadows of the Wissahikon woods, that ancient Monastery,
its dark walls canopied by the boughs of a gloomy pine, interwoven
with leaves of grand old oaks.
From the waters of the wood-hidden stream, a winding road led up to
its gates; a winding road overhung with tall, rank grass, and sheltered
from the light by the thick branches above.
A Monastery? Yes, a Monastery, here amid the wilds of Wissahikon,
in the year of Grace, 1774; a Monastery built upon the soil of William
Penn!
Let me paint it for you, at the close of this calm summer day.
The beams of the sun, declining far in the west, shoot between the
thickly gathered leaves, and light up the green sward around those
massive gates, and stream with sudden glory over the dark old walls. It
no walls of massive stone. A huge square edifice, built one hundred
years ago of the trunks of giant oaks and pines, it rises amid the woods,
like the temple of some long-forgotten religion. The roof is broken into
many fantastic forms;—here it rises in a steep gable, yonder the heavy
logs are laid prostrate; again they swell into a shapeless mass, as though
stricken by a hurricane.
Not many windows are there in the dark old walls, but to the west
four large square spaces, framed in heavy pieces of timber, break on your
eye, while on the other sides the old house presents one blank mass of
logs, rising on logs.
No: not one blank mass, for at this time of year, when the breath of
June hides the Wissahikon in a world of leaves, the old Monastery looks
like a grim soldier, who, scathed by time and battle, wears yet thick
wreaths of laurel over his armor, and about his brow.
Green vines girdle the ancient house on every side. From the squares
of the dark windows, from the intervals of the massive logs, they hang
in luxuriant festoons, while the shapeless roof is all one mass of leaves.
Nay, even the wall of logs which extends around the old house, with a
ponderous gate to the west, is green with the touch of June. Not a trunk
but blooms with some drooping vine; even the gateposts, each a solid
column of oak, seem to wave to and fro, as the summer breeze plays with
their drapery of green leaves.
It is a sad, still hour. The beams of the sun stream with fitful splendor
over the green sward. That strange old mansion seems as sad and desolate
as the tomb. But suddenly—hark! Do you hear the clanking of
those bolts, the crashing of the unclosing gates?
The gates creak slowly aside!—let us steal behind this cluster of pines,
and gaze upon the inhabitants of the Monastery, as they come forth for
their evening walk.
Three figures issue from the opened gates. An old man, whose withered
features and white hairs are thrown strongly into the fading light by his
long robe of dark velvet. On one arm leans a young girl, also dressed
in black, her golden hair falling—not in ringlets—but in rich masses, to
her shoulders. She bends upon his arm, and with that living smile upon
her lips, and in her eyes, looks up into his face.
On the other arm, a young man, whose form, swelling with the proud
outlines of early manhood, is attired in a robe or gown, dark as his
father's, while his bronzed face, shaded by curling brown hair, seems to
reflect the silent thought written upon the old man's brow.
They pace slowly along the sod. Not a word is spoken. The old
man raises his eyes, and lifts the square cap from his brow—look! how
that golden beam plays along his brow, while the evening breeze tosses
his white hairs. There is much suffering, many deep traces of the Past,
from his blue eyes.
The young man—his dark eyes, wildly glaring, fixed upon the sod—
moves by the old man's side, but speaks no word.
The girl, that image of maidenly grace, nurtured into beauty within an
hour's journey of the city, and yet afar from the world, still bends over
that aged arm, and looks smilingly into that withered face, her glossy
hair waving in the summer wind.
Who are these, that come hither, pacing at the evening hour, along the
wild moss? The father and his children!
What means that deep, strange light, flashing not only from the blue
eyes of the father, but from the dark eyes of his son?
Does it need a second glance to tell you, that it is the light of Fanaticism,
that distortion of Faith—the wild glare of Superstition, that deformity
of Religion?
The night comes slowly down. Still the Father and Son pace the
ground in silence, while the breeze freshens and makes low music among
the leaves.—Still the young girl, bending over the old man's arm, smiles
tenderly in his face, as though she would drive the sadness from his brow
with one gleam of her mild blue eyes.
At last—within the shadows of the gate, their faces lighted by the last
gleam of the setting sun—the old man and his son stand like figures of
stone, while each grasps a hand of the young girl.
Is it not a strange yet beautiful picture? The old Monastery forms
one dense mass of shade; on either side extends the darkening forest,
yet here, within the portals of the gate, the three figures are grouped,
while a warm, soft mass of tufted moss, spreads before them. The proud
manhood of the son, contrasted with the white locks of the father, the
tender yet voluptuous beauty of the girl relieving the thought and sadness
which glooms over each brow.
Hold—the Father presses the wrist of his Son with a convulsive grasp
—hush! Do you hear that low deep whisper?
“At last, it comes to my soul, the Fulfilment of Prophecy!” he whispers
and is silent again, but his lip trembles and his eye glares.
“But the time—Father—the time?” the Son replies in the same deep
voice, while his eye, dilating, fires with the same feeling that swells his
Father's heart.
“The last day of this year—the third hour after midnight—the Deliverer
will come!”
These words may seem lame and meaningless, when spoken again, but
had you seen the look that kindled over the old man's face, his white
hand raised above his head, had you heard his deep voice swelling through
the silence of the woods, each word would ring on your ear, as though it
quivered from a spirit's tongue.
Then the old man and his son knelt on the sod, while the young
girl—looking in their faces with wonder and awe—sank silently beside
them.
The tones of Prayer broke upon the stillness of the darkening woods.
Tell us the meaning of this scene. Wherefore call this huge edifice,
whose dark logs are clothed in green leaves, by the old-world name of
Monastery? Who are these—father, son and daughter—that dwell within
its walls?
Seventeen years ago—from this year of Grace, 1774,—there came to
the wilds of the Wissahikon, a man in the prime of mature manhood, clad
in a long, dark robe, with a cross of silver gleaming on his breast. With
one arm he gathered to his heart a smiling babe, a little girl, whose golden
hair floated over his dark dress like sunshine over a pall; by the other
hand he led a dark-haired boy.
His name, his origin, his object in the wilderness, no one knew; but
purchasing the ruined Block-House, which bore on its walls and timbers
the marks of many an Indian fight, he shut himself out from all the world.
His son, his daughter, grew up together in this wild solitude. The voice
of prayer was often heard, at dead of night, by the belated huntsman,
swelling from the silence of the lonely house.
By slow degrees, whether from the cross which the old stranger wore
upon his breast, or from the sculptured images which had been seen within
the walls of his forest home, the place was called—the Monastery—
and its occupant the Priest.
Had he been drawn from his native home by crime? Was his name
enrolled among the titled and the great of his Father-land, Germany?
Or, perchance, he was one of those stern visionaries, the Pietists of
Germany, who, lashed alike by Catholic and Protestant persecutors,
brought to the wilds of Wissahikon their beautiful Fanaticism?
For that Fanaticism, professed by a band of brothers, who, years before,
driven from Germany, came here to Wissahikon, built their Monastery,
and worshipped God, without a written creed, was beautiful.
It was a wild belief, tinctured with the dreams of Alchemists, it may
be, yet still full of faith in God, and love to man. Persecuted by the
Protestants of Germany, as it was by the Catholics of France, it still
treasured the Bible as its law and the Cross as its symbol.
The Monastery, in which the brothers of the faith lived for long years,
was situated on the brow of a hill, not a mile from the old Block-House.
Here the Brothers had dwelt, in the deep serenity of their own hearts,
until one evening they gathered in their garden, around the form of their
dying father, who yielded his soul to God in their midst, while the setting
sun and the calm silence of universal nature gave a strange grandeur to
the scene.
But it was not with this Brotherhood that the stranger of the Block-House
held communion.
His communion was with the dark-eyed son, who grew up, drinking
the fanaticism of his father, in many a midnight watch; with the golden-haired
daughter, whose smile was wont to drive the gloom from his brow,
the wearing anxiety from his heart.
Who was the stranger? No one knew. The farmer of the Wissahikon
had often seen his dark-robed form, passing like a ghost under the
solemn pines; the wandering huntsman had many a time, on his midnight
ramble, heard the sounds of prayer breaking along the silence of the
woods from the Block-House walls: yet still the life, origin, objects of
the stranger were wrapt in impenetrable mystery.
Would you know more of his life? Would you penetrate the mystery
of this dim old Monastery, shadowed by the thickly-clustered oaks and
pines, shut out from the world by the barrier of impenetrable forests?
Would you know the meaning of those strange words, uttered by the
old man, on the calm summer evening?
Come with me, then—at midnight—on the last night of 1774. We
will enter the Block-House together, and behold a scene, which, derived
from a tradition of the past, is well calculated to thrill the heart with
a deep awe.
It is midnight: there is snow on the ground: the leafless trees fling
their bared limbs against the cold blue of the starlit sky.
The old Block-House rises dark and gloomy from the snow, with the
heavy trees extending all around.
The wind sweeps through the woods, not with a boisterous roar, but
the strange sad cadence of an organ, whose notes swell away through the
arches of a dim cathedral aisle.
Who would dream that living beings tenanted this dark mansion,
arising in one black mass from the bed of snow, its huge timbers revealed
in various indistinct forms, by the cold clear light of the stars? Centred
in the midst of the desolate woods, it looks like the abode of spirits,
or like some strange sepulchre, in which the dead of long-past ages lie
entombed.
There is no foot-track on the winding road—the snow presents one
smooth white surface—yet the gates are thrown wide open, as if ready
for the coming of a welcome guest.
Through this low, narrow door—also flung wide open—along this dark
corridor, we will enter the Monastery.
In the centre of this room, illumined by the light of two tall white
candles, sits the old man, his slender form clad in dark velvet, with the
silver cross gleaming on his bosom, buried in the cushions of an oaken
chair.
His slender hands are laid upon his knees—he sways slowly to and fro
—while his large blue eye, dilating with a wild stare, is fixed upon the
opposite wall.
Hush! Not a word—not even the creaking of a footstep—for this old
man, wrapped in his thoughts, sitting alone in the centre of this strangely
furnished room, fills us with involuntary reverence.
Strangely furnished room? Yes, circular in form, with a single door-way;
huge panels of dark oaken wainscot rise from the bared floor to the
gloomy ceiling. Near the old man arises a white altar, on which the
candles are placed, its spotless curtain floating down to the floor. Between
the candles, you behold a long, slender flagon of silver, a wreath
of laurel leaves, fresh gathered from the Wissahikon hills, and a Holy
Bible, bound in velvet, with antique clasps of gold.
Behind the altar, gloomy and sullen, as if struggling with the shadows
of the room, arises a cross of Iron.
On yonder small fire-place, rude logs of oak and hickory send up their
mingled smoke and flame.
The old man sits there, his eyes growing wilder in their gaze every
moment, fixed upon the solitary door. Still he sways to and fro, and
now his thin lips move, and a faint murmur fills the room.
“He will come!” mutters the Priest of the Wissahikon, as common
rumor named him. “At the third hour after midnight the Deliverer will
come!”
Yet while the aged man in the Block-house, after weary years of
thought, awaits the great end of his long vigil of Prayer, we will follow
the footsteps of his son, and witness scenes of novel and absorbing
interest.
It is now the hour of twelve, on the Last Night of 1774. While the
guests are feasting in the farm-house and dancing the old year to his grave,
while Gilbert goes on his way of Blood, and Paul on his errand of Peace,
the moon rises higher in the cloudless sky, and bathes the winding gorge
—the snowy hills—the wilderness of leafless trees, in light, at once sad
and sepulchral.
Yonder, on the summit of the broad hill, which rises on the south of
Wissahikon, we behold a stone mansion, centred in a grove of tall pines,
whose branches are bent with the weight of snow.
Through these thickly-woven pines, the moonlight comes in uncertain
gleams; now the level space in front of the hall door is alive with belts
of silvery light, that move hurriedly over the frozen snow, and again a
dense shadow broods around the mansion.
Its outlines are wrapped in gloom. Before the door, a fallen statue of
some heathen deity lies half-covered in snow; the shutters are closed;
the whole place wears an aspect of desolation.
Yet, from the circular tower which rises from the centre of the roof, a
vivid ray flashes far over the snow, until it is lost in the brightness, yonder,
beyond the grove of pines.
And while this light flashes from the tower of the mansion, on the southern
hill of Wissahikon, on the opposite shore, not more than five hundred
yards away, another ray gleams from the leafless trees, and trembles
on the bosom of the Wissahikon.
Deep sunken between two high hills, an old house stands there, encircled
with dreary brushwood, with the trees gathered thickly around it,
and the shutters on its narrow windows closed like the portals of a grave-vault.
Through the closed shutters, that faint and wandering ray streams
out upon the night, while the subdued echoes from its secret chambers
break at sudden intervals upon the Sabbath stillness of the air.
First we will turn our gaze toward the grand old mansion, on the southern
hills. It is the house of Isaac Van Behme, called Isaac the Wizard.
Then to the deserted house, sunken in the sombre hollow, on the northern
shore of Wissahikon, where the closed shutters and impenetrable
walls cannot altogether drown the sounds which awake the echoes of its
gloomy chambers.
Strange sounds, gloomy echoes! The deserted house is looked upon
with superstitious fear, by the people of the hill-side and forest. It is
haunted; ghosts are seen gliding through the shadows of its encircling
thickets; the Great Fiend himself comes nightly to visit its chambers.
Years ago, when it was a comfortable home, the country residence of a
foreigner, who sojourned awhile in the city, and spent his summer hours
beside the Wissahikon, a guest was murdered by its very hearthstone,
and buried in its cellar. So run the vague superstitions of the Wissahikon
folks, in regard to the ruined house.
It is indeed haunted, but by Ghosts or by living Men, who appear like
ghosts, and come and go, under the mantle of an impenetrable mystery?
The Great Fiend, in truth, does often visit its walls, but not the Satan
whom men fear, armed with grotesque terrors, formidable with hoof and
horns and tail.
That Fiend is the Invisible Head of a Secret Organization, which extends
from these woods of Wissahikon, over the continent of America,
and only speaks to hear its mandates re-echoed by the thousand Lodges
of the Old World and the New.
6. CHAPTER SIXTH.
THE WIZARD'S DAUGHTER.
Before the mirror stood a Maiden, gazing upon the reflected beauty of
her dark eyes, the reflected loveliness of her half-bared bosom—
—These words may seem very abrupt and somewhat rude, but when
you have taken in the entire details of the picture, you will agree with
me, that it was a sight altogether interesting—perchance beautiful.—
It was not an oval mirror, framed in a narrow rim of carved walnut,
and placed upon an antique dressing-bureau. Nor was it encircled by a
frame of showy gilt, with golden flowers and golden Cupids strown about
its brightness.
It was a square mirror, framed by the dark paneling of the maiden's
chamber, and reaching from the ceiling to the floor.
Before it, with the light shining on her forehead, and a robe of dark velvet
flowing from her left shoulder over her form, and flowing in folds by no
means constrained or formal, stood a girl of eighteen years, whose eyes,
and brows, and hair were all intensely black.
Her complexion was brown, but a clear, rich brown, more beautiful to
look upon than the fairest blonde. For in the centre of each swelling
cheek, and on her lips, through whose intervals her white teeth were seen,
that brown complexion bloomed into the rosiest red.
The eyes were dark and very bright, but the half-closed lids and the
long lashes veiled their brightness, and subdued it into a dreamy languor.
Her hair was turned aside from her forehead, and bound at the back of
her head, in a mass of glossy blackness. But part of it, not so much a
tress, as two or three tresses linked together, escaping from the cincture,
floated down her cheek, and made her bared shoulder look more white
and beautiful, as it trembled over its faultless outlines.
In her left hand she held the lamp, while, with her right arm bent,
she clasped the mantle to her bosom, that mantle, whose loose-flowing
folds marked the outlines of her shape, and left her naked feet bare to
the light.
The light streamed warmly over her face, tinted her dark hair, and
showed a gleam of the white bosom, heaving beneath the golden fringe
of the black mantle.
That face is full of character. It speaks the soul. The languid eyelids,
and the parted lips; the cheek glowing into crimson, and the eye
veiled in a dewy moisture—all speak of a warm, nay, a passionate
organization.
But the white forehead, rendered more distinct in every outline by the
an ambitious organization.
Nor does the form, whose outlines are betrayed by the loosely flowing
folds of velvet, lack expression, at once decided and bewitching.
The bared left arm glows softly in the light, with its clear skin and
round outlines, and tapers into the white hand, whose palm is velvety
whose fingers seem like transparent marble, warmed by a rosy radiance.
The bust is round, full, like a flower, that only demands another moment,
to ripen it into perfect bloom. The waist is slender, but by no
means like the waist of a fashion-plate or a wasp. The small feet, relieved
by the dark matting on which they rest, harmonize with the hands
and indicate, by their delicacy of outline, the voluptuous fulness of the
maiden's form.
And in the mirror, framed in the dark paneling, and reaching from the
ceiling to the floor, she beholds that form, and gazes in dreamy languor
upon the warm loveliness of her face.
The room, in which she stands, may claim our passing glance. It is
square, paneled with dark wood, with a door in the south, a recess on the
north, a window looking to the east, over a waste of frozen snow, just
silvered by the rising moon.
The dark wood is carved with the faces of nymphs, fauns, satyrs,
cupids and devils, with here and there a mask, or a cluster of flowers, or
a garland of leaves.
The recess is veiled from our sight by curtains of purple tapestry, that
look black in the candle-light, and fall with their golden fringe upon the
floor.
The floor is polished, until it resembles a mirror; the dark matting
on which the maiden stands, an antique dressing-bureau, and two chairs,
cumbrous with carvings and embroidery, alone break the uniformity of its
glittering surface.
The curtains of snowy whiteness, which sometimes veil the window,
are now drawn aside, and the moonlight comes through the narrow
panes, and shines in a line of light along the floor.
Altogether, it is a beautiful picture; this room, paneled with dark
wood, with a beautiful girl standing in its centre, the light shining above her
head, revealing another maiden, as lovely as herself, smiling upon her
from the mirror, into whose brightness she is gazing.
And as she stands there, surveying with voluptuous languor the image
of her own loveliness, reflected in the mirror, the dead silence is broken
by a sudden, sharp sound.
The mirror moves—it trembles like a smooth lake into which a pebble
is thrown—it passes slowly aside, and disappears within the panel. A
deep recess is visible, where, but a moment since, the mirror shone.
The maiden trembles, she utters a sudden cry of terror, and sinks on
over her shoulders.
Her cheek becomes as pale as death. No longer veiled in languid
moisture, no longer hidden under the downcast lid, her eye dilates—
flashes with terror.
There is a form in the recess—is it but an Apparition roused from the
shadows of the Other World, or the form of a human being?
The maiden raises her eyes—for a moment the deathly paleness of her
face struggles with a rosy bloom—and then, blushing over her cheek, her
neck and her bosom, which pants suddenly into light, that flush fires her
face with a warm, voluptuous beauty.
With a gesture of involuntary joy, she raises her arms, and casts her
fallen tresses aside from her white shoulder—
“The Monk of Wissahikon!”
And once more, over the cheek, and brow, and bosom, she blushes
like a new-born summer morning.
7. CHAPTER SEVENTH.
THE PHIAL OF ETERNAL YOUTH.
At the same moment, in another apartment of the Wizard's mansion,
a far different scene was in progress.
Let us leave the chamber of the maiden, and pass along the corridor,
lighted by a hanging lamp, which reveals the wide stairway, descending
to the ground floor of the mansion, and also shines upon the narrow door,
whose panels break the uniformity of the oaken wainscot. That narrow
door conceals the confined staircase leading upward into the tower, on
the summit of the mansion.
The lamp, or rather lantern, hangs from the ceiling, right above the
wide stairway, and throws but a faint light over its windings while it
glows brightly on the narrow door.
A step is heard, like the subdued and stealthy tread of an armed man,
and presently we discern a figure in the darkness of the stairway—it
slowly ascends—and in a moment, the light discloses the face of Gilbert
Morgan, shadowed by a look of sullen ferocity.
He leans against the railings of the stairway, and bends his head to
one side, in the attitude of one who listens intently for the faintest sound
the mahogany railing, while his left hand, dropped at his side, grasps the
unsheathed hunting-knife.
And as he listens, the light discloses that almost gigantic form, enveloped
in the blue hunting-shirt, which, leaving the throat bare, falls to the
knees, edged with white fur, while the brown face—thrown into bold
relief by the darkness of the stairway—works in every nerve, as with
the impulse of plunder and carnage.
He listens—lips compressed, eyes shadowed by the down-drawn brows
—but all is still.
One step, stealthy as a panther's tread, toward the door of the maid
en's chamber. His bent head touches the dark panels; all silent, not
a sound meets his ear. Then, underneath the swinging lantern he
stands again, and his face is covered by a dark mask, which, tied around
the forehead, reaches to the mouth, and leaves only the lower part of the
visage exposed to the light. With the knife in his right hand, he approaches
the narrow door, lifts the latch, and places his foot upon the
first step of the dark staircase.
The sound of voices, rendered faint by distance, breaks indistinctly on
his ears. Without a word he enters the door, and in the darkness ascends
the stairway. The walls touch his shoulders on either side; the
ceiling is so low, that he is forced to bend his head upon his breast, as
he ascends.
Those words become more distinct, and after twenty steps are passed,
a ray of light streams through the intervals of a curtain, and glimmers
out upon the blackness of the stairway.
That curtain supplies the place of a door, and separates the haunt of
the Wizard from the staircase.
Gilbert is on the topmost step; knife in hand he approaches the curtain.
As the ray flashes over his masked face, he stealthily advances,
and looks within.
“It is the appointed time!”
The rude hunter, bent on a deed of violence, swayed by invisible
hands to an act of midnight plunder, felt a superstitious thrill pervade
his veins, at the sound of that voice.
It must be confessed, that the scene which he beheld, might have
chilled with awe a stouter heart, a bolder brain than his.
A small lamp, glittering like polished silver, hung by a chain from the
dome-like ceiling, and cast a pure and spiritual light over the place.
It was a circular room, not more than twenty feet in diameter. The
walls were hung with parchments, inscribed with Hebrew and Arabic
characters. A recess was filled with massive volumes, whose dusty
covers, and silver clasps, bore the traces of a venerable age. On one
side, hung a skeleton, the white skull and hollow orbits glaring in the
cloth, tattered with age, and covered with dust, stood crect against the
wall. That shapeless mass was once a living soul; a thousand years
ago, it trod the soil of the New World, perchance a warrior armed for
battle, or it may be, a Priest of some forgotten creed, with the knife of
sacrifice in his hand. It is an Indian Mummy, exhumed from a mound
on the far western prairies.
It was in the centre of the room, whose walls were crowded with
strange and contrasted details, that a picture of some interest was disclosed
by the rays of the hanging lamp.
An old man bent over a corse, a knife in his hand, while his blue eyes
shone from his withered face with a wild unearthly light. He was clad
in a black gown, whose loose folds concealed the outlines of his
shrunken limbs.
The corse, extended on a board which rested on tressels, was half-concealed
by a white cloth, which swept in careless folds from the waist to
the feet. But the broad chest, the sinewy throat, the dark-red visage,
were bare; the face, wrinkled by age, wore, even in death, a look of iron
defiance.
It was the dead body of the Chief, Yoconok.
Opposite the old man, crouching on the floor, the figure of the deformed
man, known as Black David, was visible. Resting his cheek upon his
hand, he gazed upon him steadily, his eyes almost hidden by the thick
meshes of his long hair. With that pale face, encircled by the dark
beard and hair, quivering with half-suppressed laughter, Black David
looked like some Demon, summoned by the craft of the Wizard to aid in
his unholy task.
“It is the appointed time. I am about to behold the great result of the
ceaseless toil of twenty-one years. For twenty-one years, by night and
day, in the cell beneath this house, I have watched for the moment
when the liquid of immortal life should greet my eyes. The liquid is in
my hand; this phial contains those priceless drops, every one of which
is worth an hundred years of life. But thou canst not comprehend me,
David—nature, in giving thee a body hideously deformed, has not supplied
the lack of manly beauty with the gift of an intelligent soul. Thou
canst but aid me with thy brute strength. Rise, David. Watch the hour-glass
on yonder shelf. When its sands are run, the dead will rise—this
cold image of clay become a young and vigorous man!”
Black David rose, and, gliding to the recess, glanced upon the hour-glass.
Its sands were well night run. Then, sinking upon the floor
again, he placed his face within his hands, and observed the old man,
with an unvarying gaze.
It was wonderful to mark the energy which lighted up that withered
face, and shone without ceasing, in the clear blue eyes. It was the
nursed into unnatural vigor by the delusions of a long life.
“He shall rise! Young and beautiful, I will make of his beauty and
his youth, the unfailing instruments of my will. When I have raised the
dead, changed death into life, then will the rest of my great task become
plain and palpable. First, the dead must be raised, then baser metals may
be transmuted into gold. So read the lessons of the sages, so speak
they all, from Apollonius of Tryana down to Paracelsus and Agrippa!”
“Gold? Ho—ho! What will you do with gold—” sneered Black
David, as he looked steadily into the old man's face. “Why, Master,
you've one foot in the grave already, and 'tother is slippin' arter it. Eh
—o-o-h! I see—you want it for your coffin!”
“Poor wretch!” muttered Isaac in a tone of deep pity—“He speaks
the language of the world. But I will use him as an instrument in my
great design. When I am dead, he will apply the liquid to my cold lips,
and the old man, withered by the toil of a long life—the limbs shrunken,
the face wrinkled, the heart chilled—shall start into being, with hope in
his veins, and young manhood sparkling in his eyes!”
Black David drew near the corse, while Isaac was speaking; he laid
his hand upon the frowning brow of the dead man.
“Dost say 'un will come to life again?” he said, with an idiotic smile
and vacant stare. “No! It ain't possible, Master Behme! He be stone
dead—see!”
Gilbert, from his place of concealment, beheld the Deformed lift the
naked arm of the Indian—sway it carelessly to and fro—and then dash it
with some violence upon his broad chest.
The hunter trembled from head to foot, not so much with fear of the
Wizard, as with a sensation of creeping awe, which chilled his veins,
whenever he saw the cold gleam of the hunchback's eyes.
But, trembling from head to foot, he placed the knife in his belt again,
and in the darkness, felt the lock of his pistol.
“That ar' cripple's a born devil; but as for Isaac, I'll see what he's
made of!” he muttered—“He must'nt cut any of his shines over the
Ingin's dead carcase, while I'm about!”
“Do not touch the dead—” said Isaac with an energetic gesture—
“Back from the corse, I say, and watch while I make the last experiment.
The time will come, David, when you will have to do a deed like
this—mark me, therefore, so that you may call your Master back to life,
when he is dead.”
He bent over the corse, holding in one hand the scalpel, or dissecting-knife,
while in the other he grasped a small glass phial.
Black David approached, and watched him with great earnestness, his
face lengthening with an expression of vacant wonder, most ludicrous to
behold.
“Y-a-a-s, Master—” he drawled—“I sees!”
“The born devil!” muttered Gilbert, behind the curtain—“I'll be
bound he plays old Isaac some cursed trick before he's many minutes
older. Jist look at his face—as simple as a school-boy arter a good
lickin'—and yet the very Devil's in them eyes!”
“When the moment is come, David, I will describe a Cross—thus—
with the point of the knife, on the breast of the dead man. Pronouncing
the awful name of God—which the High Priest of the Jews uttered but
once a year, and that in the Holy of Holies—pronouncing THE NAME
which has been lost to the mass of mankind for thousands of years, I
will pour a drop of this liquid into the wound, made by the knife. Yet,
mark ye, it must be poured into the very centre of the Cross, else is the
charm in vain, and the elixir without power.”
“Then, Master—” mumbled Black David, twisting his fingers in the
meshes of his hair.
“Even as prussic acid, applied to the lips, kills at once—kills ere the
hand that applied it falls to the side—so will this liquid, poured on the
Cross, which is cut into the flesh with the knife, bring the dead to life,
ere a second is gone.—In a few moments, David, you will see it done!”
The old man stood contemplating the slender phial, which was filled
with a colorless and transparent liquid. A look of strange sadness came
over his face, as he muttered an incoherent soliloquy:
“I was young; my step firm, my eye bright; youth in my veins, hope
in my eye. I loved; there was a wife, a child in my home. A gorgeous
home amid the hills of Yorkshire, where the proud and beautiful came
thronging, to pay their homage to the—WEALTHY COMMONER. Isaac Van
Behme was then the owner of millions. Ah, I was afraid that I might
die—be gathered to a cold vault, and leave my wealth to others. Then a
yearning desire sprung up within me, and changed my nature. I was,
indeed, born again. To live forever on the earth—to fear no decay—to
create gold at will, from the baser metals—to be immortal at once, in the
power of youth and in gold! My wife died—I cared not. That one desire
became the great passion of my being. I interrogated the Past—I
wrung knowledge from the writings of the ancient seers—I grappled with
Death itself, and besought the answer to my question, `In what part of
the human frame does the Principle of Life make its dwelling?”
“Nay—I tracked the dark avenues of the gold mine, and sought day
after day, year after year, to look upon the Great Laboratory of Nature,
and learn the process, by which she turns base lead and copper into
gold. The end of my toil is near. The old man, hidden in this lonely
valley, shall soon go forth again into the great world; he shall become
once more the comrade of Kings; his child may perchance feel the weight
of a crown upon her brows!”
With his large blue eye fixed upon the slender phial, he paced along
clear rays of the lamp shone warmly upon his venerable hair.
As he paced along, absorbed in his wild fanaticism, Black David,
crouching near the corse with his face resting between his hands, looked
up, from beneath his bushy eyebrows, laughing all over his colorless face,
as he muttered—
“Fool! Would he might gain his wish, and know at once, that hell
has no curse so horrible, as the blessing he desires—eternal life on earth,
gold without end.”
Gilbert felt a strange pity melt his rude heart, as he gazed upon
the old man's face. There was an overwhelming desire, written on
every withered line; as the eyes shone in deep clear light, and the lips grew
tremulous, the hunter heard him whisper without ceasing these words—
“Youth—Gold! Gold—Youth! Youth—Gold!”
And so the withered Fanatic paced the floor of the strange room,
grasping, in those two words, the great desire of the whole world of
mankind, while, crouching like an embodied scorn, near his feet, Black
David muttered his answering echo:
“Death! Sleep! Sleep—death! To die and to forget!” and over
his sneering face there came an expression of unutterable anguish. “To-day—”
he murmured, as Isaac paced the floor, unconscious of his presence—“To-day,
in these woods, I saw a child lie dead upon its Mother's
knee. I would give all the gold in the universe, all the life in
eternity, to be that child!”
The face of the Deformed expressed the very intensity of despair.
“The time draws near. In a moment it will be here. David, rise—
take the dead man by the arms. It will need all your strength to restrain
him, in the dread moment when he uncloses his eyes, and feels
that he lives again.”
Black David, standing at the head of the corse, grasped its bony arms
by the wrists, and with head bent, and the tangled hair falling over his
face, seemed to await the commands of the enthusiast.
“How dost know 'un will rise?” he muttered suddenly.
“Have I not read it in their works—the venerable Seers of the Ages?”
exclaimed Isaac, pointing with a tremulous hand toward the recess—
“Yea—the Dead have come to me, and spoken of the Great Secret, with
their livid lips.”
He paused, and stood motionless beside the corse, while a tremor
shook his frame.
“Yes—He has appeared to me, HE, most sad and yet terrible of all
the Fallen Angels! His pale forehead, seared with the mark of eternal
anguish, his hair streaming in waves of lurid light,—I see him now—
again I hear his voice. `In the first moments of the new-born year, the
dead will come to life!”'
Why did Black David's distorted frame quiver like a withered reed
in the winter wind? We cannot read the expression of his face, for
his head is drooped; the matted hair falls around it like a lion's mane.
“How much money hast spent, Master? Twenty-one years—a long
time—a very, very long time. It has swallowed a world of gold—eh?
Master?”
“Have you not watched the Sacred Fire, burning for ever, in the cell
beneath the house? You have seen me pour the gold in the alembic,
with an unsparing hand—”
“Y-e-s! Handfuls on it at a time. It looks beautiful like, and clinks
so pleasant like—the round gold, the yellow gold, the sunshiny gold!”
“When I began this search I was worth millions! Now the last
wreck of my wealth—you know it well, honest David—is concealed in
the small chest, which lies beyond yonder curtain, in the darkness, at the
head of the stairway. It is only a thousand doubloons—only a thousand.”
Black David raised his face, and looked toward the curtain. Gilbert
felt the glance of his eyes resting upon him, and, with a fear that he
could not master, saw the half-suppressed laughter of that mocking face.
“At the head o' the stairs! It's well, master, that no bad men know
it, for—they might even rob you of your gold.”
The old man did not seem to hear the last words, but they thrilled on
Gilbert's ear, as his extended foot rested upon the oaken chest, in which
the doubloons were concealed.
“The sands are run!”—Isaac's voice, quivering with enthusiasm,
clear and ringing in its emphasis, broke on the ears of the listening
hunter.
“Behold! Thus I describe the cross upon the dead man's heart!”
With the point of the knife, he laid open the flesh on the chest of the
corse; the wound was in the form of a cross. A single drop of blood
started from the point where the transverse gashes met.
The old man raised the phial; it glittered above his head, in the clear
rays of the hanging lamp. A wild joy quivered over his face, agitating
every feature, and shining brightly in his clear blue eyes.
“It is the time. The labors of a life are about to be repaid. Thus,
thus, O Masters of the Divine Art, I follow your teachings—thus, O
darkest and most powerful of all the Fallen Host, I obey your commands!”
His right arm shook with an unceasing tremor, as he held the phial
in the light, high over his grey hairs.
The corse lay stiff and cold before him, with the figure of the Deformed,
bending like an Apparition over its face; the gash in the form
of a cross, glowed vividly in the light, with the solitary drop glittering
like a blood-red tear.
“With this liquid—only a single drop, poured on the blood-drop in
the centre of the cross—I call the Dead to Life!”
He pronounced a Hebrew word; it was that name which we call
Jehovah.
Bending over the dead, he raised the phial in the light, and gazed intently
upon its transparent liquid, his narrow chest swelling with a joy
too deep for words.
“Thus—”
A sharp report was heard. It crashed on the silence, like thunder
from a serene sky. Through the curtain folds, which guarded the entrance
to the place, a volume of blue smoke floated, like a veil of transparent
gauze.
The hand of the Wizard was still upraised, but his eye glared with
all the despair of a soul forever lost.
For the hand was empty. The phial was gone. Fragments of shattered
glass strewed the floor.
“The Monk of Wissahikon!”
While that blush—reddening over cheek and bosom and brow—glowed
like the first pure glimpse of a new-born summer day, the Maiden raised
her dark eyes, and gazed upon the form which occupied the recess,
where the mirror had glistened only a moment before.
The silver cross glittering on his dark dress, he stood there, like some
sad and beautiful image of Memory, the brown hair falling aside from
his olive cheek, as, with head slightly bent, he turned the light of his full
eyes upon the maiden's glowing face.
“I come to save you—your father's life is in danger”—the words
rose to his lips, but he could not speak them.
He could only gaze upon that beautiful face, and feel the light of those
brilliant eyes shining into his own.
He heard the low musical voice, but could not distinguish the words
which it spoke. Only its music melted on his ear.
For the first time, the delirium of passion seized his soul; the intoxication
of voluptuous madness burned in his veins.
He could not advance, he could not recede; absorbed in the loveliness
which blushed before him, he stood in the recess, with his gaze centred
upon the face of the young girl.
And she, with her arms half-raised, her loose robe trembling on her
form, as though about to fall, could only return his gaze, and feel the fire
of his eyes flashing into her soul.
The light which swung from the ceiling, tinting the dim old tapestry with
mild radiance, shone clearly over the dark robe of the maiden, glowed
upon the waves of her black hair, and revealed the figure of the young
man, framed in the recess, and thrown into view by the darkness beyond.
At last he advanced—his senses whirling in an indescribable intoxication—he
stepped from the recess, and his face, glowing through its olive
hues, with the red blush of passion, appeared distinctly in the light, with
the brown hair tossed aside from the forehead.
And with that step—he paused—looked upon her—and extended his
arms like a man who shrinks back from the verge of a dizzy cliff.
With the loose robe waving around her form, she sank on her knees,
clasped her hands, and while her lustrous eyes shone their passion into
his face, she exclaimed in that voice, which melted in strange melody
upon his ears—
“You have come!”
Paul started at the sight. He was entangled in some bewildering
dream. He could not believe that it was a reality—that beautiful girl,
kneeling at his feet, tossing her hair back from her shoulders, raising to
his gaze her voluptuous face, and whispering—like a Bride who welcomes
her Lover—“You have come!”
He tottered to a chair, and hid his burning forehead in his clasped
hands. There was fire in his veins. His brain seemed to throb with
the intensity of a new existence. His ears were filled with a lulling
murmur, as though the voices of Angels had mingled with the echo of a
distant waterfull.
“Paul!”
He heard the voice, but dared not raise his head. And then a hand
trembled among the locks of his hair; he felt the pressure of soft, warm
fingers upon his forehead.
He raised his eyes. She was there, kneeling by his side, her hair
floating over her robe, her face upturned, one arm resting upon his shoulder,
that soft, warm hand pressed against his brow.
And again, raising her lustrous eyes, she murmured his name—
“Paul!”
There was some strange mystery in this scene. It confused, it bewildered
him. This young girl,—whose cheek flushed with passion
through the intervals of her dark hair, whose large eyes grew dim with
moisture beneath the fringed lids,—kneeling by his side, looking into
his face, winding her arm about his neck, her fingers trembling among the
brown locks about his forehead—it fired his veins with new madness.
“You know my name?” he wildly gasped.
“Yes,” she murmured, “the Voice whispered it to me.” And with
that look of boundless passion, she panted at his side.
“The Voice!”
“Yes—the Voice that speaks to me in my dreams. I hear it sometimes
by day, after I have prayed to God—sometimes by night, when
all is still. It told me of your coming—it spoke of your Love—it bade
me look for you To-Night!”
These words, uttered with a child-like faith, and yet with the tremulous
accent of passion, completed the bewilderment of Paul Ardenheim.
“Do I dream?” he exclaimed—and his hand touched the forehead of
the young girl—“You that are so beautiful—you, whose dark eyes fill
my soul with light—you, that speak to me in tones that madden—you,
whose very touch thrills me with a mad delight! You speak my name,
you tell me that you looked for my coming! Oh, it is some dangerous
dream — it is the work of an Evil Angel, who would peril my soul!”
And, darting from the chair, he fled affrighted from that beautiful girl.
As he stands by the window, gazing out into the wintry night—the
waste of snow, silvered by the rising moon, sparkles before him—the
young girl, kneeling where he left her, covers with her hands that face,
now crimsoned with blushes and wet with tears.
How shall we explain the mystery of this scene?
The young girl has been reared from childhood in this isolated mansion,
her friend, her instructor, her only companion, that old man,
whose mind is bewildered by the Fanaticism of a Past Age. She has
been exposed to no temptation; never mingled in the loves and hatreds
of the great world. Like a wild flower, blushing into life on the crumbling
wall of some old ruin, she has blossomed, she has bloomed in solitary
loveliness.
Yet wherefore this madness of passion, this child-like tenderness,
this impetuous love, with which she welcomes an unknown man, whom
she beholds for the first time!
We may not pierce the Mystery now, nor unravel a single thread of
the strange secret, and yet, as we gaze upon the scene, its peculiar beauty
strikes our hearts.
Here we have a woman, blooming into the ripeness of her loveliness,
and a man, whose eye indicates a strong intellect, while his form mani
fests the grace and vigor of young manhood.
Reared alike in these silent woods—afar from the world — their souls
formed amid scenes of the same character—this young man, with the
bronzed face and eyes of strange power, this young girl, so blooming with
every hue of loveliness, so flowing with every line of voluptuous beauty,
have met for the first time.
And yet their meeting has all the transport of a long-indulged love, all
the intoxication of a Passion, which is hallowed by thoughts and memories
as dear as Heaven!
The tears rained from her eyes; while her young bosom rose with a
more tumultuous throb, and her face grew crimson with blushes, she
started from the floor, and reached his side, with a proud and passionate
step.
“It was false, then?” She touched his shoulder lightly with her
hand. “You love me not. You never thought of me?”
He heard the voice, felt the hand, and a tremor shook his frame. He
dared not turn his head, and gaze into her face.
“It is madness! Only a dream, from which I will soon awake!”
“And I loved you—God knows how deep, how absorbing was my love!
In the daytime I thought of you, and pictured your form, and saw your
face, wherever I turned my eyes! And at night, O, at night, when all was
still, and the Voice broke through the silence, telling me of your love,
breathing your name at every word—O, my love became mad, wild,
boundless as the great sky, which gleams before us, so beautiful with its
countless stars. You love me not—the Voice has spoken falsely!”
With that small hand quivering on his shoulder, its very touch thrilling
a strange fire through his veins, he heard her voice, breaking in impetuous
accents upon the stillness of the midnight chamber. But he
could not answer. His heart was too full, his brain too crowded with
conflicting emotions.
He dared not even turn to look upon her face again.
“If I look upon her I am lost!”
Lost! Lost to God and Lost to Purity, Lost to all those serene
Thoughts which dwelt on the Majesty of the star-lit heavens—the tenderness
of a Sister's Love—the divine beauty of sunrise and sunset—those
Thoughts which ascended from a full heart, to the Great Father of all the
World, and even as they arose, became Prayer.
Lost to all that was spiritual and ideal, in the mad agonies of sensual
passion.
“Lady”—he said, not daring to look upon her, though he felt her panting
breath on his cheek—“Forgive me, for I am like one bewildered in
some intoxicating dream. I am affrighted at the beauty of your face—
your touch fills my veins with an agony of delight. But there is a mist
before my eyes—a sound as of voices and echoes, woven together, in my
ears—my heart swells as though the hand of death was there! Forgive
me, lady”—he tottered away from her extended hand—“forgive and pity!
For I cannot look upon you, without adoration. To look into your face
is to forget my God!”
O, how the roses bloomed on her cheek again, and the soft languor of
passion shone in her eyes! She gazed upon his averted face, her red
lips parting like a severed rose-bud, her bosom throbbing above the glittering
fringe of her black robe, like a snowy wave, encircled by rays of
golden light.
Then, on her white forehead, from the crescent-shaped brows to the
roots of her hair, a single vein, slender and serpentine, swelled distinctly
into light, and darkened, without distorting, the transparent skin.
That sinuous vein, so light as to be scarcely perceptible, seemed to indicate
the resistless Will of an organization, which combined the extremes
of Pride and Passion.
“You love me!” she gasped—her hand still gently laid upon his
shoulder—“You love me!” And with her left arm she dashed her long
hair aside from the bare shoulder.
“Love you?” echoed Paul—“There is a love which I feel when I
gaze upon my sister's face. A Love as serene as the midnight stars,
shining over you waste of coldly glittering snow. But you? O, it is not
love—it is not enchantment—it is not intoxication. No! It is as though
you had stolen from me every impulse of my own Will; had said to me,
`Thou canst not move, save where my will permits—nor breathe, save in
the light of my eyes—nor live, save by my side, and in my arms!' Love
you?” his voice sunk into a whisper—“I dare not turn and gaze into
your face, lest I should blaspheme my God!”
But he did turn and gaze. As though an irresistible influence swayed
his every motion, he turned, and beheld her panting before him, her
limbs trembling beneath the robe, while her bared arms gathered it to
her passionate breast.
It seemed to him as though a golden mist floated in waves about her
form, as she stood there, with those large eyes flashing amid their tears,
while the dark hair, waving to her shoulders, gave an indescribable grandeur
to the white forehead, seamed by that darkly swelling vein.
“You love me!” And she came toward him, with a gliding motion.
“Not love—no—no! I am mad”—
“You love me!” and her white arms were upon his shoulder.
“Pity me—pity me—for the sake of God, do not peril my soul.”
“You love me!” was still her exclamation, breathed through her passionate
lips, as he felt her arms around his neck, her form quivering upon
his breast.
And her cheek was against his own, and over his arms and shoulders
her unbound hair streamed, in waves of jetty blackness.
His brain reeled—the antique room, with its quaint wainscot, floated
round him like the phantom of some unearthly dream—from head to foot,
in every nerve he trembled like a dying man.
But still her arms were about his neck, still she panted on his breast,
her warm bosom rising, from its sable veil, in passionate throbs, while
her breath mingled with his own, as their lips trembled together.
There was a moment which seemed an Eternity to him; not an Eternity
of calm rapture, but of passionate tumult, of voluptuous madness.
It was when her eyes shone their deep brightness into his own, when
lip and breath were one, when, trembling in her embrace, he felt his consciousness
gliding from him, in a languor that stole upon his senses, like
some enchanter's spell.
Enchanter's spell! What spell like the magnetism of a first love, the
sorcery of a first kiss, from lips that cling as they touch your own, and
blossom into new life at the touch? what wizard-craft so maddening in its
closer to your own, until your heart hears it, and echoes with an answering
throb?
“You love me! The Voice was not false!” and the burden of that
virgin form was in his arms, the wild beauty of that face glowed in burning
blushes beneath his gaze.
“Yes—love—love beyond the power of words!” he exclaimed in broken
tones, and his eyes answered her with a gaze as passionate as her own.
But even as she clung to him, he wound his hands around her wrists,
he held her from him, and—while a frown gathered in sudden darkness
on his brow—saw at a glance her heaving breast, her naked feet, her
round, white arms. Saw the face, whose brown hues were lighted with
warm vermilion on the cheek and on the lip, while the languor of dewy
eyes came through the meshes of her streaming hair.
“O, beautiful—O, fairer than a dream—” he gasped, his voice sinking
into a whisper, his eyes moist with passion.
At that moment a crash like thunder rung through the old mansion.
“It is a knell!” cried Paul—“The knell of my lost soul!”
As he spoke he withdrew his hands from her wrists; with the gesture
of a madman, he dashed her arms from his grasp; and tottered backward,
gazing vacantly into her face.
She trembled for a moment—grew pale and fell. Her long black hair,
strown over the floor, with the golden fringe of her mantle glittering
against the transparent whiteness of her shoulders.
She lay there like a dead woman, pale and unconscious, the blood
starting from the wound upon her brow, a wound which she received, as
her sudden fall dashed her head against the floor.
And yonder, hurrying from the room, mad with passion, the blood
boiling like molten fire in every vein—yonder, behold Paul Ardenheim,
his head bent on his breast, as he flies from the beautiful woman, as from
a fiend.
He does not seek the shadow of the recess. No! Without turning
his head, without one backward look, he grasps the door in the southern
wall—it yields at his touch—he is in the corridor, with the light of the
lamp, which shines there, glowing over his brow.
But as his foot is on the first step, even in the moment of passionate
delirium, when the face, the form of the beautiful girl, floats before him
in a veil of misty light, he is conscious of the presence of a far different
face, a widely contrasted form.
Black David stands beside him, folding his white hands upon his
breast, while his head is bowed, and his face is hidden by the uneven
locks of his matted hair.
“Black David was wrong, Master Paul,” he mumbles in an idiotic
tone, with his great eyes wearing a vacant look—“There's never a robber
Master Paul, if Black David was foolish—”
No reply came from the lips of Paul. He looked in the face of
the deformed man, as though he saw him not; he dashed his hand aside,
and plunged down the stairs with a madman's step.
As his face glowed into the light, ere it passed into the darkness,
Black David saw it distorted by a convulsive emotion; as his step was
heard in the hall beneath, Black David also heard his incoherent cry:
“Air! air! The free air, and the clear sky for me—for I am in the
Power of the Evil One, within these walls!”
The echo of the voice and the footstep died away, yet Black David
stood at the head of the stairway, leaning his arms upon its railing, and
gazing silently into the darkness beneath.
His face is turned from the light; his hair, which, by its tangled locks,
makes the outlines of his large head seem yet more massive, is tinted by
the lamp, but we cannot see his features, nor mark the expression of his
lips, nor read the meaning of his eyes.
And yet his form trembles—it quivers like a falling leaf—with agony?
or with laughter?
“Isaac lies insensible on the floor beside the corse, and, even in his
unconsciousness, clutches at the broken glass. The old man's hopes are
blighted; his heart broken. Paul goes from the wizard's house, flushed
with agony, and shrieking for light, for air! The wizard's gold is gone,
and with it, Gilbert, the bold Huntsman. And the fair daughter,—with
dark eyes and stainless bosom—who, reared by the old man from childhood,
in this mansion, treasures in her virgin-soul certain vague images
of the Future, certain warm imaginings of the great world beyond the
glen of Wissahikon—what of the beautiful girl? She is indeed a fair
creature to look upon. So queenly her step, so impetuous her glance, so
warm her lip, so beautiful the gloss of her dark hair, as it floats over
shoulders white as snow! Very beautiful, and yet the light of her eyes,
their very brightness, flashing from darkness, brings to mind Catherine
De Medicis, the Queen of Past Ages, who ruled France, with the Poison-Phial
for a sceptre!”
Once more the form of the hunchback shook like a falling leaf, as he
leaned over the railing and looked into the darkness below.
A pale face was raised from the floor, and eyes glassy and vacant in
their gaze, glared in the light of the Maiden's chamber. With her forehead
spotted with blood, she rose, and clutched the dark mantle to her
breast, as she hurried to and fro, like one bereft of reason, now clutching
her hair with an involuntary grasp, now tossing it madly aside from her
face and back from her shoulders.
There was a terrible beauty in the sight. A lovely woman, with her
disordered in every loosened fold, striding, with an impetuous step and
flashing eye, over the floor of that silent and gloomy chamber.
“He does not love me. It was false, that Voice which whispered his
name to my ear, told me to wait his coming, and yield my lip to his kiss!
Not love, but scorn—ah!” She uttered a cry of terror, as the hand
which she raised to her forehead was wet with blood.
“Blood, too! The mark of the hand which dashed me to the floor!”
She pressed her clasped hands over that slowly bleeding wound, and
stood before the mirror, which had glided to its place again.
“I am not lovely—no, no, no! Hideous to his eyes, as I will be
hideous to all other eyes! He has seen a fairer form, and loved some
beautiful girl, who has not dwelt all her life alone; from very childhood,
shut out from the world!”
And, tossing to and fro, her hands on her forehead, her bosom swelling
under the white arms, she looked madly into the mirror, and saw the
reflection of her trembling form, her lips compressed, her face pale with
agony.
At this moment, while she is dumb and deathlike with the violence of
her conflicting emotions, a Voice—that seems to break from the air—
startles the silence of the chamber.
“You have seen him, Maiden. You have seen Paul!” there was a
wild, unearthly music in that voice.
“Seen him,” she answered, as though speaking to some person by
her side—“Seen him, and he has dashed me at his feet, in scorn!”
“But he loves you, maiden—”
“Loves! Witness this bleeding mark upon my brow. Love!”
“Loves you, to madness, and will come again, and kneel at your feet,
and bathe them with his tears!”
She was silent. With her fingers on her tremulous lip, she listened.
“Will seal his love with a vow in the sight of God, and lead you from
this lonely valley into the great world. The unknown Maiden of the
Wissahikon may become the courted and flattered Lady of some royal
court, with a queenly robe upon her form, the eyes of the great, the noble,
centred on her beautiful face.”
Still silent. But in her eyes the tears were dried, and from her lip the
tremor has passed.
“And he will triumph with you, and ascend with you the dizzy
heights of rank and power. Yet, even while the praises of a world ring
in his ears, and all men hasten to scatter gold and laurels in his way,
his deepest joy will be thy kiss, O Maiden, his only heaven in thy
embrace!”
How the full eyes shot forth a sudden light, and the warm blood
glowed through the rich brown of that velvet cheek!
“He will be mine—”
“Thine! Thine only, and forever!” said the voice—which seemed
to speak at her side, from the air—and all was still.
The light shone over the chamber, glowing upon its antique furniture,
glittering on the mirror, over the floor, and tinting the quaint carvings on
the wall, until the oaken flowers bloom like life.
But the Maiden does not meet our eyes. Her mantle of black velvet,
fringed with gold, lies neglected on the floor. Through the white curtains
the moonlight steals, and mingles its rays with the faint light of the
lamp, and all is silent in the Wizard's mansion.
Would you behold the passionate girl, who, not long ago, stood before
the mirror, convulsed with the agony of a love, repulsed by scorn?
Yonder, through the dark hangings of the bed, turn your gaze, and behold
a gush of light trembling over that face, sunken deep into the silken
pillow, with black hair floating all around it; a face whose lids are
closed, while the lips are parted, murmuring, even in slumber, some
treasured name—
“Paul!”
The lantern shines over the corridor, and flings a dim ray into the
darkness of the stairway. Black David is no longer here; the place is
gloomy and desolate.
But there is a footstep on the narrow staircase, leading from the
Wizard's tower; the small door springs open; and Isaac Van Behme
appears in the light, his face deathly pale, his eyes dilating in their
sockets, with the glare of apathetic despair. His slender form is still
enveloped in the loose gown, and, with his head bent on his breast, he
totters from the door, toward the descending stairway.
In a moment he is gone into darkness; gone without a word, his hands
clenched on his breast, his white hair hanging in tangled masses over his
wrinkled brow.
With a footstep that has no echo, he descends the stairs, and presently
stands in the darkness of the spacious hall, on the ground floor.
He does not pause a moment, but, opening a door in the side of the
staircase, he descends, without a light to show the way, into the vault beneath
his mansion.
Along a dark passage he passes with that uncertain step, and in the
impenetrable gloom, extends his hand; a door opens; the vaulted arch is
bathed in sudden light.
He enters that chamber, or vault, which has witnessed his toil for
Twenty-One Years. In that period, no footstep save Black David's and
his own has crossed its threshold.
Through the gloom of that wide vault, whose stone archway is supported
invests the whole scene with a funereal glare. That flame shines not
from a hanging lamp, but through an aperture in the surface of the white
altar, which rises in the centre of the space between the pillars.
It is an altar of marble, an oblong square, not more than three feet high,
two in width, with a small door in one side.
That white form, rising from the stone floor, with a pale blueish light
gushing from the aperture in its surface, alone breaks the stern gloom of
the vault, whose massive ceiling and heavy pillars strike the soul with a
sensation of vague awe.
This is the Wizard's most secret cell. There are no indications of
his art, no grinning skulls, nor parchments, darkened by strange characters,
nor alembics, crucibles, or other details of Astrology or Alchemy.
The pure flame, shining in a flood of tremulous light, from the top of
the white altar, glowing like a spiritual presence through the gloom, alone
indicates the old man's toil, his earnest search of Twenty-One Years.
He stands beside the altar, all the anguish of his blighted hope manifested
in the contortions of his withered face. Silent, motionless, his
thin hands clenched, and his head bowed on his breast, he gazes on the
flame, and its pale light glows on his vacant eyes.
There are no words to picture the despair of that old man's heart.
The brown sailor, gazing on the wreck of that ship which has been his
home, in calm and storm, for half a century; the renowned general, suddenly
disgraced into a prisoner, and standing amid the bodies of his
mangled comrades; the father looking into the dead eyes of a beloved
daughter—these all are subdued by agony that is too deep for utterance
or tears. But the despair of the Alchemist was deeper than all these
woes, though linked in one convulsive throb.
He beheld not the wreck of a home, or the slaughter of an army, or
the solitary death of a daughter, at once beloved and beautiful, but an Immortal
Life—almost achieved—was swept into nothingness, even as he
palpitated on its threshold.
The Thought of a life was dead. Shattered with the brittle phial,
which had broken in his grasp, and sprinkled the floor with the priceless
liquid of Eternal Youth.
While thus he stood, absorbed in his despair, his blue eyes glowing in
the light of the flame, there came to his soul a thought as sudden as it
was blasphemous.
He drew from the folds of his dress a pacquet, which he extended over
the flame. A stream of sand, or white dust, descended from the pacquet,
into the aperture. And as it fell, a luminous smoke began to wind in
feathery columns over the altar, and float through the gloom, in waves
of rolling mist.
It would over the old man's white hairs, encircled his form, and ere an
vapor.
From the bosom of that cloud his voice was heard:
“Even as the seers of the old wisdom, bewildered by the clouds of
their physical existence, sought to gain communion with the Spirits of
the Invisible World, though at the peril of their deathless souls, so do I, in
the name of the Seven Fallen Angels,—who once stood by the Throne
of Eternity, bathing their wings in the light that never dies — invoke the
darkest and most powerful of the Seven! Behold! The Cross is
beneath my feet—I pray no longer to—” he muttered the awful and incommunicable
Name—“but to Ashtaroth, the Prince of the Fallen!”
With these words were murmured the mystic formula of the ancient
Cabalists—those Prophets of the far-gone ages, who derived their inspiration
alike from Good and Evil, from God and Satan—and as the voice
of the old man echoed, clear and deep, through the vault, the smoke-clouds
swept aside from his face, and showed the dauntless Will, written
on the brow, and burning in the eyes.
There was a pause, and, stricken with sudden terror, he fell on his
knees, as though a strong arm had dashed him to the floor.
“I am here,” answered a sad, low-toned voice.
Before the altar, encircled by clouds of undulating mist, appeared a
face of wild, unearthly beauty. The pale features, invested with a lurid
light, were seen amid a mass of dark hair, waving in snake-like locks,
and with a red glow glimmering through its intervals. The eyes were
large and dazzling in their unchanging brightness. The lips wore a
smile of undefinable meaning; now it was tenderness, and now scorn.
The forehead was wide and lofty, growing wider as it arose, in an out-line
of swelling boldness; the skin was white as a corse.
That FACE, seen amid the clouds which floated to and fro, seemed like
the face of a dead man, with an unnatural life just flashing into its eyes.
There was a mark upon the forehead; a livid cross, which blackened
in hideous distinctness on the death-like brow.
“Thou hast invoked the most powerful of the Seven. Ashtaroth is
here! Poor child of clay, what wouldest thou ask?”
“It is gone—the fruit of my life-long toil —” shrieked Isaac, wringing
his hands, as he grovelled on the floor, the cold dew starting from his
brow—“I obeyed thy commands. For twenty-one years, night and day,
without ceasing, the fire burned within this altar, and this very night, I
was about to place the Water of Life—the result of all my toil—on the
breast of the dead, when the phial crumbled in my grasp, and — my toil is
in vain! I have become old for naught—in vain this brain racked by
the agony of eternal fever—in vain this withered form, in vain these
wrinkles, which have gathered while my task wore on—in vain these
grey hairs, which only tell how near that Grave, without a hope!”
“The Water of Eternal Youth, for which thou didst seek, in the long
dream of a life-time, has been wasted by thee—wasted as the dead was
about to feel its influence?”
“Not wasted! No! By the despair which I feel—no! An unseen
hand dashed the phial from my grasp—”
“And for that priceless liquid—wasted in a moment—thou didst
labor twenty-one years, every year a century; the whole circle of years,
an Eternity!'
“Dark Angel, it is not for you to taunt me with my ruin. Your hand
may have done this deed—”
“It was my deed. I saw that thou wert not yet worthy of the unutterable
boon. Another trial is demanded, ere thou wilt be worthy of
the Forbidden Fruit, which the First Man and Woman sought to grasp.”
“Twenty-one years! Look at these grey hairs! Ere twenty-one
hours are past, I will be dead. Dead! And the Hereafter—”
“Thou shalt not die. Nor is a trial of a life-time asked of thee.
No intense study, no brain-cankering toil—no anxious watch by night, and
maddening thoughts by day! Before the rising of another sun thou
mayst raise the Dead, and from his lips gain the knowledge of the great
secret, which transmutes all base metals into Gold.”
“Speak—Ashtaroth—and I will worship thee!”
“Within this altar, warmed by the fire that never dies, still is concealed
the Sacred Urn!”
“It is there now as it has been for twenty-one years. Within its bosom,
I created the Water of Eternal Youth.”
“Pour into that Urn a single drop of blood, warm from the heart of
a tempted but still stainless maiden, and the Water of Eternal Youth
once more will greet your eyes. It must be taken from a heart that
throbs with the last pang of life—from a heart that quivers with the last
impulse of the soul, fluttering ere it takes its flight.”
“But this is too horrible—it demands a Murder. A crime—”
“Dost thou talk of crime? What crime hast thou not committed? Is
it for thee to hesitate?”
“Crime! Have I been unkind, even in thought, to my only child?
Has my hand ever been closed at the call of suffering, the prayer of
houseless misery? Of what crime do you accuse me—”
“It is not for me to accuse. But woe to thee, sad and mistaken man,
woe to thee, when the Hour of Judgment comes! The crime of all
crimes will be laid to thy soul, the blasphemy of daring to be Immortal!
The Unpardonable Sin is on thy head: it will weigh thee down, in the
fathomless anguish of an Eternity of Crime!”
“A single drop of blood, warm from the heart of a tempted but still
stainless maiden, and lo! the Water of Life is mine. Mine the secret
of boundless gold.”
“Thine before the dawn of another day! Listen! Even at this
moment a pure virgin struggles in the Tempter's arms! Hasten, ere
she is a tainted and dishonored thing, hasten to her side, and from her
form, throbbing with the last pulse of life, snatch the priceless boon!”
“I obey! I obey!”
Then, in a low whisper, that pale face, seen dimly among misty clouds,
half-luminous and transparent, murmured the syllables of an unknown
tongue. While his face was distorted and his form cramped by the violence
of preter natural emotions, Isaac Van Behme bent hishead on his
breast, and, from the shadows of his woven brow, gazed into the lurid
visage of the Unknown.
Those words, spoken in the mysterious tongue of the Cabalists and
Magi of the ancient ages, thrilled on the listener's ear. He heard them
with a shudder, and then a dark cloud rushed upon the scene, and Isaac
fell forward on his face, unconscious and motionless as a dead man.
When he again unclosed his eyes, the pure spiritual light shone
calmly through the aperture in the summit of the altar, and glowed upon
the massive pillars, the gloomy arch, the floor of solid stone. But the
mist had rolled away, and with it, the Unknown Face had passed into
nothingness.
“The maiden,” he murmured, as a cold shudder shook his stiffened
limbs, “The maiden whom I met to-night by the forest fire, weeping
over the dead body of Yoconok!”
He hurried from the vault. The door closed behind him, with a sudden
jar. Along the dark passage, with unsteady steps he hastened, and,
ascending the stairway, soon reached the hall on the ground floor, with
the light shining feebly from the second story, over its gloom.
As he hurried to the door, he missed his footing, and stumbled over a
dark form, which lay crouching near the stairway.
“It is but the poor brainless hunchback!” he exclaimed—“Sleeping
beside the door, too! A faithful knave!”
And, stepping gently over Black David's form, he opened the door, and
passed forth into the clear, cold moonlight.
No sooner had his footsteps died on the air, than the Deformed started
to his feet, and hurried up the stairs.
Softly, on tiptoe, and with a gliding footstep, he approached the door
of the Maiden's chamber, and bent his head close to the dark panels.
There was no sound; she slept on her virgin bed, with her face sunken
in the silken pillows. Black David opened the door without a word,
and passed the threshold of that sacred retreat.
The lamp, swinging from the ceiling, invested the place with a soft,
luxurious, dreamy light.
With the same noiseless step, the hunchback approached the bed, and
glowing on one cheek with the dim light.
It was a strong contrast. That pale face, with the tangled hair floating
from its huge forehead in uneven locks, down to the matted beard;
and the glowing countenance of the slumbering girl, who rested her
cheek upon her bent arm, while the dark fringes of her closed lids, and
the warm beauty of her parting lips, gave a new loveliness to her olive
complexion, as her black hair wandered in unbound tresses over the
silken pillow.
And, like some Demon, watching, with flaming eyes and livid lip, curving
in scorn, the slumber of an Angel, Black David stood in the folds of
the faded hangings, and looked upon the sleeping girl.
“She is very beautiful, and in her dreamy sleep, she murmurs the
name of her lover. Who could not predict her future? All that is
tender, all that is loving, all that is virgin in voluptuous beauty, centres
in her face, and marks each outline of her form. Yet hold—upon her
brow, from the eyes to the roots of her hair, a slender vein—almost imperceptible—swells
from the clear skin, and quivers like a serpent there!
So,—it was many hundred years ago—upon the brow of woman, as
fair and beautiful, a similar dark vein swelled through the stainless skin.
What was HER fate?—It seems but yesterday; the ages roll back like a
curtain, and lay bare that terrible Memory. What shall be the Fate of
this sleeping girl? Through the clouds of the Future I behold it, and
see the serpent, which now darkens on her forehead, glide into her heart,
and drop its venom from her rosy lips!
“It is enough to force a smile, the folly of these cowled Mummers,
who picture the Enemy of Mankind in a grotesque shape—ha! ha!—
with hoof and horns, and all the details of a puerile fancy.
“No one could be deceived by a Devil so pitiable as that—not even
the Priests who paint him thus!
“But a Devil that comes panting on your senses from a white bosom;
that kisses you with warm, voluptuous lips; that fires you with the
brightness of eyes languid with passion; a beautiful Devil altogether,
who wears, on her fair brow, a single black and serpent like vein—
“Fear Satan at all times, brave Paul of Ardenheim, but kneel to God,
and pray for mercy, when he comes to you in a shape like this!”
While the crazed hunchback uttered these incoherent words, in his
low, melodious voice, the young girl, in her slumber, clasped her white
arms over her bosom, and murmured, in a voice languid with passionate
desire—
“Mine, and mine only!”
8. CHAPTER EIGHTH.
B. H. A. C.
On a rock, beside the Wissahikon shore, where, in the summer-time,
it glides on without a ripple, wider and deeper in its tranquil flow, as it
nears the Schuylkill, stood Gilbert, the Hunter, bending upon his rifle,
with his eyes cast upon the waves, which looked black and dreary, as
they swept onward, amid white masses of ice, glittering in the rising
moon.
It was sailing there, in the pure winter sky, its cold light shining over
a broad hill, which sank to the shore, mantled with frozen snow, and
sparkling like a sheet of undulating silver, as the dark forests girdled it
on every side.
This hill rose before him to the south, ascending from the ice-cumbered
Wissahikon to the dreary woods, over whose leafless branches shone the
transparent sky.
Behind him was a wall of brushwood, and a precipitous mass of forest
trees, which towered suddenly into the heavens, with the forms of gigantic
rocks thrust here and there from the dark branches.
And from the gloom in the east, the Wissahikon comes glittering as
she flows by the snow-mantled hills; and into the gloom in the west she
passes as suddenly, her echo breaking in a low, monotonous murmur,
far along the woods—redoubled by the craggy rocks — and rising, in softened
music, into the sky.
There is a ray gleaming from the pine trees on the southern hill; it is
the light from the Wizard's tower.
From the gloom at the hunter's back—he stands facing the south,—an
answering ray trembles forth, and dies upon the waters. It is the light
stealing from the closed shutters of the deserted house.
O, it is beautiful to stand thus alone, at dead of night, on the Wissahikon
shore; beneath your feet a rock which, thousands of years ago,
was lightly pressed by the footsteps of some dark-cheeked Indian maid,
or swept by the white robes of the Sacrificial Priest, who raised his
hands to yonder sky, to yonder moon, and, in the deep silence of a mid-night
universe, uttered a Prayer to God, in a tongue, now lost in the
chaos of the centuries.
It is beautiful, in the summer-time, when the broad hill wears a garmenture
of tufted grass, and the world of foliage bends its leaves and
blossoms into the calm waters, while the distant cry of a night-bird mingles
with the unceasing chirp of the katy-did, and the soft voice of Wissahikon.
But now, in Winter, and at midnight too, when the breathless stillness
—deepened rather than broken by the monotonous murmur of the waves
dashing against the ice—awes every throb of your heart into a solemnity
which is Religion, while the eye beholds only that great vault of transparent
azure, arching over the leafless woods, with the moon gliding away
in cloudless light, and flinging a blessing on your forehead as she glides
—it is in winter, at midnight, that the glen of Wissahikon is a holy
place, to which the Angels might come as to a temple, and breathe their
pity for the Crimes of Man, and raise their hymns of thankfulness to God.
Are you sick of the World? Do the crimes of the Great City wear
like an iron fang into your soul? Does the great panorama of wealth,
that is drunken with its boundless sensuality, and Poverty, that is ferocious
with its sullen endurance, seem to your heart but a curse to Man,
a blasphemy to God?
Then, from the crowded streets of the Great City, come forth. Come,
from that clouded atmosphere, in whose foul bosom, the Plagues of Moral
Death swelter into hideous birth,—come, and forget the world; forget
the anguish, the blood and tears of Man the Slave, and be full of Peace,
though but for an hour, by the Wissahikon Waters.
For, by the Wissahikon, at dead of Night, when there is snow upon
the ground, and ice upon the waves, and a clear moon in a cloudless sky,
you grow nearer to your God, and feel your heart reach out its arms to
grasp Eternity.
Then, filled with Peace that is unutterable, you even forget that there
is, in all the world, such a libel on the Universe as a Man, ground into
dust by the footstep of a Brother—
But hold; they tell me that I talk too much of suffering man, and
crowd my pages too full of his dumb anguish. Talk all night, if it please
you, of still waters and serene skies,—they say it—but never tell us that
there are Banks and Churches for the Rich, and only Graves and Gibbets
for the Poor.
Pardon me, my friends. Be merciful to me, O silken People. For
what I speak, I have learned in a bitter school. The world has not been
a very soft road, sprinkled with roses, to my feet. Will you forgive me,
if, now and then, I dare to fling back into my Teacher's face, the iron
lesson which it taught to me? And when the flint of the rough road cuts
my feet, will you sneer very bitterly, if I but dare to moan?
For myself, I will be silent. Not a word of orphanage, and wrongs
inflicted by godly hands; not a whisper.
But the wrongs of those who have suffered like me, and endured a thousand
pangs, where I felt one,—the anguish of those who suffer now, and
go, dragging their weary feet, to miserable graves—shall they be voiceless
too?
No. Not while the good God gives to me the strength to grasp this
the granite wall of poverty and orphanage—no! Not while the Father
of the Fatherless, the Redeemer of the Poor, permits one throb to pulsate
at my heart, one word to quiver from my tongue.
For I am ambitious. Ambitious with a wild, insane ambition. When
I am dead, I want one flower to bloom upon my grave; that flower
planted by the hand of some Poor Man, who can bless my ashes with a
word like this—
“Here moulders the hand that dared to write one brave word in the
name of Man.”
In my crude way of thinking, there is something more beautiful in
that solitary flower, planted by a Poor Man's hand, than in a marble
monument, built by a King, in Westminster Abbey, over some dead Conqueror,
whose hallowed epitaph bears words like these—
“He slew, in a hundred battles, at least one hundred thousand of his
Brothers.”
But this midnight scene of Wissahikon, hallowed by this stainless
snow and moonlit sky, has won me from the thread of my history.
Leaning on his rifle, Gilbert, the Hunter, gazed sadly into the dark
waters. The moonlight, glowing on his face, revealed the look of tender
sadness which, for a moment, softened its hardy features. He stood on
the rock, which jutted from the bank; one foot resting on its hard surface,
the other on a square box, secured by a brass padlock, and bound with
intricate cords. Beneath the lid of that box, the wealth, or rather a
wreck of the Wizard's wealth, was hidden.
“There's a turnin' pint in every man's life,” muttered Gilbert, with
his eyes fixed on the waves—“And jist as that ar' twig quivers in the
eddy, near that chunk of ice, as if unsartin which way to go, so my
life quivered this night.”
Associating his own destiny with the fate of the withered twig, which
trembled in the eddy created by the waves dashing against a block of ice, in
the middle of the stream, Gilbert watched its course with involuntary interest.
“It trimbles tow'rd the channel on the left, where the eddy grows into
a little whirlpool—so! By —! It turns to the right; it swims along
the quiet channel, it—curses on it! It goes to the left, after all—it
tosses in the whirlpool—there, it is safe!”
The hunter's face glowed with unfeigned pleasure, his breast heaved
with a deep respiration.
“That 'ill be the way with my life. Quiverin' for a moment, unsartin
which channel to take, and tossin' on the waves, only to go safely onward,
after all. But no! By —! the twig snaps in pieces, and scatters on
the waters, in broken fragments!”
Do not smile, when you see the cold dew standing in beaded drops
from his forehead. For by a superstition, common to the humblest and
most exalted natures, he had associated the Future of his own life, with
the course of some trifling thing, and taken the fate of the twig as a Prophecy
of his destiny.
“So it 'ill be with me! Tossed on the waves only to be brunk to
pieces! Well—well! If I had married Mad'lin' all would have been
right, but now”—
An expression darkened over his brown face, which distorted every
bold line, tightened the lips, and drew the brows over the flashing eyes.
“Now!”
He raised his rifle to his shoulder, and took deliberate aim, as though
a mortal enemy was standing on the opposite shore.
“That's what my life 'ill be—” the rifle dropped by his side again—
“A bullet for every man who has gold, which I would like to have; a
bullet or a knife, a shot or a stab! And Mad'lin' might ha' turned the
wild life of one like me, into somethin' quiet and full of Peace. But it
is past, and I must go where I am led.”
Turning from the rock, with the box under one arm, and his good rifle
on his shoulder, Gilbert entered the shadows of the brushwood, and pursued
the windings of a foot-path, which led far into the gloom of the
dense forest, now passing through some open space, silvered by moon-light,
and again lost in the maze of giant trees.
At last, emerging from a thicket of briars and brushwood, interwoven
in one almost impassable wall, Gilbert beheld the old house, deep sunken
in the glen between two high hills.
It was a two-storied structure, built of dark grey stone, with four windows
on its front, whose shutters were closed. Before the door, on
whose dingy panels the moon shone brightly, a huge stone, worn smooth
by the pressure of many feet, supplied the place of a step. Around
it the prospect was wild and desolate. The stony ground was covered
with withered brushwood, even to the walls, and the front of the edifice
alone was visible, in that wilderness of giant trees.
The evergreen pine stretched its branches over the roof, mingled with
the leafless limbs of the chesnut and the oak. The scyamore, with its
white trunk, glared out in the light of the moon from the darkness of the
woods. Behind the deserted mansion, the hill rose suddenly, its summit
seen through the trees above the chimney, which sent a volume of smoke
into the sky.
Altogether, that house, rude and monotonous in its architecture, presented
a sight of some interest, from its very desolation, and its peculiar
position, in the hollow of the glen, encircled on every side by the great
trees of the forest, with brushwood spreading darkly between their
trunks.
Gilbert advanced through the space in front of the edifice, where the
moonlight shone in clear radiance. On the stone before the door, he
paused for a moment, inclining his head toward the panels. All was
still, yet a confused sound, like the songs and shouts of a revel, drowned
by thick walls, came ever and again at sudden intervals to his ear.
“The folks of Wisseyhik'n little dream what kind o' ghosts haunt
this here old house!” he said, with a smile upon his sunburnt face.
Then, with his hand clenched, he knocked thrice upon the door,
and heard the echoes dying away within, as through the arches of a
corridor.
The door was opened, and Gilbert passed the threshold, and heard the
hinges grate, as the door was suddenly closed behind him. He stood in
utter darkness; not a ray of light shone into the intense night of the
place.
“The word?” said a rough voice.
“Death!” answered Gilbert, in his accustomed tone.
“What would you here?”
“I would enter the Lodge of the B. H. A. C.,” replied the Hunter.
“If you are a true B. H. A. C., you will know the way. Advance and
give the explanation to the Word!”
Through the midnight gloom, Gilbert advanced, counting his measured
footsteps. When he had measured ten paces from the door, he extended
his hand, and felt the panels of another door. He knocked four times,
each knock rising above the other, and a circle of light shone through
the darkness. It was a warm light, shining through a circular aperture
in the door, and flinging a faint glow over the place in which he
stood.
By that uncertain light, it might be ascertained that he had entered a
small apartment, the monotony of whose bare walls, and uncovered floor,
was only broken by a dimly-defined figure near Gilbert's side.
The Hunter applied his lips to the circular aperture in the door, and
whispered these words:
“— to the Rich!”
As he spoke, the door opened, and in a moment, Gilbert stood in a cell-like
room, lighted by a lamp which hung from the ceiling, and revealed
the dark hangings, the floor strown with sand. A single chair stood near
the door, and leaning on its high back, a veiled figure appeared, shrouded
from head to foot in a dark robe, with a cowl drooping over the face.
On that part of the cowl which concealed the face, two letters were inscribed
in golden embroidery—“B. H. A. C.”
“Your name?” a deep voice exclaimed, speaking from the folds of the
monkish cowl.
“Gilbert Morgan, a Brother of the Rifle Lodge, Number 256, of the
B. H. A. C.”
“Give the Word and its explanation, so that I may know you for a
Brother.”
“Death—to the Rich!”
“It is well. Clothe yourself with appropriate Regalia, and work your
way into the Lodge. The door is before you.”
Placing his rifle on the floor, and with it the box, containing the Wizard's
gold, Gilbert lifted the dark curtain which concealed the walls, and
took from a recess, or closet, a collar of scarlet velvet, edged with gold
lace, and with a dagger emblazoned on one side, a skull and cross-bones
on the other.
He placed it around his neck, and then took from the closet an apron
of the same material, also edged with gold, but with the letters, B. H. A.
C., embroidered in the centre. He secured it round his waist by a cord,
ending in a tassel of gold, and thus arrayed in the Regalia of the Order,
advanced toward a door, whose narrow panels appeared among the sombre
hangings of the room. The box was under his left arm, the rifle on
his shoulder, as he knocked five times, with a pause between each sound.
“Who comes there?” a voice was heard speaking through a square
aperture in the centre of the door.
“`A Brother of the Knightly Degree,”' answered Gilbert, in the tone
of one who repeats some carefully remembered formula.
“The word of the Knightly Degree?”
“`Life'—” answered Gilbert.
“To whom?”
“`— To the Poor!”'
“Enter, Brother Knight of the B. H. A. C.,” exclaimed the voice,
which was heard through the circular aperture in the door.
And ere a moment had passed, Gilbert, passing the door, which closed
after him, found himself encircled by the details of a scene of peculiar
interest.
It was a large room, with a lofty ceiling, and a dim light quivering in
mid air. The high walls were hung with dark cloth, on which was emblazoned
various letters and symbols, some of the most grotesque, others
of the most impressive character.
At the eastern end of the room, rose a platform, attainable by three
wide steps, covered with dark cloth. On this platform was placed a
chair or throne, in which was seated a man of muscular form, attired in
almost regal splendor. There was a glittering crown upon his forehead
—a scarlet robe upon his form, drooping from his shoulders to his feet,
in luxurious folds—and on his breast a collar of dark purple velvet, emblazoned
on one side with the dagger, on the other with the skull and
cross-bones. The black veil which concealed his face bore the golden
letters, B. H. A. C.
This was the Worthy Master of the Rifle Lodge, No. 256, of the B.
degree.
Opposite this platform, in the western extremity of the Lodge, was a
smaller platform, rising two steps above the floor, with an oaken chair
upon its summit. Here was seated a figure, veiled in a light-blue robe,
with a scarlet collar, gleaming with emblems, on his breast, and a coronal
of silver leaves entwined about his brow. His face, covered by a veil
of black cloth, with spaces for the eyes, also bore the letters, B. H. A. C.
This was the Honorable Warden of the Lodge, clad in the regalia of
the Venerable or Knightly Degree.
And between the Warden and the Master, were seated some hundred
men, every face covered with a veil, every form bearing the regalia of
the order, either the white scarf of an Initiate, or the scarlet collar of a
Knight, or the purple insignia of a Priest. In the dim light, the effect of
this scene was at once solemn and dazzling.
The floor was of dark wood, polished like a mirror. In its centre,
appeared a large star, inserted in the polished wood, and glittering like
burnished gold.
To this star Gilbert advanced, and placed the box and the rifle at his
feet. Then, raising his clasped hands above his head, he bowed before
the Worthy Master, who slowly imitated the gesture, after which Gilbert
spread forth his arms, with the fingers of each hand extended and separate
from each other.
“Right, Brother!” a voice sounded from beneath the Master's veil.
The Hunter, turning on his heel, faced the Worthy Warden, and saluted
him with the same sign.
Then, lifting the box and the rifle from the floor, he took his seat
among the veiled brethren, covering his face with a veil similar to the
others, which was extended to him by a figure clad in a shapeless black
robe, with a dark plume waving from his shrouded forehead. This was
the Worthy Herald of the Lodge.
“Let the rite of Initiation begin!” said the Worthy Master, in a hollow
voice, which, evidently assumed, echoed through the spacious room,
with a strange and unnatural emphasis.
And from the dark hangings near the Warden's Platform, the Herald,
clad in black, with the plume waving over his veiled face, led forth a half-naked
man, whose eyes were covered by a white scarf, bound tightly
around the brows. His form, bare to the waist, was marked by a broad
chest, and arms of iron muscle. And yet, as, with his eyes blindfolded,
he followed the Herald, he trembled like a man seized with an ague-chill.
It could not have been with cold, for, either from the heat of a fire which
was invisible, or from the numbers gathered in the darkened room, the
air was hot and stifling.
Not a word was spoken for the space of ten minutes, but in that space,
to and fro, now crossing the room, now traversing its entire length, now
suddenly turned in his course, and forced on his knees, by the hands of
the Herald.
It was plainly to be seen, that the dead silence of the place awed the
senses of this strong man, while the manner in which the Herald led
him, gave him the idea of traversing winding corridors, long passages,
and a wide range of rooms. For as, in his blindfolded career, he approached
the eastern or western extremities of the Lodge, the doors appearing
amid the hangings were opened and closed, with a harsh, grating
sound. And every time he passed the golden star, glittering from the
centre of the floor, a figure robed in white advanced from the crowd of
brethren, and waved a burning flambeau in his face.
This impressed him with the idea of a fire, blazing in his path, and
about to envelop him with its flames.
Indeed, the silent ceremonial, altogether, was calculated to chill with
awe the firmest nerves; to weaken, with the rapid alternations of suspense
and fear, the stoutest heart. The ten minutes—which seemed an
eternity to the blindfolded man—were over at last. A deep bell, striking
one, and echoing like a knell, broke on his ear.
“Thou art here, in the hallowed circle of the Free Lodge of the B. H.
A. C.,” said the Herald, in a guttural tone.
Then chains were dashed upon the floor, and clanked at his back.
The harsh sound, breaking, in sudden violence, from the dead stillness,
seemed to complete the terror of the Initiate. His bared arms trembled;
his knees quivered, and shook against each other.
“Do not—do not—” he gasped—“I will obey—”
Still, no voice was heard in answer; an unbroken silence prevailed.
While the Herald bound the chains about his bared chest, and twined
their cold links around his naked arms, four figures clad in white, with
torches in their hands, bore from the shadows a bier, on which was
placed a motionless figure, in a sitting posture, with two hands extended
from the black pall which covered its outlines.
“It is the body of the Dead!” whispered the Herald—“It is beside
thee, on its bier. Its face is covered by a pall, but the cold, stiff hands
are extended, to clasp thee in the embrace of Death. Art thou ready
for the trial?”
And as he spoke, a chorus of hollow whispers echoed in the ear of
the Candidate—“It is the corse of one who betrayed his trust”—“He
died in the act of crime”—“The vengeance of the Lodge overtook
him at the altar, even as he heard the voice of his Bride”—
“The trial?” faltered the Candidate.
“Yes, the solemn ordeal of the dead hand!” spoke the Herald in his hollow
voice. “Give me thy hand. Press the hand of the dead—thus—”
The Initiate shook like a reed, as he felt those cold fingers in his
grasp.
“Clasp it firmly, and repeat with me the obligation of a Free Brother
of the B. H. A. C. `If in my heart there is hidden one thought of
treachery to the Order, in whose Lodge I stand, may my hand become
like the hand which I grasp; and in witness of this my vow, I raise to
my lips the cold hand of the Dead.”'
The Candidate faltered the words, with a pause between each syllable,
as though his fears had choked his utterance.
“Raise the hand to your lips”—spoke the deep voice in his ear.
With his strong arm trembling in every nerve, he slowly lifted the
dead hand, and felt its fingers grow colder in his grasp. He pressed it
to his lips, and as the moist, clammy skin filled him with a sensation of
intolerable loathing, he let it fall, as though it was a hand of red-hot iron.
“Examine the hand, Honorable Herald”—spoke the Worthy Master
from his throne—“If there is a drop of blood upon the palm, this Candidate
will prove a Traitor!”
A dead silence ensued. The Initiate, shuddering with suspense,
awaited the result of this strange ordeal.
“There is!” shouted the Herald in tones of thunder—“There is a
drop of blood upon this dead hand.”
“Then,” exclaimed the Master, starting erect on his platform, with
his regalia glittering in the dim light—“Then have we a Traitor in our
midst. Brothers, arise—arise with daggers drawn, and hurl the wretch
to his doom!”
A confused sound, as of trampling feet, and rustling robes, and sharp
steel, clanking from the sheath, crashed on the Initiate's ear.
His knees sank beneath him; prostrate on the floor, with the bandage
still over his eyes, he faltered the incoherent prayer—
“Mercy! No Traitor, but a true man—do not”—
He felt the points of the drawn daggers touch his face, his breast, his
arms. He was encircled by a wall of deadly steel.
“Death to the Traitor—death!” arose from an hundred voices. “He
will betray us—he must not leave the Lodge alive—the drop of blood on
the hand of the dead, bears witness against him!”
Then a voice, deeper and bolder than all the others, was heard through
the uproar:
“Prepare, Brothers, prepare your daggers! When I raise my hand,
plunge them, one and all, and at the same moment, into the body of the
Traitor!”
There was a pause. A breathless silence reigned. The Initiate moved
his lips, but he could not speak. His head sunk upon his breast, and
his arms fell motionless in their chains.
At this moment, a whisper disturbed the breathless stillness—
“Shall we spare him? He may repent! Even yet, Brothers, he may
be true!”
And in answer other whispers arose—
“No! we cannot spare him. He is doomed. Look! The Worthy
Master is about to lift his hand!”
A picture of terror more abject cannot be imagined, than was presented
in the prostrate figure of that strong man, bound in chains, and surrounded
by the crowd of veiled forms, flashing with regalia, a dagger glittering in
each uplifted hand.
The light suspended from the ceiling grew fainter, and a gloom more
impressive than intense darkness, sank on the scene, confounding the
forms of the brethren, in one vague mass of half-shadow, from which—
like flame-sparks from a cloud—their regalia glittered in tremulous points
of radiance.
“What wouldst thou do, to obtain light and liberty?” said a voice—it
was the disguised voice of the Herald.
The Initiate could not answer.
“Let the bandage be removed from his eyes. He shall behold the
doom that awaits him.”
There was a mingled sound as of whispering voices and steps hurrying
to and fro, with the sharp clang of steel encountering steel, heard through
the confusion.
The Initiate felt the bandage drop from his eyes. It was a moment
before he could recover the use of his sight, but when he gazed around,
he discovered that he was kneeling in the centre of a room not more than
ten feet square, with a lofty ceiling, and hangings of midnight darkness.
Before him stood a man, enveloped in a shapeless garment of coarse
cloth, grey in color, and with a veil of black crape over his face. In one
hand he held a glittering axe, in the other a flaming torch, whose red
light imparted a lurid glare to the terror-stricken face of the Initiate.
Beside this figure was an elevation, covered with black velvet. It was the
block of the scaffold.
“I am thy executioner!” said the figure—“Advance and lay thy head
upon the block!”
The face of the Initiate, changed from its ruddy hues, to a corse-like
pallor, was agitated in every nerve. He raised his chained hands, and
gasped—
“I am no Traitor!”
“Come! The moment of your death is here. Hark! That bell;
you hear it? It is your funeral knell.”
He tottered to his feet, entirely awed by the terrors which he had endured.
With one step he reached the block, and knelt and laid his
head upon it. He saw the axe flash in the air, in the red light of the
torch—
He closed his eyes.
There was a pause. The axe did not fall. Tremblingly the Initiate
unclosed his eyes, and felt them blinded by a dazzling light.
The four curtains, which, descending from the ceiling of the Lodge,
had formed the cell-like apartment, were rolled aside, and the sight
which met the eyes of the affrighted man, was brilliant beyond the power
of language.
An hundred torches, each grasped in the arm of a Brother of the Order,
lighted up the spacious Lodge room, and shone on the stars and jewels,
—the symbols and robes—in one vivid flood of brightness.
High on his platform, his breast heaving under its purple collar, appeared
the Worthy Master, with lines of veiled forms, extending from his
side, down the steps of the platform, to the floor; and in every hand a
torch blazed brightly, and on every neck the gorgeous regalia glittered
with blinding radiance.
“Arise! Advance! We hail you as a Brother!” exclaimed the
Worthy Master, in a loud and ringing voice.
Trembling still, the Initiate rose; the chains fell from his breast and
arms; guided by the Herald's hand, he approached the Master's
platform.
And from his pale face the sweat started even yet in beaded drops.
He glanced from side to side, on the array of veiled figures, clad in
robes of linen and purple, and decked with symbols that shone like stars,
and then his eye was centred on the Master's form, who stood motionless
upon his platform, with a golden torch held in his extended arm.
“Thou hast passed the first ordeal. Another yet remains. Yet, ere
we try thy courage, and test thy faith, with the Ordeal of Blood, I have a
charge to impress upon thy soul.”
The Initiate beheld a Brother clad in white advance, holding in one
hand, a coarse garment, flaming red in hue, and in the other, a knife,
rusty and dim, as with the stain of blood.
“Endue the Candidate with the Blood-red robe. Place in his hand
the rusted knife.”
It was done. With the coarse garment on his broad chest, and the
knife in his hand, the Initiate awaited the commands of the Worthy
Master.
“Canst thou tell, O Candidate, whose blood it is, that dyes the sack-cloth
which now covers your form?”
The Initiate's grey eyes expanded in wonder.
“I cannot tell!” he faltered.
“It is the Blood of the Poor,” exclaimed the Master.
From a hundred voices broke the chorus:
“The sackcloth bears witness of the Wrongs of the Poor, slain for
ages by the axe, by the cord, by the iron hand of the Tyrant!”
“The dagger in thy hand is dimmed by a dusky stain. Whose blood is
it, that gathers in blackness on its sharp point?”
“I cannot tell—”
“It is the blood of the Oppressor,” said the Master; and again the
voice of the Brothers joined in chorus:
“The Blood of the Tyrant! Sacred, in the sight of God, be the steel
which is crimsoned by that blood!”
“This sackcloth, stained with the blood of the Poor, this dagger, rusted
by the blood of the Tyrant's heart, have for thee a solemn lesson. That
lesson marks thy first step into the mysteries of our Order. Listen! So
long as the blood of the Poor dyes the sackcloth, so long will the blood
of the Tyrant stain the dagger. The day comes, when the sackcloth
shall be changed into a garment spotless as the snow, when the dagger
shall be transformed into a Cross of dazzling light. Then shall the blood
of the Poor no longer flow, then shall the earth be no longer polluted by
the Tyrant's step. But until that day comes, we have joined in solemn
covenant; wilt thou take the Oath of that covenant, and bind its motto to
thy heart?”
“I will!”
“Warden, administer the Oath.”
The Candidate, attired in the bloody sackcloth, with the rusted knife in
his hand, was led along the floor, through the dazzling array of the
crowded Lodge. In a few moments he stood at the western extremity of
the room, at the foot of the Warden's platform.
The Warden, gorgeous in his light-blue robe, varied by the scarlet
collar, and with a group of white plumes tossing about his veiled brow,
descended the steps, holding in his hand a goblet, filled to the brim with
a red liquid.
“Kneel, and repeat the oath! I do swear, in the name of * * *, to
obey forever the mandate of my superiors; to keep locked in my bosom
the secrets of this order; to yield them up, neither to the fear of man, the
love of woman, nor yet the terrors of the grave. I also swear * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * *. Furthermore, in case I prove recreant to my
oath, and refuse to obey the commands of my superiors, or reveal the
secrets of the B. H. A. C., or meet with any Lodge, not chartered by the
Grand Lodge of this order, may the dagger of the first brother whom I
encounter be planted in my heart; may the sun refuse me warmth,
water fail to quench my thirst, and earth deny me the shelter of a grave.”
“So mote it be! Amen and Amen!”
“And in witness of this oath, and of this invocation, I place to my lips
this goblet, filled with the blood of a Brother who betrayed his trust. So
may my blood be drunken, in case I imitate the perjury of the Traitor!”
He did not refuse the goblet nor fail to utter the words. With a frenzied
gesture, he raised it, and moistened his lips with the loathsome liquid.
Once more, terror-stricken by this horrible formula of blasphemy,
which his lips had repeated, the candidate was led to the east, where the
Master's platform rose.
“Wouldst thou know the great watchword of our order? Then listen
and repeat with me—
“`Death to the Rich—Life to the Poor!”'
The Initiate's eyes flashed, as he uttered the words in a tone of violent
emphasis.
And through the Lodge, spoken slowly and in distinct utterance, it
floated—that fearful watchword,
—“Death to the Rich—Life to the Poor!”
“Prepare for the last trial. Now comes the ordeal of Blood. Fail
in this, and thou canst never leave these walls a living man.”
At this crisis, a door near the warden's platform was suddenly opened.
On the threshold appeared a figure, clad in an array whose splendor
shamed even the dazzling regalia of the Lodge.
Clad from head to foot in white velvet, sprinkled with innumerable
silver stars, with a dove and olive branch, of gold, emblazoned on his
breast, this figure bore in his hand a black wand, with a skull and cross
bones affixed to its upper extremity.
As the Worthy Master beheld this figure, he knocked four times in succession,
with the gavel or hammer, which lay on the pedestal arising in
front of his chair.
“Arise, my brethren, and greet the Grand Herald of the Grand Lodge
of the B. H. A. C.!”
With one movement they rose, and bending their heads, held their
torches high in the air with the left hand, while the right was clasped
upon the breast.
“Hail to the Grand Lodge of the B. H. A. C., and hail to its Messenger,
who deigns to walk in our midst.”
Descending from the platform, the Worthy Master knelt at its foot,
while the Grand Herald took the vacant chair, and, through the apertures
of his white veil, surveyed the dazzling array of the Lodge.
“Thy bidding, Most Honorable Herald? Does the Grand Lodge
communicate with its subordinate Lodge?”
“I come from the Grand Lodge, Worthy Master, and come to claim a
Brother who has betrayed our order, and broken his vows!”
Thus speaking, the Grand Herald advanced to the edge of the platform,
with his snow-white robe glittering in every star.
It was evident that his words produced a marked sensation. The
kneeling Master started, with the same feeling of surprise which thrilled
through an hundred breasts. Gilbert the hunter, with his face veiled—
the rifle and the casket resting at his feet—started forward, and listened with
great eagerness, his curiosity excited by the message of the Grand Herald
“A Traitor in our Lodge, Right Honorable Herald?”
“In your Lodge, Worthy Master. Let him step forth, ere his name is
known. With his face covered by the veil, let him follow me to the
Hall of the Grand Lodge, and hear his doom pronounced without a
murmur.”
That voice, soronous and bold, pierced every ear.
There was a confused movement among the ranks of the Brethren; the
murmur of mingled voices; and all was still again.
“His Degree, Right Honorable Herald?”
“He wears the collar of Knighthood. At this moment I behold him.
Once more I extend to him the mercy of secresy. He shall be condemned
and suffer, without his name being revealed, in case he follows
me in silence to the Hall of the Grand Lodge.”
Still no answer was made; the Grand Herald might be seen, with his
veiled face turned toward a particular point of the room. Gilbert
Morgan, gazing through his veil, beheld him looking intently upon the
brethren among whom he stood, and awaited with a vague curiosity,
tinged with some awe, the utterance of the Traitor's name.
“A Knight,” he muttered, “and a traitor too! Hard to believe; for a
man who's taken the Oath of the Degree, knows too well the fate of a
Traitor, to think o' betrayin' his trust!”
And the stout huntsman smiled and shuddered at once, as he called to
mind the words of that fearful Oath. Smiled as if in scorn, at the elabo-rate
blasphemy of those words; shuddered as he remembered the doom
which had overtaken a recreant Brother.
The revery of the hunter was broken by the voice of the Grand
Herald.
“Once more I speak to him. His foot is on the box, and by his side
the rifle—”
Gilbert's torch shook with the same tremor which heaved his broad
chest, and quivered in every nerve of his iron arm.
“What! I can't a-heerd my ears! `His foot on the box!'—”
It seemed to him as if every veiled face was turned toward him, as by
an electric impulse; he saw the glittering forms and long lines of torches
go swimming round him, as if in a spectral dance.
“Stand forth, Traitor—” the Grand Herald pointed with his wand as
he spoke—“Stand forth, perjured Knight, and let the B. H. A. C. know
the Traitor who has betrayed the secrets of his Order. Gilbert Morgan,
Brother of the Knightly Degree, descend from your seat, and take your
place upon the star in the centre of the floor!”
Gilbert heard that voice, and seemed to behold the floor open in a
chasm at his feet. He obeyed without a word. Descending from his
seat—it was on the second range from the level of the floor—he slowly
strode toward the golden star.
He saw the fingers pointing at him; he heard the whispers, some of
pity, others of scorn.
“The Traitor!” “He false to our order!” “Let him be dealt with as
the law enjoins!”
And yet, tearing the veil from his face, he dashed it on the floor, and
with it his collar and his robe of Knighthood. Then folding his arms
over his blue hunting-shirt, he gazed towards the Master's platform with
an unfaltering eye, though his brown cheek was very pale, his nether lip
shaken by an involuntary motion.
“If I am a Traitor, let me have a dog's death!” he cried—
“That's all!”
“Worthy Master, in the name of the Grand Lodge, I demand from you
the body of Gilbert Morgan; and at the same time direct you to cover
his collar and his robe with the colors of mourning, and hang them on
the walls of the Lodge, so that all the brethren may know that he no
longer lives, but has gone to his reward!”
“I obey. It shall be done!”
And as the Grand Herald descended from the platform, the Worthy
Master led Gilbert toward the door, and paused on the threshold. At a
sign from the Messenger of the Grand Lodge, a brother bore the box and
the rifle over the floor, and placed them in the hands of the Hunter.
“Into your hands I deliver the Traitor. Work your will upon him,
and let the doom which he merits fall upon him alone; let his blood be
upon his own head!”
There was something very impressive in the scene. Thrice the
brothers waved their torches to and fro, thrice they bent their heads, and
thrice repeated the stern decree—
“Let his blood be upon his own head!”
And with his face reddened by the torch glare, Gilbert stood on the
threshold, and looked for the last time over the familiar array of his
Lodge—saw the Brothers of his own degree waving their torches with
the rest—heard their voices mingle in his death-chant.
“Come—I'm ready—” he choked down the agitation which was
mounting from his heart to his throat, and turned to the Grand Herald,
who stood beside him, pointing the way beyond the threshold with his
extended wand. Into the darkness they went forth together; the door
closed behind them, and the Worthy Master, with the torch flashing over
his robes, lifted the collar and the robe of the Doomed Man from the floor.
“Brother Scribe, you will strike from our roll the name of the Dead.
Honorable Herald, you will cover these with crape, and suspend them
behind my chair, as a token of the fate of the lost brother.”
It was done. The Scribe—who sat in one corner, before a desk, a
dark robe flowing round his form, with a dagger and pen emblazoned in
silver on the sleeve, erased the name from the book, which lay open in
fluttered from the hangings behind the Eastern Chair, and it was known
to all the brothers, that Gilbert Morgan was dead, from that hour.
“Now let the Candidate prepare for the last ordeal!”
This strange incident had not failed to make a strong impression on the
sense of the Candidate. While it passed, he had remained standing at
the foot of the platform —gazing in mute wonder upon every point, listening
to every word of the scene—and now, with his face manifesting in
every line a pitiable terror, he trembled as the voice of the Worthy
Master announced the Ordeal of Blood.
—We may, in future pages of this history, describe at length the appearance
and character of this Candidate, and reveal him in scenes of another
and far different nature.—
“I am faint”—he gasped, as the knife fell from his unclosing fingers:
“Do not—do not—urge me farther. This scene bewilders—it is too
much”—
Covered as he was with the blood-red sackcloth, he fell insensible to the
floor.
How long he remained unconscious, he knew not, but when he recovered
the use of his faculties, the dazzling light of the hundred torches
no longer illumined the hall. He rose to his feet, and by the dim lamp,
which swung from the high ceiling, beheld the floor crowded by kneeling
men, who bent their faces on their clasped hands. An unbroken silence
reigned. On his platform the Master knelt, his attitude as humble
as the humblest of the brethren. The other officers of the Lodge were
also on their knees; throughout that dimly lighted hall, nothing was seen
but prostrate forms, heads bowed, and hands clasped as if in silent Prayer.
And through the gloom, the symbols of the order gleamed, with a faint
and tremulous light.
Suddenly—while the Candidate, awed to the soul, was watching intently
for the slightest gesture, or the faintest sound—a flood of ruddy light
poured through an open doorway. It grew more vivid, it bathed the
room in sudden splendor.
And on the threshold appeared two figures, in robes which resembled
shrouds, slowly advancing with a measured step. They held lighted
torches over their heads.
As they passed the threshold and took their way through the kneeling
brethren, two forms appeared behind them, at the distance of some three
or four paces. Clad in the same shroud-like robes, they also bore
torches above their heads.
Slowly the four advanced, moving with the same measured step,
and it was seen that they bore a funeral bier, on which was placed a
coffin of unpainted pine wood. The torch-light glowing over their shroud-like
robes, shone in painful distinctness upon the closed lid of the coffin.
They came slowly on. Still the brethren knelt. They reached the
star in the centre of the floor. Still no head was lifted; not a hand was
unclasped. They placed the bier upon the star, and stood around it,
waving their torches over the rude coffin.
The scene was wild and spectral. These four figures clad in white,
that coffin of rough pine wood, were seen in the centre of the dazzling
array of robes and symbols.
The figure who stood at the head of the coffin, on the right, suddenly
lowered his torch, and dashed it against the closed lid. The others, one
by one, imitated his action, and the extinguished torches rested upon the
lid of the coffin.
Through the gloom, the voice of the first figure echoed, like a knell—
“Worthy Master of the Rifle Lodge, No. 256, of the B. H. A. C., into
your hands I deliver the dead body of Gilbert Morgan.”
9. CHAPTER NINTH.
THE FATE OF GILBERT MORGAN.
It may not be altogether without interest, for us to follow the stout
hunter on his way, and behold the manner of his Doom.
“Come! Follow me!” said the voice of the Grand Herald, speaking
through the darkness of the passage—“We ascend these stairs, and pass
into the ante-room of the Grand Lodge.”
In silence, with his heart chilled, his senses bewildered by this
mysterious incident, Gilbert followed the unknown messenger. They
ascended the stairs, and through a doorway, where a curtain supplied the
place of oaken panels, passed into the ante-room.
It was a small apartment, illumined by a lamp, which stood on a table
covered with dark cloth, with a skull and an unsheathed sword by its
side. The place was hung with dark tapestry, on which the various
symbols of the order were emblazoned, with the “B. H. A. C.” glittering
brightly in their midst.
A man dressed in a loose garment of white linen, with a dark mantle
floating from the shoulders, confronted the Grand Herald, with the veil
on his face glowing with the mystic letters, and the point of his sword
turned to the uncovered floor.
“Pass on, Grand Herald,” he said, “the Grand Sentinel gives thee
free passage into the Hall of the Grand Lodge.”
Through the doorway—opposite that by which they had entered, and,
like it, with a curtain in the place of a door—Gilbert and the Grand Herald
silently passed.
In a circular room, hung with purple tapestry, and lighted by candles,
which were placed on four separate pedestals, covered with white cloth
and rising at intervals from the polished mahogany floor, the Grand Lodge
of the Order were assembled.
Gilbert, led by the Grand Herald, looked from side to side, and beheld
some twenty men, veiled in robes of dark purple, seated in a circle,
around the white pedestals. Their faces were concealed by a sort of cowl,
made of scarlet velvet, and glittering with golden letters and symbols.
Altogether, the effect of the scene was very impressive.
Before the Hunter arose a platform, with its three steps covered with
dark cloth. In a chair, adorned with cumbrous carvings, with wide arms,
and a high back, surmounted by a golden crown, sat a veiled form, clad
in a flowing robe of purple, glittering, from the shoulders to the feet, with
vine leaves, stars, a dagger and a skull, and other symbols of the Order.
This figure wore over his face a veil of white lace, which permitted his
bronzed features to be dimly seen: around his brow, a coronet of golden
leaves was twined, and from its centre waved a single long and slender
plume of raven darkness.
“You stand before the `Most Venerable, the Grand Master of the
Grand Lodge of the B. H. A. C.' ”
The Grand Herald, as he uttered these words, laid his hand on the
hunter's shoulder, and whispered—“Kneel! You are now in the presence
of your Judge!”
In the centre of the space, bounded by the four pedestals, the Huntsman
knelt, his plain hunting-shirt strongly contrasted with the purple
robes of the encircling figures, his rude sunburnt features with the half-veiled
face of the Grand Master, to whom his gaze was turned. By his
side, in the white robe sprinkled with stars, the Herald stood, the wand
grasped in his extended hand.
The Hunter looked wonderingly around, while the sensation of mystery,
and the terror that comes from mystery, began to crowd his brain
with images of gloom and death.
Not a word was spoken. Like lifeless effigies, those figures were
grouped around; like a corse placed erect, with a veil over its frozen
face, the Grand Master sat on his throne, the lights playing warmly over
his flowing robe, and shining on each brilliant symbol.
“Have you no word, in answer to our charge?”
It was the voice of the Grand Master, and broke with a sudden emphasis
upon the Hunter's ear. He could not answer; the mysterious
fallen upon the faces of his brethren, as they heard him charged with the
unpardonable treason; the anticipation of an approaching Doom, which
would be as terrible as it was secret—all rushed upon the stout Woodsman
at once, and held him dumb.
“Of what am I accused?” he faltered at last—“What's the man that
dar' say it?”
Even as he knelt, raising his clenched hand, while the arm shook with
a ceaseless motion, he uttered the words in a husky voice, and with his
head bent forward, awaited an answer.
“Deathsman of the B. H. A. C.—advance! Prepare the cord!”
Gilbert did not see the form, which, advancing from the circle, stood at
his back, but he heard the footstep, and felt that his Executioner was
at hand.
It was indeed a hideous figure, with a death's-head mask upon his face,
the fleshless bones of a skeleton traced upon his breast and limbs, and in
his hand, covered with a black glove, painted in resemblance of a skeleton
hand, he bore a cord, which, wound once around the fingers, dangled
to the floor.
“Accuser of the Guilty—advance!” again the Grand Master's voice
was heard.
And in front of Gilbert, on the right, appeared a man veiled in a shapeless
robe, black as midnight, and with no ornament to relieve its drooping
cowl, or gloomy folds.
“Speak, Accuser, what is the Crime of the Accused?”
Without lifting the cowl, the Accuser spoke; Gilbert listening all the
while with trembling earnestness.
“I accuse Gilbert Morgan of the violation of his Oath as a Brother of
our Order. I accuse him of betraying his sacred trust, as a Knight of the
Scarlet Degree!”
“Accuse me? It's a lie—a lie, by —!” shouted Gilbert, with an involuntary
impulse of anger and profanity.
Half-starting from the floor, he flung his clenched hand toward the
Grand Master, while the pallor of his face vanished before a flush of ungovernable
rage.
“Accuse me o' violatin' my oath as a Brother, my trust as a Knight?
I don't keer who ses it—I fling the lie in his teeth! And I'll prove it to
his face, with my foot upon this box, this rifle in my hands!”
He towered in the midst of the secret band, his foot upon the box, his
own true rifle in his grasp. There was a look of defiance on his brow, a
fearless scorn upon his lip.
Yet at the same moment, a cord was thrown over his head; it tightened
round his neck; he felt himself dragged rudely backward, and sinking on
one knee, gasped for breath.
“Ah! By —! This is a coward's trick—to murder a man like a
dog!”
Struggling fiercely while that cord tightened about his neck, Gilbert
rolled his head from side to side, and saw the point of an unsheathed
sword glimmering from the folds of every robe. The Accuser held a
pistol to his throat, a grim weapon, huge in the barrel, with a stock of
heavy mahogany inlaid with silver. At the same instant, the Grand
Herald drew a dagger from beneath his white garment, and stood ready
to strike its keen point into the victim's heart.
“Let me know my crime—” muttered Gilbert, every word rendered
thick and gurgling by the tightening cord—“If I have violated the oath of
a Free Brother, or betrayed the trust of a true Knight, let me know it!”
“You have violated your oath as a Brother,” exclaimed the Grand
Master, starting from his chair—“At your initiation, you took a solemn
obligation, never to desert the Order; never to undertake any enterprise,
much less enter into bonds of marriage, without the Decree of the Grand
Lodge, affirming your purpose. To-night, without consulting your own
Lodge, or the Grand Lodge, you resolved to enter into marriage bonds
with Madeline, the orphan, who dwells in the home of Peter Dorfner.
You resolved to desert our Order, break your vows, and renounce all
allegiance to your superiors—I hold the Accusation in my hand. It is
signed by a Brother of the Knightly Degree.”
Utterly confounded by this charge, Gilbert felt the rope about his neck,
saw the dagger and the pistol levelled at his heart, and could not speak a
word in answer.
“More than this—” continued the Grand Master, as he stood erect on
his platform, with the parchment of the Accusation in his hand; “you
have perjured yourself in another point. By your vow, you are bound
to bring at once, without a moment's delay, all sums of money in your
possession, either to the chest of your own Lodge—or, in case the sum
is beyond an hundred doubloons—to the Treasury of the Grand Lodge.
Have you done this? The box at your feet contains one thousand pieces
of gold. You know—nay, you dare not deny—that it was your intention
to appropriate this sum to your own purpose. Appointed, at the last
meeting of your Lodge, to secure this money,—appointed by your
Lodge, at the Decree of the Grand Lodge—you have violated your trust.
And in proof of this also, I hold the accusation in my hand, made and
signed by a Brother!”
“I was in the Lodge, with the box in my hand, about to deliver it,
when—”
The words were interrupted by the gradual tightening of the cord.
Thrown on his back, Gilbert lay without speech or motion, his face darkening
into livid purple, his eyes protruding and blood-shotten.
“Brothers of the Grand Lodge—you have heard the Accusation, made
What is your Decree?”
“Guilty!” was echoed by every voice.
“Your judgment?”
And, in chorus, they uttered the formula of the B. H. A. C.—
“Let him be stripped of all Regalia, for he has dishonored that Regalia.
Let the name of Brother be torn from his heart, for he has
covered that name with infamy. Let him be put under the Ban of the
Order, and then surrendered to the vengeance of the first Brother who
may encounter him; for he has broken his vows, and severed every tie
that bound him to our protection and our love.”
“The Grand Lodge will now prepare for the solemn ceremony of the Ban
of Excommunication,” said the Grand Master, descending from his platform.
The stout hunter uttered an involuntary groan. The cord grew
tighter; he struggled fiercely, in the effort to free himself from its stifling
coil, but the hue of his sunburnt face was changed to livid purple, his lips
became the color of bluish clay, and every vein, every muscle of his
visage was distorted by the impulse of harrowing physical torture.
`It is—false—” he groaned, and then all became a blank—his senses
failed him—there seemed a blood-red light flashing upon his starting eye-balls—and
all was darkness.
When he recovered his senses, he found himself standing in front of
the Grand Master's platform, supported on one side by the Deathsman,
on the other by the Accuser.
A pale bluish flame shone over the encircling forms, and gave their
robes a spectral and unnatural appearance. That flame was only the
combined light of the torches, which they held in their uplifted arms.
Before the hunter was a large vessel, made of dark wood, and encircled
with iron hoops. It was filled with a red liquid.
And as the Grand Master waved his hand, the Brethren advanced
between the hunter and the Grand Master, and plunged their lighted
torches into the vessel, filled with the red liquid. “Thus—” they cried,
as torch after torch was extinguished—“Thus perish the soul of the
False Brother!”
The twenty torches were plunged into the wooden vessel, their flames
extinguished, their handles projecting from the red liquid. A candle,
held by the Grand Master, shed its faint light over the scene, and dimly
disclosed the circle of shrouded forms, with the half-naked figure of the
Hunter in the centre.
His arms were pinioned; the cord was about his neck; but half-aroused
from a deathlike swoon, his senses were deadened by a leaden
apathy. As torch after torch hissed into the vessel, and flashed with a
more vivid brightness, as it sunk in darkness, Gilbert thought he was
entangled in the horrors of some unutterable dream.
“The False Brother is degraded,” said the voice of the Accuser—“His
name has been inscribed on the Book of Judgment; he has been laid
under the irrevocable Ban of the Covenant!”
“Accursed—accursed, forever!” the words broke in faint whispers
through the gloom.
“Then do I give him over to the Deathsman of our Order. Let his
death be secret; let it be speedy, so that his form may no longer pollute
the earth, and shame the broad canopy of heaven with the sight of a
Living Traitor!”
Gilbert felt the gripe of the Deathsman on his arm. Without a word,
he suffered himself to be led along the floor, and saw, with an apathetic
gaze, the shrouded figures kneeling on either side.
He reached the curtained wall, and—while the Deathsman, in his
hideous mask, with the form of a skeleton traced upon his limbs—lifted
the candle, and extended his hand, as if to point the way, he heard the
voices of the Brethren, speaking in a murmur—
“Farewell,” they whispered—“Farewell to the forsworn and fallen!”
The hangings were lifted by the Deathsman, and a narrow doorway
appeared in the light.
His arms pinioned, his neck encircled by the cord, Gilbert passed
under the raised hangings, and in an instant was enveloped in thick darkness.
A cloth had been placed on his forehead; it hung over his eyes,
and shrouded their sight.
Not a word was spoken, but he felt himself dragged onward, along a
narrow passage; dragged by the cord, which encircled his neck.
The bandage was removed from his eyes. It was some time before
the hunter could see clearly; but when he recovered the use of his
vision, he found himself in a small room, with wainscotted walls, and a
cheerful fire, smoking and crackling, on an open hearth.
A table of unpainted oak stood in the centre, before the fire, with an
arm-chair at either end. On this table were placed a bottle, a goblet of
silver, and a clay pipe.
Gilbert could scarce believe his sight. He turned from the ruddy
blaze, and beheld the Deathsman standing by his side.
“What does all this mean?” he asked—“a comfortable fire, a bottle o'
wine, a cup, and a pipe o' tobacco!”
“It means, that a half-hour of life is still permitted to you—” said the
voice, echoing from within the death's-head mask. “In that half-hour,
you are allowed the warmth of the fire, the cheerful influence of tobacco
and wine. Yet, when you have exhausted the pipe and the bottle, the
hour of your death will be at hand.—Until that moment comes, I
leave you.”
There was but one door to the room. It was opposite the fire.
the key turn in the lock. He stood for a moment, gazing about him, with
a bewildered glance.
“Is there no way of escape?” he muttered, pacing rapidly around the
room, and feeling every panel of the wainscot. “No secret passage out
o' this cursed den? Little did I think, some years ago, when first I was
'nitiated into the order, and took the oath to rob and murder, for the
benefit of my Lodge, that I'd ever be caught in a trap like this!”
There was no way of escape; the panels were perfectly smooth, and
firmly jointed into each other. The hunter turned to the fire, and started
with a new surprise. A coat of dark-green velvet, faced with gold, was
hung over the arm-chair, and beneath it appeared a shirt of fine linen,
with ruffled collar and bosom, and a waistcoat of buff-colored cloth,
glittering with small buttons of gold.
“I'm cold,” he laughed—and shuddered at the same moment—for,
even in his merriment, the incalculable Power of the Secret Order awed
his iron heart—“An' this fine gear will do for me, jist as well as my
hunting-shirt, leather belt, and powder-horn!”
It was not long ere he stood in front of the hearth, clad in the green
coat, with the lace ruffles protruding from the buff vest. This costume
displayed the outlines of his massive figure in strong relief, and its bright
colors threw his sunburnt features boldly into the light.
He flung himself in the chair, filled the goblet, and lighted the clay
pipe, whose long stem reached from his lips to his waist.
“Anybody, to see me, now, 'ud think I was a gentleman o' fortin'
takin' my ease, and carin' a cuss for nobody!”
He drained the goblet, and the smoke of the pipe floated in bluish
wreaths above his head.
“That 'ere wine goes through the veins like melted fire! Sich tobacco
as this, a feller don't often see in these parts. Cuba, rale Cuba, from the
West Ingies, as I'm a poor miserable Devil, doomed to be choked out o'
life, in this cut-throat den!”
And as he drank and smoked—the warmth of the fire imparting its influence
to his chilled limbs—he became, by degrees, cheerful and excited,
and then a leaden drowsiness sank on his senses, and dulled his eyes
and ears.
The bowl fell from his hand, and lay upturned on the table; the pipe
was shivered into fragments at his feet. After all that he had endured,
with the certainty of death before him, the hunter sunk into a dead
slumber. His hands were crossed upon his buff waistcoat, and, with his
head resting against the back of the chair, his mouth wide open, he slept
the dreamless sleep of weariness and exhaustion.
As the pipe fell from his hand, the door opened behind him, and the
Deathsman, hideous in his mask and skeleton disguise, once more appeared.
10. CHAPTER TENTH
THE GOLDEN SIGNET AND ITS COUNTERPART.
“The drug has done its work—” he exclaimed, in a voice whose joyous
intonation could not be drowned, even by his mask—“The fellow has
done his work. We have used him—he shall trouble us no more!”
Scarce had he spoken, when an incident occurred, which exercised an
important influence on the fate of the doomed hunter.
At the back of the Deathsman, treading at his very heels, appeared a
man, whose sharp features were shadowed by a three-cornered hat, while
his slender limbs were clad in dark attire, made after the fashion of the
oklen time, the coat with its skirts drooping to his knees, the vest reaching
far below the waist, and the ends of a white neckcloth dangling on
the breast.
The face of this man—clad, not in the robes and symbols of the secret
order, but in the attire of a plain citizen—was marked by a long hooked
nose, pinched lips, sharp eyes, and high cheek-bones. It was dark-brown
in complexion, and the hair which straggled from beneath his
three-cornered hat, was of jetty blackness, with here and there a lock of
silvery whiteness.
“While he is in this stupor, we will have him conveyed on to the
City, placed on shipboard, and then!—ho, for the Coast of Africa, and
the Slave Trade. Gilbert Morgan will never trouble the Wissahikon
woods again.”
A smile was perceptible on the sharp features of the stranger, dressed
in black, as he stole softly on tip-toe behind the Deathsman, and touched
his shoulder with the forefinger of his right hand.
“Tell your Grand Master that I wish to see him, and have a few
moments' conversation with him,” said the unknown, while the smile
deepened over his face.
“Hey? who spoke?“ The Deathsman wheeled suddenly, and saw
the slender form of the stranger—“Who are you?”
“Will you convey my message to your Grand Master?” And taking
a handsome snuff-box from his waistcoat pocket, he tapped the lid, and
conveyed same portion of its contents to his nose.
The hideous mask covered the face of the Deathsman; the surprise,
the overwhelming wonder stamped on his features, was not visible, but as
he spoke again, the intonation of his voice—no longer deep and measured
—but harsh and hurried, told the story of his amazement. “And who
Know you not—”
“Pooh, pooh! That is sufficient,” said the gentleman, smiling all
over his sharp features—“Convey my message, and let the Grand Master
attend me.”
The unknown crossed his hands behind his back, and advanced to the
hearth.
For a moment the Deathsman seemed to hesitate, and again he asked—
“Who are you? Your name, your business here? If you belong to
the Grand Lodge, give me the Word and the sign—”
“I shall do no such thing, for I do not belong to the Grand Lodge. I
merely wish to see the Grand Master. Is that not plain enough? Can
you understand me now?”
“This is against our laws. You—a person altogether unknown—
have penetrated into this house, and dared to spy out those mysteries in
which you have neither part nor lot. Without regalia—without one sign
to indicate Brotherhood or authority, you desire to see the Grand Master.
It cannot be—”
The Deathsman stood, resting his hand on the chair of the unconscious
hunter, with the light playing freely over his grotesque disguise, and
showing, in bold relief, the contrast between it and the plain, dark apparel
of the unknown.
“It can be—” the slender gentleman wheeled suddenly, and tapped the
lid of his snuff-box—“It must!”
Then, passing before the slumbering Gilbert, he seated himself in the
unoccupied chair, and stretched his spare limbs, with silver buckles on
the knees and shoes, in the cheerful glow of the fire.
The Deathsman retired in silence; again the key grated in the lock.
“A huge fellow—brawny form—a vast fund of nerve. Something
might be made of him. That forehead tells the story of a man who won't
stand upon trifles, or—once aroused—be held back by scruples of
any sort.”
Glancing upon the brown visage of the sleeper, the unknown very
coolly applied himself to his favorite stimulant—the dark tobacco dust—
crossed his limbs in a posture of great complacency, and, placing his
thumbs together, seemed to be altogether at home in this mysterious
chamber.
The key grated in the lock, and as the door flew open, the Grand
Master entered, his tall and somewhat commanding form clad in the purple
robe, dazzling with embroidery, the white veil shadowing his bronzed
features, and the solitary plume waving from the coronal of gold leaves
on his forehead.
Advancing one step from the threshold, he paused, and exclaimed, in
that deep tone, evidently assumed—
“Who is it that demands audience with the Grand Master of the B.
H. A. C.?”
“A-h—you have come,”—the unknown carelessly turned his head
over his shoulder—“I have waited for you. I have waited. Be pleased
to close the door, turn the key, and come hither.”
The Grand Master started; his eyes flashed, even through the lace
which veiled his features. For an instant he stood as if completely confounded
by the words of this slender gentleman, whose neat black attire,
and features—sharpened as by the systematic attrition of traffic—indicated
the plain citizen, the restless merchant of the large city.
However, as though mastering his indignation for the moment, he
quietly closed the door, turned the key in the lock, and approached the
unknown.
“Now, sir, I will hear you. After I have heard—” his voice, growing
bold and harsh with anger, was interrupted by the sharp tones of the
gentleman in dark attire.
“After you have heard, you will obey. That is plain, sir. Will you
permit me to ask you a question?”
“Speak on.”
“To whom does the Initiate into a subordinate Lodge of the B. H. A.
C. swear allegiance?”
“To the Honorable Master of the Lodge, of course. Did you know
any thing of our Order—”
“Bah! Enough of that kind of talk. Let me ask you another
question. To whom does the Honorable Master of a subordinate Lodge
of the B. H. A. C., swear allegiance.”
“To the Most Venerable Grand Master of the B. H. A. C. for the
Continent of America—to me!”
And the dazzling robe fluttered with the impulse of the broad chest
which swelled beneath it. The entire appearance of this personage, clad
in kingly robes, and standing erect, was in vivid contrast with the plain
attire and careless attitude of the slender gentleman.
“And, my dear friend—” the snuff-box was again called into play—
“if I may be so impertinent as to press the subject—To whom does the
Right Venerable, the Grand Master of the Order for the Continent of
America, swear allegiance?”
“The Most Venerable, you mean—”
“No, sir. The Right Venerable. `Most' does not belong to you—
nor to your office.”
The Grand Master was silent.
“You seem to hesitate. Is not the question easy? You remember
the last act of your installation into the Grand Master's chair, when the
box or casket containing the Will of your predecessor was placed in
the Elect Grand Master dare touch?”
“True—there was an obligation—a charge—but there is no such body
in existence as the Supreme Lodge of the Order, controlling its operations
throughout the World.”
There was a strange hesitation in the manner, a perceptible tremor in
the voice of the Grand Master.
“Ah—ha! You have discovered at last, that there is such a body as
the `Supreme Lodge'—” the sharp-featured smiled in his parched lips
and small black eyes—“And the obligation that you took, invoking upon
your head the vengeance of God, the tortures of Eternal Death, in case
you broke your vow—do you remember its last and most important
word?”
“Who are you?” fiercely exclaimed the Grand Master, unconsciously
echoing the question which the Deathsman had asked—“You have
dared to question me, and I have tamely answered. Now, it is my turn
to question; yours to answer. Unfold at once your name, your
mission within these walls, or, at a sign from me, the members of the
Order will throng this room, and mete out to you the doom of the
—spy.”
He raised his right arm, and his eyes flashed through the veil with
the glare of ungovernable rage.
“ `And in case I refuse at any time to obey the mandate of the Supreme
Lodge, when conveyed to me in ancient form, the Brothers of the Order
shall be absolved from all allegiance to me; the Lodges on this Continent
are from that moment empowered by the sacred customs of the B. H. A.
C., to disown my sway, dishonor my name, and hunt me to the death,
under the irrevocable BAN.' ”
As he repeated these words, in a slow and measured tone, the gentleman
dressed in black arose, and passing before the sleeping hunter, confronted
the Grand Master.
“This is the last word of the Obligation which you took over the
dead body of your Predecessor. Do you remember it now?”
It was a singular thing to see the change which came over the gorgeously
arrayed Grand Master, as this plainly attired man uttered these
words. He was silent; he tottered, and only saved himself from falling
by placing his hand upon the back of Gilbert's chair.
“ `And I will recognise the Messenger of the Supreme Lodge, whenever
he appears holding in his hand the counterpart of the golden signet,
which I wear on my heart as the emblem of my authority, and also as
the Great Seal of the Grand Lodge—' ”
Extending his hand, the unknown grasped the golden medal, or, to
describe it more properly, the Great Seal, which, supported by a heavy chain
—also of gold—shone on the Grand Master's breast.
“You behold the figures on this medal, which—when it is impressed
upon the melted wax—appear in the distinct shape of King Solomon on
his throne, with the Temple in the distance, and Hebrew and Arabic
characters, traced on the Mosaic floor at his feet? Now look upon the
counterpart of this signet.”
He placed in the hands of the Grand Master a small casket of dark
wood, the lid of which flew open at his touch.
“Hah!” ejaculated the Grand Master, as he beheld the medal which
the casket contained—“It is indeed very like the signet—”
“Like? It is the same, only on your medal the figures are sunken;
here they are raised. Do you want further proof?”
He took the medal of the Grand Master, and placed his own upon it.
The raised figures on the one, fitted into the sunken spaces on the other,
with so much exactness, that the two seemed but one piece of solid gold.
“What do you demand?”—the voice of the Grand Master was changed
from its late fiery and indignant tones. “I must confess that it appears
to me, that this may be only an imposition—I never heard of the Supreme
Lodge as a body in actual existence—”
“You thought, my good sir, that it was only a masonic expression
for the Power of the Almighty, and, governed by this thought, have assumed
titles and privileges which do not belong to you—have in fact invaded
the Prerogative of the Supreme Lodge, and usurped its functions!”
The gentleman in dark attire placed the casket within his waistcoat,
and again supplied his nostrils with tobacco dust, as he remarked—
“Right Venerable Grand Master, you will take one arm of this insensible
man, and assist me to convey him into the presence of the Supreme
Lodge—”
“But the Grand Lodge await my return. The Brothers will think
strangely of my absence—”
“They will have to continue thinking strangely, for a great while,”
said the dark gentleman, with an ominous smile. “Was it not enough,
sir, that you held in your grasp the revenues and power of the Order?
At your word, a thousand men—all bold and unscrupulous, and fitted by
desperation for any deed—started into action, on every part of the Continent
of America. At your mandate, the ocean was whitened by the
sails of at least five hundred ships, whose dark flags bore the same skull
and crossbones with the dagger and the motto of the order. You had
only to speak, and lo! in any of the cities of the North or South, your
bidding was done—property and life became, through the ten thousand
hands of the Order, your easy prey. But this it seems was not enough.
Not enough to hold a power, which, striking from the dark—deemed
fabulous by the great mass—rivalled, in its certainty of action, the sway
of an absolute Monarch, and, at the same time, was secured from all
danger, all responsibility, by the cloud of an impenetrable mystery. Not
by the rich and aristocratic, while every Minion of the Crown thought it
but a proper reverence for `high birth and great property' to do you especial
honor. This did not satisfy your ambition. You aimed at the
supreme power—ay, sir, only this night, laid your plans to convey into
your own hands the thousand doubloons, which were ordered to be
secured for the use of the Supreme Lodge.”
Even beneath his royal robe, the Grand Master trembled like a reed in
the blast.
“You know my name—” he faltered.
The slender man tapped the lid of his snuff-box, and, with a deep bow,
offered its contents to the Grand Master—
“Will you take the arm of this insensible man?”
It was done. They raised the sleeping man from the chair, and, supporting
his unconscious form between them, departed from the room. As
they passed the threshold, the gentleman in black whispered pleasantly
to the Grand Master—
“You do not know all the secrets of this old house. You doubtless
thought that all its rooms were occupied by your subordinates, and quite
forgot the fact, that the second story of the back part of this mansion
communicates with the steep hill on the north, by a door and a passage
not ten feet from where we stand. Do you believe in the Supreme
Lodge now?”
They passed the threshold, and, instead of descending the stairs into the
room of the Grand Lodge, traversed the corridor in an opposite direction.
Presently, as he grasped the body of the unconscious hunter with his
muscular right arm, the Grand Master heard a key turn in a lock.
At the same moment, the whisper of the unknown thrilled on his ear,
even through the darkness:
“Let us enter. This passage leads us into the bosom of the hill, at
the back of the mansion.”
Scarcely had the Grand Master and the unknown, bearing the form of
Gilbert, left the small apartment, warmed by the cheerful wood fire, and
lighted by the candle on the table, when a figure crossed its threshold,
and the Deathsman appeared once more.
“Strange! The Grand Master not here, and the Traitor also gone!”
he ejaculated, as he surveyed the vacant apartment. “Who can it be,
that so boldly desired an audience with him?”
He left the room with a hurried step, and in a few moments reappeared,
with the Grand Herald by his side.
“This is indeed singular,” said that personage, as his white robe, dazzling
with stars, glittered in the light—“Gone, did you say? The Grand
means could they have obtained egress from the house?”
To this hurried question, which he propounded without raising the veil
from his face, there was no answer. These two ministers of the Grand
Organization of the B. H. A. C. left the apartment, and descended into
the Hall of the Grand Lodge together.
Day was breaking without the desolate mansion; and in the hall, the
candles standing on the pedestals, were burning fast toward their
sockets.
Still seated in a circle, their purple robes glowing in the wavering light,
the Brothers of the Grand Lodge awaited the return of their Chief. His
platform was vacant; the Grand Herald, leaning on his wand, stood near
its foot, and by his side, the Deathsman. Through the masks which
covered their faces, they gazed over the forms of the brethren, who conversed
in whispers; their all-absorbing topic, the unaccountable disappearance
of the Great Head of the Lodge.
“It cannot be done—” whispered the Deathsman—“It is against all
custom, for even a Right Venerable Warden to adjourn the Grand Lodge.
It cannot be done without the presence of our Chief.”
“Yet, what else can we do?” interposed the Grand Herald—“Our
chief, who opened this session, is absent. It is near daybreak, and we
do not wish to be seen leaving this house in the broad light of morning.
Brethren,” he cried aloud, “in the absence of the Grand Master, I
would suggest that the Grand Warden be empowered to close this
session—”
The sentence was never completed. For, as the lights were burning in
the sockets, the hangings opposite the platform were raised, and a
murmur of surprise broke the stillness—
“The Grand Master! At last he has come—”
The Grand Master, clad in the robes of his office, strode slowly, and
with a measured step, through the ranks of his brethren. As he ascended
the platform, it might be seen that the golden signet was still suspended
from his neck, while his bronzed features were covered by the veil.
“Brothers of the Grand Lodge—” he began, but paused—as four veiled
figures, bearing a coffin, crossed the threshold and advanced toward the
platform. Every member could not fail to observe that the voice of the
Grand Master was strangely changed, as he continued:
“Behold the crose of Gilbert Morgan, who was executed in my presence
by the Ministers of the Supreme Lodge!”
The effect of his words upon the members of the Order, was not discernible,
for as he spoke, the lights, flickering for the last time, went out in
three words were audible—“The Supreme Lodge!”
The Grand Master had been gone for the space of three—perchance
four hours.
Shall we lift the curtain from the councils of the Supreme Lodge, and
reveal the history of those hours?
11. CHAPTER ELEVENTH.
THE SUPREME LODGE.
We now return to the moment when the Grand Master heard the Unknown
whisper—
“This passage leads us into the bosom of the hill.”
He also heard the door close behind him, and felt the form of Gilbert
press heavily upon him. All was dark, but he was conscious that the
passage which they traversed was narrow, the atmosphere dense, the
ceiling but an inch or two higher than the top of his plume.
Urged repeatedly by the unknown, to be careful of the form of Gilbert,
to grasp him firmly, and by no means loosen his hold, even for an instant,
the Grand Master counted twenty paces, when his course was
suddenly ended.
“You will enter the room on the right, and await my coming.”
The Grand Master extended his hand, and felt the panels of a door. It
opened, and, as he crossed the threshold, closed again.
It was a cell-like apartment, with ceiling, wall and floor of roughly
plastered stone. In the centre, on an old chest, a small lamp was placed.
It was evident, at first sight, that this room, resembling a grave-vault, was
sunken in the bosom of the hill, which ascended precipitously in the
rear of the old house.
Seating himself on a chest, the Grand Master gathered his robes about
him—for the air was chill and damp—and, with an ejaculation of wonder,
surveyed the cell.
He had heard of the wealth of the Order, had, indeed, been intrusted
with the control of a great portion of that wealth, but this room displayed
a sight, which exceeded the bounds of all reasonable credibility.
The floor was covered with chests of every shape and form. Some
pile, and again—massy and iron-bound—they stood apart. The unclosed
chests were stored with gold and silver coins of every mould and form,
from the uncouth Chinese money, to the round and substantial Spanish
doubloon.
On the closed lids were scattered stores of gold and silver plate; and
from the aperture of the half-opened chests, projected cloths, velvets and
laces, of the richest texture and most costly dyes. It seemed as though
every part of the world had sent its tribute to swell the countless wealth
of this narrow cell. Wherever the Grand Master turned, he saw nothing
but gold and silver coin, cloths of every pattern and hue, plate of the
most precious metals, worthy to grace the board of a crowned Despot.
“The treasury of the Supreme Lodge!” he exclaimed, and, raising a
heavy goblet—with the veil still drooping over his face—he examined
the delicate sculpturing which adorned the narrow stem and capacious
bowl.
“Will no one wake me up from this dev'lish dream?”
Gilbert unclosed his eyes, and found himself encircled by a scene,
whose unearthly solemnity resembled the vague spirit-pictures of a
dream.
A lamp hung from the dome-like ceiling of a narrow cell, and shed its
faint light before his eyes. The corners of the cell were dark; the light
only served to reveal the brown visage of the Hunter, who, clad in the
coat of green velvet, faced with gold, looked about him, in blank wonder.
Before him was a circular table, on which a book, huge in size, bound
in white parchment, was placed. Its golden clasps glimmered in the light.
Around this table, three figures attired in gowns, with cowls, resembling
the monkish robes of the Old World, were seated in arm-chairs of
unpainted oak. The figure, seated, directly opposite where the Hunter
stood, rested a small white hand upon this large volume.
It was a long while before the hunter could recover his wandering
senses; he remained standing before the table for the space of a quarter
of an hour, and in this time, not a word was spoken; the three figures
were motionless as stone.
Gilbert advanced a step, determined to touch the extended hand, and
assure himself that it was but a hand of wax or marble, not the hand of a
living man. Yet, as he advanced, the hand was slowly lifted; he fell
back into his original position, crossing his arms, while his features assumed
an expression of sullen determination.
“Gilbert Morgan—” said a voice, somewhat remarkable for the softness
and music of its intonation—“Condemned to death by a power that
you cannot see, about to be stricken by the hand which strikes from the
darkness, a chance of life is offered unto you. Will you accept it?”
It was the central figure that spoke, with his white hand resting on the
cover of the book all the while.
The reply of the Hunter was characteristic:
“I'll accept most anythin'—do most everythin'—only get me out of
this wolf-trap.”
“Not only life, but wealth and power are offered to you. The wealth,
the power of the B. H. A. C. are within your grasp. We have selected
you as the Candidate for Initiation into the Degree of Grand Master of
the Order!”
“Initiation!” echoed Gilbert. “Ain't the Grand Master elected by
the Grand Lodge? Who are you, that trap a man in this 'ere way—drag
him from scene to scene—pen him up with three unknown men, dressed
in black, in a grave-vault, like this?”
Without seeming to take notice of his words, or of the flushed cheek
and indignant glance which accompanied their utterance, the central
figure continued:
“There is no such thing as an election, or the power to elect in our
Order. The Honorable Master is designated by the Grand Master; in
his turn the Grand Master is designated by a higher authority, whose existence
is unknown to the rest of the brethren. That higher authority, is
the Supreme Lodge. Its chief is known, not as Supreme Master, but as
THE Invisible Head of the Order. You stand in his presence now.”
“Grand Master!” muttered Gilbert—“That were a prize indeed, for
one like me! Why, I kin hardly sign my name—”
“You will never need to sign your name. The signet will bear witness
of your authority. The man who becomes Grand Master, must be
known to the world, only as the dead are known. From this hour, the
name of Gilbert Morgan will only be pronounced as the name of a dead
man. Again I ask you, are you willing to pass from the edge of the
grave which yawns beneath you to the Grand Master's chair?”
Like a flood of light, pouring suddenly over a mass of dark clouds, a
multitude of thoughts and memories rushed through the hunter's brain.
He was a rude man—rude in speech, bold in deed—but his forehead indicated
a mind of great and peculiar natural power. Utterly uneducated,
there lurked in the recesses of his nature—like sparks among the ashes—
the elements of a wide and grasping ambition. His eye grew brighter
as he heard the words of the figure, who called himself the Invisible; his
clenched hand was pressed upon his forehead.
“Grand Master! You don't mean to say, that I, a rough backwoods-man
o' the Wissahikon, can become that ar'! I—I—sit on the throne,
and, with a word, manage the Lodges of Canada, the New England Provinces,
New York, Pennsilvany, and all the South? Gentlemen, it's not
kind of you, to make fun of a dyin' man—”
“I have said it, and it can be done! I swear it, by the Seven Watchers
of the Holy Temple!”
“Show me the way,” cried Gilbert—“Name the manner o' th' Initiation.”
“Listen, and in silence. I will read to you the preparatory Lesson of
the Grand Master's degree.”—The Invisible unclosed the Book: with his
white hand laid on the parchment page, inscribed with the characters of
an unknown tongue, he continued: “This is the great Book of the
Covenant, written in a tongue, known only to the Elect of the Supreme
Lodge, and intelligible to them, whatsoever their country or language.
This Book was written thousands of years ago, and bears witness of the
Covenant made by the Great Being in the Temple of Jerusalem with
the millions of mankind, in the day of Solomon. That Covenant—as you
are well aware, having been initiated in the Knightly degree—was in these
words: As long as the sun shineth by day, and the stars give light by
night, so long will I, THE Jehovah, listen to the cry of my people the
Poor, redress their wrongs, and scatter the bolts of my vengeance upon the
forehead of the oppressor.—Solomon betrayed the Covenant, and died
under the Ban of the Order, the Curse of his God. Even his countless
wealth, his superhuman intellect, could not save him from the Traitor's
doom!
“Yet I must impart to you the preparatory lesson, or the Degree of
High Priest, otherwise termed the Grand Master's degree—”
“ `The Brother that would take upon himself the great work of a High
Priest, must cut loose from his heart every tie of friendship or love. He
must have no friend; he must love only the Brotherhood over which he
desires to rule. And in order that an unworthy person may not obtain this
great office, it is decreed that the Candidate for Initiation shall pass
through a certain ordeal, the manner and form of which is left to the will
of the Invisible Head, while its certain tendency must always be, to sever
the heart, by an irrevocable blow, from all ties of friendship or love, and
devote it forever to the Brotherhood.
“Are you ready for an Ordeal of this kind, however terrible?”
“I am!”
“Are you willing that your name shall never be heard on earth again
as the name of a living man?”
“Yes—willing even for that!”
“Will you consent to enter at once upon the Ordeal, or trial, which
shall qualify you for the duties of your great office?”
“I consent! You can't name the thing that I'm afeerd to do!”
The Invisible Head closed the volume, and rested his hand again upon
its clasped lid.
He seemed gazing, from the shadow of his cowl, upon the face of the
hunter, while a dead silence fell upon the gloomy chamber. Gilbert, in
brown features still compressed by an expression of unshaken resolution.
“Madeline!”—the word came from the lips of the Invisible.
The Hunter started, but did not utter a word, though the name thrilled
like electric fire through his veins.
“At this moment, while you stand before me, she struggles in the embrace
of her—Seducer! You, the Plighted Husband, stand before the
Supreme Lodge of the B. H. A. C., and not one mile from the spot,
Madeline, your Sworn Wife, yields to her Unknown Lover.”
Gilbert did not speak, but—shaken by an agony that he fiercely
endeavored to master—raised his clenched hands to his forehead.
“Can you hear this without a murmur? Can you think of your wife
returning the kisses of a man unknown to her, and on your wedding
night, and not groan? Then have you the heart to become our Minister;
then have you the iron nerve, requisite for a Grand Master!”
“Go on—” said Gilbert, as his brown face was deformed by swollen
veins—“You see I don't flinch. I can bear even that! Mad'lin' in the
arms of—her lover. Yes, even that. If this is your trial, I'm through
it already. Go on—the end of all this?”
“Let it be spoken in few words. If you are the man we seek, if you
are willing to test your truth, your nerve, by a trial that will bind you to the
Order, and bind the Order to you, at once and forever, then take this knife—”
“Well—I see the knife—go on!”
Take the knife, seek the chamber of your plighted wife, even as she
clings to her lover—and—”
“Strike it to his heart?” shrieked Gilbert, with a wild burst of
laughter—“That is not hard to do.”
“True; that would, indeed, be an action without difficulty or danger.
Such a deed, the Invisible does not demand from you. You plunge your
steel into the Seducer's heart, and are avenged. What self-denial, what
high purpose is exhibited in this? None! A mere brutal revenge, a
cowardly murder; nothing more. But to punish, not the seducer, but the
partner in his act of shame; to strike, not the man whom you hate, but
the woman whom you love, but who has so terribly wronged you—
this demands a soul above all common thoughts, an iron nerve, a heart
unyielding as the grave—”
“Mad'lin'!” shrieked Gilbert, as the blood congealed in his veins—
“Strike Mad'lin'! Strike the girl—who only—to night—”
The words fell in broken accents; he could not go on. As though
some spell had suddenly darkened his reason, he stood before the Invisible
Head, pressing his hands to his forehead, and muttering in gasps—
“Mad'lin'! Mad'lin'!”
And in answer, was heard the musical voice of the Invisible—
“Even now this girl, whom you so madly love, returns his kisses.
fingers in her flowing hair. At this moment, her eyes hazy, her bosom
full with passion, she trembles at his touch, and whispers, `Gilbert I could
not love, but thou hast won me to be thine—thine forever!' ”
“Mad'lin'! Strike her—the girl who never harmed a livin' thing, and
wished good to all the world. Stab her for the villany of this Devil in
human shape—”
“Go, miserable man, go to her chamber, in the Farm-House, not one
mile from this hall. Look through the window; you can climb the
chesnut tree, and see all that passes in her room. Go—see her pant and
swell as her moist eyes are fixed upon her lover's face; hear her words
of passion, broken by the heavings of her naked bosom, and then refuse
the knife, then say that you will not ascend the Grand Master's throne!”
Gilbert's hands fell from his brow, and he tottered toward the table.
The knife, a long and serpentine blade, shapen like the dagger of the
Malay, flashed brightly on the surface of the sombre mahogany.
“Which way—” he said in a whisper, that was scarcely audible—
“Which way—do I pass—from this place?”
He seized the knife, his hand trembling in every nerve.
“First, you must swear an Oath, that you will appear in this hall
again before the rising of the sun—”
“Quick! Your Oath—”
“That you will permit no one to see your face, that you will speak to
no one, while absent on this errand—”
“Your Oath!” the knife, agitated by the tremor of his hand, clattered
against the table.
“Kneel!”
With the knife in his hand, he knelt, heard the Oath, and repeated
every syllable of its crowded imprecations. The lamp gave its faint
beams to the scene. On one side of the table, the Invisible, shrouded in
his shapeless dark robe, with a silent and motionless figure on either
hand; before the table, kneeling on the stone floor, the huge form of the
Woodsman, his head bowed, his hand, which grasped the knife, agitated
by an unceasing motion, while his eyes shone with a mad glare, and his
lips, compressed over his set teeth, indicated at once the firmness and the
horror of his resolve.
“Brethren, blindfold the Candidate, and lead him forth from this cell to
the house of Peter Dorfner!” said the Invisible.
With one movement the silent figures rose, and approached the kneeling
Hunter, who still clasped the knife, and gazed upon the floor, muttering
the name of the Orphan Girl.
It might be seen, even by the dim light, that one of these cowled forms
was that of a stout, perchance Herculean man, while the other was spare
and slender.
The stoutest of the twain bound a dark handkerchief tightly around the
Hunter's eyes, and, at the same moment, lifted the cowl which veiled his
features. A red round face, with hair and beard as white as snow, and
bright eyes, almost buried among laughing wrinkles, glowed in the light
with the cowl encircling it, like a dark frame around a warmly colored
picture.
It was the face of Peter Dorfner.
And, at the same instant that his laughing face, with a deadly malice
sneering from its very laughter, was revealed, the other figure raised his
cowl, and disclosed the sharp features of the Unknown, who had led Gilbert
to this cell.
“We will conduct him to the scene—Most Venerable—and after he
has passed the ordeal, bring him once more to the hall of the Supreme
Lodge!” said Peter Dorfner, in a tone of lugubrious depth, while his eyes
twinkled, and his lips grimaced in sneering laughter.
“Even so! Thou hast said it, and it shall be done!” added the
slender gentleman, in a tone as guttural, and with the same grimace and
sneer of his partner.
“Let it be done! Away! Three hours from this moment, I will
await you!” And the Invisible waved his white hand.
The Hunter disappeared in the shadows of the cell, in the charge of
the two disguised men; the sound of a door, quietly closed, was heard,
followed by the echo of foot-tramps, and all was still.
12. CHAPTER TWELFTH.
THE INVISIBLE HEAD OF THE ORDER.
The Invisible was alone.
Alone, in the centre of the gloomy place, with the hanging lamp shining
down over his cowled head and white hand, resting on the massive
volume. Around him, all was gloom; the walls of the place were lost
in the darkness.
The light only served to illumine that solitary figure, seated beside the
table, with the cowl over his face, and the marble-like hand extended
from the black robe. We may not see his face, but a deep sigh breaks
on the silence, and the white hand trembles in every slender finger.
And while the hour passed, this unknown being, shrouded not only in
his cowl and robe, but in the shadow and secresy of the cell, which was
sunken in the bosom of the hill, remained seated by the table, under the
light of the hanging lamp, with his pale hand placed upon the Book.
And all the while, he talked aloud, as though conversing with his own
soul, in the words of audible language.
“Fools! They pretend to sneer while they bind the Initiate's eyes,
and laugh in scorn as they lead him to his work. They affect to despise
this Organization, which they think is known to them in all its complications
of Mystery and Power! And all the while, the humblest Initiate
of the humblest Lodge, is not more the dupe of the Master of that Lodge,
than Peter Dorfner and his friend are mine. Yet, they sneer and
grimace, ha, ha! They fancy that they share my power, and partake
with me, in a perfect knowledge of the incredible Machinery of the
Order. They, indeed! it is a pitiable delusion. Both stained with
cowardly crimes, both urging the Woodsman to this deed, because the
life of Madeline may be their death, while I, in the rough granite of that
rude Hunter's soul, already can trace the outlines of a Man of Genius.
“In my hands, he will control the Order on this Continent; in my
hands he will go forth to his great work, prepared for every extremity, by
this night's trial, which will cut him off forever from all sympathy or
fellowship with Man.
“And yet they dream—those creatures of an hour, who have no
thought beyond the gratification of an appetite, or the gorging of an insatiate
avarice—that the Order is but a cunning trick, invented yesterday,
to cheat and bewilder baser men than themselves!
“That Order has flourished for thousands of years, its very name unknown
to history, while its symbols—the Altar, the Ark, the Urn—have
been stolen by all forms of religion, and adapted to the childish mummeries
of all shapes of Secret Organization.
“Far—far back into the Night of Ages, we can trace the Order. It
arose in the dawn of the World, when Man, putting on the name of Priest
or King, first began to crush his Brother. Back, farther than the era of
Babel's Tower, back even farther than the Deluge, even into those dim
ages, whose memory is now called a fable, we may surely trace the
Great Secret Order.
“At first, it was, in a word, the expression of Natural Religion—which
had been lost among Altars and Thrones—by the multitude of Mankind,
in the forms and with the solemnities of symbolic worship. A symbol
was the earliest form of an Idea, and therefore, the symbols of the Order
are few, distinct and natural. They address themselves alike to the
civilized man and the savage who is only one grade above the brute.
They have been received alike by the Egyptian among his pyramids, by
the polished Grecian under the clear skies and by the waveless seas of his
in his Druid rites, and the Hindoo, entangled among the mazes of castes,
and ridden to the dust by a ferocious Religion.
“All ages, all nations have known this Order. Moulded anew by the
intellect of Moses, it appeared in the elaborate ceremonial of the Jewish
Religion; to his People of a later day, in the apparently unintelligible
dreams of the Cabalists. The Greek beheld it in the mysteries called
Eleusinian; its rites were observed in the camp of the Romans; it
became manifested to Europe in the Middle Ages, under the form of
Chivalry, and now, in Europe, in the year 1774, it is called Masonry; a
ridiculous Fable of Solomon and Hiram takes the place of the Great
Truths of the Order; and its simplicity of form and serene grandeur of
ceremonial, are lost in a maze of childish observances.
“Shall I not revive the Order, and bid it live again in a stronger and
bolder life than ever? For Good or for Evil?
“Behold the Eternal Wisdom manifested in its laws and ritual! This
Grand Master, who now awaits his doom in the next chamber, did not
dream, one hour ago, that there was such a Power in the world as the
Supreme Lodge. Yet, at his Initiation, he had sworn fealty to that
Lodge; he had bound himself to recognise it, when it appeared in a
certain form, and by a minutely described symbol, and to-night he beholds
the form and the symbol for the first time. At first, he hesitates;
but, bewildered by the conception of a secret and incomprehensible
Power, beyond and above him, he yields like a slave to the master's rod.
“And this band of Pirates and Robbers—not only the Pirates of the sea,
but of the counting-house; not merely the Robbers of the highway, but of
the desk and counter—become subject to my control. I hold their immense
organization in the palm of my hand.”
The Invisible stretched forth his white hand, and the light revealed his
eyes, dilating with inexplicable emotion.
“Shall it be for Good?” his voice broke in musical cadence upon the
breathless stillness of the cell—“or for Evil?”
His head drooped; once more his cheeks, unnaturally pale, rested within
his hands, while his eyes, almost shadowed by his hair, which fell over
his projecting forehead, shone with a fixed and dazzling light.
In this posture, without a word or gesture, to indicate that there was
life or thought in him, he remained for the space of an hour.
No human hand may dare to picture the dark wilderness of his thoughts.
13. CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
THE ANCIENT COIN.
Madeline!
The moon gleams through the narrow window, whose white curtains
are turned aside from the small panes, framed in lead, and shining over
the dark coverlet of the bed, discloses the snowy form reposing in
its centre.
It is by no means a spacious room, nor are the walls concealed by rich
purple tapestry, nor do the creations of the painter's soul glow in the
moonlight, from frames profuse in gilding and decked with elaborate carvings.
The floor is bare; the walls covered with panels of dark oak; two
windows give light to the narrow apartment, one looking to the west and
the other to the south. Between these windows, in the corner, stands a
small bed; two or three quaint chairs, and a walnut dressing-bureau, surmounted
by an oval mirror, complete the scanty furniture of the room.
And it is a very pleasant thing to see the moonlight gushing over the
dark coverlet from the southern window. While all is dreary winter,
white snow-drifts, and leafless woods, and cloudless sky without; while,
from the room below, echo the sounds of the midnight carouse, here,
in the Maiden's bed-chamber, all is silent, and the only light that comes
to bless her slumbering form, is the clear moonshine, gushing through the
narrow window-pane.
She rests upon the bed, her form enveloped in the folds of a white garment,
which, covering her arms with its loose sleeves, and her head with
something like a hood or cowl, suffers her clasped hands, and face with
the brown hair twining round its warm cheeks, to be visible. But the
moonlight comes lovingly to bless her slumbering form, and in its pale
glow, she seems not a living woman, but resembles the form of a dead
Nun, laid upon her sinless couch, with every limb and feature composed
in the sleep of death.
The shadows and the moonbeams struggle for the mastery, in the dim
and narrow room; now the light glares on the mirror and widens upon the
bed. The tread of the dancers, the mad music of the revel, echo from
the room beneath, but still she slumbers, her virgin face looking very
pure and altogether loveable, as the white hood and brown tresses contrast
with her dark brows, delicately defined eyelashes, warm lips and
rosy cheeks.
And the clasped hands gently rise and as gently fall, moved by the
regular pulsations of her virgin breast.
As she slumbers, her lips move, and the silence is broken by an incoherent
ejaculation.
“It is so beautiful! * * * And thou art indeed the Lord of these
valleys—* * * this gloomy hall where we stand, looking forth upon the
field and forest, the lake and river, smiling in the summer sun, is thine!”
Strange dream, that speaks altogether of lordly halls, and magnificent
hills and valleys, with no shadow to dim the sunshine, no cloud to darken
the brightness of the Future
“Madeline!”
The rays of a lamp fell softly over the face of the sleeping girl, and a
countenance, almost deformed by the struggle of contending passions,
looked in upon her slumber.
It was the young stranger, attired in the gray surtout, with curls of
brown hair clustering around his white forehead. Lamp in hand, he had
crossed the threshold with the stealthy footstep of a man conscious of a
Guilty Thought; he had closed and bolted the door, drawn the curtains
over the southern window, and now stood by the couch,—alone with his
sleeping victim.
“Madeline!”
It was spoken in a whisper deepened by passion, but the orphan girl,
wrapped in her dreams, did not hear the voice that uttered her name.
Turning in her slumber, she rested her cheek upon her right arm, and
her face was beneath the gaze of the intruder. Like a slumbering nun in
her white garment and hood, she lay before him, a soft flush stealing over
her clear brown cheek, her eyelids moving gently as their fringes shone
with moisture, her lips parting until the ivory teeth shone through their
glowing red.
He laid his hand upon her arm, and there was a sad look of determined
passion on his handsome face, as he heard the sleeper murmur his name
in her dreams.
With his hand grasping her arm, the enticing loveliness of her face
glowing in the light, he turned his gaze away, and his eye wandered to
the bolted door. It was yet time to relent; he might cross that threshold
in a moment, and the sleeping girl would be saved.
Ah, that some good Angel, whose solemn care it is to watch over the
sleep of child-like maidenhood, had warned him back; and in that moment
when he paused in trembling suspense, even beside the bed, had guided
his footsteps from the room, and from the home of the Orphan Girl!
“But no! The world would laugh when it heard the story—even
Jacopo would jeer! She loves me, and is already mine; for even in her
dreams she speaks my name!”
In silence he surveyed the sleeping girl, as the light fell in mild radiance
over her face.
“An hour! only an hour! And yet a great many things may be done
in an hour!”
His hand pressed her bared arm; his fingers encountered a stray tress
of her brown hair.
“Hah! She wakes—she will utter a shriek as she beholds me—all is
lost!”
While John stood spell-bound, unable to utter a word, the young girl
started up into a sitting posture, her feet hanging over the side of the bed,
her hands slightly clasped, and resting upon the white folds of her dress.
Her eyes unclosed. John uttered an involuntary cry of terror; for
their light was unnatural and glassy; they did not look into his handsome
face with the impetuous glance of voluptuous impulse, or the moist tenderness
of powerless passion but glared upon him with the cold stare
of death.
“The potion has killed her—I am guilty—” faltered the young man,
unable to turn his glance away from those glaring eyes.
It was with a feeling of unutterable surprise, mingled with a terror that
chilled every vein, and made his heart beat with a sluggish and painful
pulsation, that the Unknown heard the first words which came from the
lips of the Orphan Madeline.
“Reginald Lyndulfe!” she uttered, in a voice of unnatural intonation.
The face of John expressed the very extremity of apathetic wonder.
“My name!”
The Maiden, sitting on the edge of the bed, her gently clasped hands
resting on her dress, the light shining full upon her eyes, whispered,
still in that voice, unnatural as her glassy stare—
“Reginald Lyndulfe! A great lord, the son of a lord, he comes to
this forest home, eager to win a noble victory. With soft words and
gentle smiles, eyes whose glances thrill, and tones whose music maddens,
he comes to the home of the poor Orphan Girl, and comes to win her
from purity and innocence, into pollution and shame. It is a noble deed
for one so noble and fair to look upon! And the poor girl, sitting upon
her virgin couch, her senses wrapped in the delirium of an unknown
poison, speaks these words in the ears of Reginald, Lord of Lyndulfe, and
feels that in a moment she will wake from her dream—only awake to
forget the teachings of that dream—only awake to be more completely in
her Seducer's power!”
The young man stood beside the bed, the light in his hand, but without
speech or motion. The ruddy hue of health had passed from his face;
his dark blue eyes grew large and wild; an idiotic smile agitated his
nether lip.
He could not speak; he could not find in his heart the word which
was to answer these incredible words of the Somnambulist, nor had he
the physical power to frame an audible sound.
“Yes, Reginald—” she said, her large eyes yet veiled by that deathly
glassiness—“it is true. In this strange sleep I know you, know your
real name, and know your secret purposes. It is also true, that in a
moment I will awake from this dream—wonder to find you here, in my
chamber,—listen to your words, and yield to their deceit.”
Not one line of her features moved; not a tremor of the expanded lid,
nor a smile of the set lips, gave to the Somnambulist the appearance of
life. She looked like a beautiful image of Death, freshly gathered from
the coffin; and yet her beauty was more terrible to behold than the most
loathsome skull or skeleton of the charnel-house.
Spell-bound, unable to advance or recede, John stood by the bed, the
arm which extended the lamp, stiff and rigid as an arm of iron. He felt
the cold damps upon his forehead; he could not look to the right or the
left; the glassy eyes of Madeline enchained him, and held him motionless
and dumb.
The wind howled dismally without; he heard it, and fancied it was
some strange funeral knell, tolling from an unearthly bell, rung by demon
hands.
Even as the grotesque conceit flashed over his bewildered brain, there
came, crowding together, a mass of incoherent thoughts:
“The drug has the influence of some devil's spell * * * It has destroyed
her reason * * * It is not her voice which I hear, but the voice of a spirit
* * * So pale, so beautiful, so like a dead Maiden half-restored to life!”
Thoughts like these crowded over his brain, but he could not speak a
word.
She rose from her bed. With a footstep that seemed not to touch the
floor, but to glide over it, like the footstep of a spiritual thing, she passed
the form of the young man, her hands extended, and her glassy eyes fixed
on the vacant air.
“Here—on this very spot where now I stand—my Mother stood!”
He heard the voice, but could not turn and look upon her. It seemed
as though the same spell which wrapped her senses in this delirium,
filled his veins with ice.
“Here she stood, and begged for mercy! `Spare me!—if not for the
sake of God, if not for the sake of mercy, for the sake of my unborn
child!' And yet they killed her—”
Her voice, hollow and unnatural as it was, thrilled with a more ghost-like
accent, as she said these words:
“And yet they killed her! Upon this floor, ere the first cry of her
babe had melted on her ears, ere she had seen the face of that new-born
child, they murdered her, in her very anguish and travail!—Mother, your
robes are very white, but there is blood upon their whiteness. Mother,
your face is very fair, but there is the stain of blood upon it, too;—blood
on the brow and lip, blood everywhere!”
Still, with the light shining over the untenanted bed, the young man
stood there, conscious that the Orphan Girl was near him, but unable to
turn and gaze upon her deathly eyes, although her voice penetrated his
very blood.
“In a moment, Mother—” he heard her voice, as, in that slow, measured
tone, she spoke—“your daughter will kneel upon this very spot,
and plead, not for her life, but for her honor. Plead, not with her Murderer,
but with her Seducer. And, like you, Mother, she will pray to an
ear that is brass, a heart that is stone!”
The light, shining over the young man's shoulder, lighting up his
graceful form and livid face, also shone upon the white image at his back,
and imparted a faint glow to the pale face and motionless eyeballs.
How shall we explain this scene? This Orphan Girl, with her blood
wrapped in a spectral somnambulism,—chilled at its fountains,—her
bosom pulseless, her eye glassy—while her soul seems to burst into a
new life,—a life at once conscious of the unknown Past and the unknown
Future? Shall we say that all this was the work of the drug administered
not an hour ago, or the result of witchcraft? Or shall we boldly
imagine that it is not the soul of the Orphan Girl which speaks from her
lips, but that some spiritual Presence from the Other World now fills her
bosom?
Let us look round the walks of our everyday life, and explain the
thousand incidents, which to us appear so dark and inexplicable. Let us
summon to our aid all the old-time wisdom which was called Magic, or
the modern Philosophy, which bears the name of Magnetism. Where
will our explanations end? Where they began. We can only record
the facts—or what to us appear like facts;—the explanation is reserved
for another and more intelligent age of the world, perchance for another
and brighter state of being.
So, in relation to this incredible scene, now before us, we can only
picture, not explain. Perchance, in future pages of this history, we may
learn the mystery of poor Madeline's life.
Suddenly a sound, as of a corse hurled fiercely from its coffin—dashed
rudely on the hard floor—broke the stupor which paralyzed the senses
of the stranger. Distinctly he heard that sound—listened with hushed
breath for the voice of Madeline—all was still.
The blood flowed freely again; the strange terror which had held him
speechless was gone; he could speak, but could not muster courage to
turn himself, and look upon the maiden.
“Ah—this is some devil's wizard-craft! Jacopo! Jacopo! You
shall pay dearly for this!”
He turned—
At his feet, no longer pale and spectral, but throbbing and panting, as
with the first pulses of a new life, was stretched the Maiden Madeline,
her cheeks glowing redly against the brown curls and the white hood;
her eyelids, half-unclosed, gleaming with the moist radiance which they
could not altogether veil.
“She awakes from this wizard spell—” faltered John, or Reginald, as
you may choose to designate him.
Bending over her, light in hand, he soon forgot all his terrors—soon
forgot the pale, glassy-eyed maiden, in that half-slumbering image of voluptuous
loveliness.
“Madeline!” he softly said, while his cheek was flushed, his deep blue
eye, warm and passionate in its light—“Awake! It is I—it is your—”
Lover? He could not speak the word; and as for “Husband,” it only
rose before him coupled with the sneer of the—World.
“Marry her!” Even as she bloomed beneath his gaze, trembling softly
into a warm and passionate life, a sneer curled his lip—“Reginald of
Lyndulfe, and the Peasant Girl of Wissahikon! The world will forgive
the—the outrage, but a marriage—never!”
Merrily from the room below came the sounds of the midnight revel;
sad and knell-like the wind howled through the glen of Wissahikon; but
the young man, bending over the half-conscious girl, did not heed the echo
of the dancers' tread, nor mark the roaring of the blast.
His gaze was centred upon her eyes, shining dimly through their half
closed lids; he seemed to gloat upon the freshness of her parted lips, the
glowing warmth of her cheeks.
The bosom which, only a moment past, had rested beneath the white
robe, like a dead bosom in its shroud, now began to rise and swell. She
suddenly stretched forth her arms—with eyes wide open, glared wildly
about her—started to her feet, and shrunk away from the Stranger, as
though his very gaze filled her with indefinable anguish.
“You here—in my chamber—at this lone hour!—”
She faltered the words, and, joining her hands, stood in her white robe
before this unknown man, her hair coursing freely over her neck and
shoulders.
“Madeline, you do not love me,” he slowly uttered, his voice low and
distinct, his gaze centred upon her face.
“Ah—it is some dream. It cannot be. You—you would not—could
not be so base! To pass the threshold of my chamber at the dead hour
of night—to whisper words of love to a poor forest girl, whose faith is
plighted to another. Ah—it is not your voice that I hear.”
Without removing his gaze, the young man raised his clasped hands,
and, in a voice that was almost hallowed by the deep reverence which
was mingled with its passion, he continued:
“Madeline, will you listen to me? Hear me, before you reject my
before you, and feel that we are indeed alone with each other, shut out
from all the world, and think how often I have longed, prayed for this
moment, I could kneel at your feet and thank—”
He covered his face with his hands. Did he fear to complete the sentence?—was
he afraid to take the name of God upon his lips?
“Madeline, will you listen to me?” he cried, starting forward, his
hands outstretched, his voice broken by emotion. She could see his chest
heave and swell beneath the coarse garb that covered it; and his manly
face, flushed by passion, and lighted by earnest eyes, seemed to impress
her with an emotion as wild and singular as his own.
“John—” she muttered, sinking into a chair beside the bed, as though
her strength had failed her—“You know that I am the plighted Wife of
Gilbert Morgan. When last we met, I told you the story of my life.
Depart—leave me—leave me—I cannot—”
Her words were incoherent, her accents tremulous and broken. As the
blushes warmed over her brown cheek, she absently tossed the tresses of
her hair aside from her face, and cast her eyes—shining with moisture
—to the floor.
“You cannot love him!” cried the young man—“That is it, Madeline.
Nay, do not attempt a denial. Your own heart confirms my words.”
Madeline raised her eyes—her face was very pale, her voice earnest
though tremulous as she spoke:
“Only a month ago, beneath the withered chesnut tree that stands near
the water-side, I first beheld you, first listened to your voice. That hour
brought woe and madness to me! Before I saw you, my life was calm
—thoughtless—but it was happy. An humble peasant girl, I had been
reared in these solitudes; cherished beneath the roof which now shelters
us; my only adviser, a rude Indian man, who, but an hour ago, warned
me to fear you, John; aye, to dread you as the Manitto of Evil. There
was another friend—a man, now aged, who dwells in the Monastery up
the stream, and who, from the hour of earliest childhood, unclosed to my
eyes the pages of the Bible, the knowledge of the world's past history.
It was Father Luke, of the Wissahikon Monastery, who taught the friendless
Orphan Girl the speech of the great world, and the lessons of that
holy Religion which says to all of us, even to the poorest and the humblest—`There
is a God, and he is our Father. There is another World,
a better and a brighter world, and it shall be our Home, when our bones
are dust.”'
She paused, her pale cheek glowing into sudden life, her eyes gleaming,
and a look of almost hallowed purity trembling over the lineaments
of her face.
“And Father Luke has warned me, John,” she said, “warned me to
fear you as I would fear the Enemy of Mankind!”
“Madeline, it is true that I have only known your name for a brief
month. It is true that your love dawned suddenly upon my soul. But
since the hour when I first saw you, I have not been the master of my
own fate. For love of you, Madeline, I would sacrifice all that is dear
to me in the world; in your presence alone I exist; away from your side,
my life is dark—Oh, dark—a dreary waste, without a flower; a gloomy
night withont a star! Listen to me, Madeline—instead of being as I am,
but the poor clerk of a wealthy Merchant, were I the titled heir of some
princely estate, I would fling title and lands at your feet, and be proud to
call the humble girl of Wissahikon my bride.”
Seated on the chair beside the bed, her flushed cheek relieved by the
brown hair, which swept freely from the folds of the white hood, over
her shoulders, Madeline looked up into the face of her lover, with a sensation
of peculiar character. It was not love, it was not fear. He stood
some paces from her side, in the centre of the floor, the light which he
held disclosing his manly face encircled by curls of waving brown hair,
his muscular and agile form enveloped in the suit of coarse cloth, which,
buttoned to the throat, relieved his countenance, and displayed the bold
outline of his chest, the sinewy proportions of his arms.
“It may not be,” she said, in a voice almost inaudible—“Our paths in
this world lie apart. I am the plighted Wife of another. You—you—
are unknown to me. Your very name—”
She cast her eyes on the floor; brighter and deeper the blushes glowed
over her cheek.
John placed the lamp upon a small table of unpainted pine, which stood
near the bed. Then, seating himself upon the edge of that couch, he took
the hand which she had not the power to withdraw. Her eyes were
downcast, but he could feel the hand which he clasped grow cold as ice,
and the tremulous motion of her white robe marked the throbbing of her
bosom.
“Madeline—” he said, in a voice which, low and faltering in its accents,
at once enchained the heart of the poor girl—“I have a few words
to say to you. You will listen to me—listen in silence and in patience;
for when those words are said, I will leave you for ever.”
She did not answer; with her eyes downcast, and her bosom swelling
with an emotion that was denied the blessing of speech, she felt the hand
of this unknown man pressing her own, and could not withdraw her hand
from his grasp.
“You have read of other lands, Madeline. Have you not, in some old
book of romance, read a story something like this?—Once, in a wild
forest, dwelt a beautiful girl, who did not know that she was beautiful,
though the stream told it to her, as her face was reflected in its clear
waves; and the wild rose which bloomed in her path, seemed pale and
withered, when compared with the warm hue of her cheek, the moist
valley of a Yorkshire forest, that this orphan girl dwelt; and many hundred
years have passed since the dust was laid upon her bosom—”
As if absorbed in the memories of his narrative, Reginald pressed the
hand which trembled in his grasp, and toyed absently with her flowing
hair.
“One day, as, bending over the waves, she saw her face smiling upon
her, in all its youth, hallowed by the innocence of a stainless heart, there
came suddenly to her side, an unknown man, dressed in the garb of a
peasant. At once the forest girl loved him, aye, as though some spell
had won her heart, she could not look into his face without emotion, nor
hear his voice without trembling. She loved him, from the very moment
when, gazing in the stream, she saw his face reflected beside her own.
Loved him with a love that was not without a strange and indefinable fear.”
Madeline shuddered. Something there was in the story of Reginald
that penetrated her heart with an indefinable agitation.
“And yet he was unknown to her. She was even ignorant of his
name.”
The young girl raised her eyes, and for an instant glanced upon her
lover's handsome face. Again an involuntary shudder shook her form.
“For him, Madeline, this unknown man, she forsook her wild-wood
valley; she followed his fate into the great world. She forsook, for him,
those dear old woods, in whose tranquil solitudes her form had ripened
into beauty; forsook the calm waters which had reflected her virgin
face; forsook all the peace and quiet of her lonely life, and went forth,
with the unknown stranger, into the unknown world.”
Madeline's head drooped slowly on her bosom; Reginald could not
read the expression of her face, nor mark her tears, but he heard her
gasping breath, he felt that gently tremulous hand.
“They wandered forth together—” whispered Madeline.
“Yes, unblessed by priestly rites; they went on their way, hand
linked in hand, and hearts hallowed in the bond of a stainless love. One
day, Madeline, just as the sun was setting, they stood together on the
summit of a hill, the dusk woods stretching toward the west, while in the
east, centred on the wide sweep of a grassy lawn, arose an ancient castle,
with the banners of a lordly race floating from its loftiest tower, and
strains of music, rich, deep, festival music, gushing from its vine-clad
casements. Around that noble hall, Madeline, invested as it was with all
the outward indications of rank and wealth, bands of marriage guests were
scattered, their gay costumes glittering from the verdure of the lawn.
They awaited the return of the lord of this fair domain. In some far
land, he had taken to himself a bride. Whether rich or poor, young or
old, they knew not; but word had been received that he would return to
his castle, at the hour of sunset, with this unknown wife on his arm.”
The story seemed to absorb the very soul of the Orphan Girl. Her
bosom fluttering, her face averted, she surrendered her hand, her arm, to
the grasp of Reginald, and awaited in undisguised suspense the conclusion
of the old-time Legend.
“The peasant girl, standing on the hill-top—her rudely clad lover by
her side, beheld this scene, as the soft warmth of the summer evening
invested her face with new loveliness.
“`It is indeed beautiful!' she said, her eyes enchained by the scene
which stretched beneath her feet—`Hark! how the music, softened by
distance, comes gently over the lawn!'
“Her lover did not answer her. His face, not altogether hideous or
wrinkled, you may be sure, although his rough garb indicated a life of
poverty and want,—his face, I say, was shadowed by an emotion which
the peasant girl could not comprehend. There was a sad look upon his
brow, but around his lips, a smile hung trembling;—it was as though joy
and sorrow contended for the mastery on the lines of his countenance.
He did not speak to her—”
“He did not speak to her—” echoed Madeline, without seeming conscious
of the words.
“No, Madeline; but led her gently down the hill-side. Through the
lofty gates which stood by the roadside, they went together, she trembling
nearer to him, afraid, in her peasant garb, of all this music and
splendor. He took her silently by the hand, and as she clung closer to
his side, they passed over the lawn, and through the marriage guests, in
their glittering costumes, and up the great steps of the ancient castle,
where a Priest, in the robes of his solemn office, awaited the coming of
the young Lord and his Bride.”
“`Let us depart,' she faltered—`This is no place for us. We are but
poor and humble; these great people, so richly arrayed, look with scorn
upon our mean attire.—”'
“And she buried her head upon his breast, clinging to his arms for
support, as her long hair waved over his shoulders.
“`Look up,' cried her lover, speaking the name of his Peasant Bride,
`and behold our home!”'
“Need I pursue the story, Madeline? Need I tell to you the wonder
and the joy which covered the face of the Peasant Girl with new beauty,
as she heard her unknown Lover addressed by his Lordly title, and felt
her footstep press the threshold of her princely home?”
His voice deepened by emotion, his hand entwined about her neck, her
cheek drooping nearer to his own, his eyes devoured the warm loveliness
of her face, which seemed to ripen into a more luxuriant beauty beneath
his gaze. She trembled at his touch; her downcast eyes were filled with
tears.
“It is a beautiful dream—” she faltered.
“No dream, Madeline, no dream! It is truth, all truth.”
“Truth!” She lifted her gaze, and beheld his earnest face—“What
mean you?”
“Pardon the deception, Madeline. I said that this maiden lived in a
valley of England, in the ages long since past. She does dwell in a
beautiful valley; her own form the incarnation of all that is beautiful in
cloudless skies, or unruffled waves, or the deep silent night, when the blue
heaven is set with countless stars. It is the valley of the Wissahikon;
and here, at her feet, behold her lover in his rough peasant garb!”
He sunk beside her, clasping her hands within his own.
“No peasant, but the heir of a lordly line. Yes, Madeline, Reginald,
Lord of Lyndulfe, asks your love, and beseeches the Orphan Girl of
Wissahikon to become his bride.”
“Reginald of Lyndulfe!” murmured Madeline, and her eyes, even amid
their tears, assumed the glassy appearance which had veiled their brightness
but a few moments before. “I have heard that name—”
With her hands upon her forehead, she seemed absorbed in some painful
memory. Meanwhile, Reginald, clutching her robe with a tremulous
grasp—passion in his flashing eyes, his breast heaving violently, his
parted lips and brow deformed by swollen veins—looked up into her
half-veiled face, as he whispered once more the frenzied request.
“Be mine, Madeline! Be mine—rank—power—” his voice
was broken, his words incoherent.
No answer came from the lips of the forest girl. While her hands
veiled her eyes, her cheek became death-like and crimson by turns, and
the folds of her robe, or garment, call it as you will, were violently agitated
by the impetuous swelling of her bosom.
It was the decisive moment of her fate. She could not speak a word
in answer; but, as if enveloped by the frenzies of a dream, she felt his
arms encircle her waist, and could not resist their pressure. She felt his
burning kiss upon her lip, and could not turn her face away. His hand
toyed with the loose tresses of her hair—his gloating eye surveyed the
half-revealed whiteness of her bosom; she trembled in his embrace, and,
unable to move, sank on his encircling arm, her eyes swimming in the
light of powerless passion.
“Reginald—” she faltered, as though some memory had flashed upon
her, like a lightning spark from a midnight cloud—“On this very spot—
eighteen years ago—My Mother—pleaded for her life—do not—do not—
destroy the honor of her child!—”
The kiss of the lover drowned the maiden's earnest words.
The sound of the dance, the echo of song had died away. All was
silent in the room below—a deathly stillness reigned throughout the farm-house.
There was no sudden blast of wind, howling through the gorge
of Wissahikon, to break the midnight quiet of the scene. No voice was
blushing and powerless, the maiden hung, her lips pressed again and
again by his guilty kiss.
But, from the withered chesnut tree, whose leafless branches touched
the panes of the western window, a face distorted by agony more terrible
than death, was gazing on the Maiden's peril with glaring eyes.
“Mad'lin'!” exclaimed a rough voice,—but it did not reach the ears
of the girl, nor excite for an instant the attention of Reginald Lyndulfe
And on the outer side of the bolted door, a crouching figure bent in the
darkness, his ear laid against the panels, as the words of the Tempter
broke the deathly stillness.
“She yields!” muttered the tremulous voice of an aged man—“In a
moment, all is lost—Ah! The fiend has mocked me!”
And while the figure of Gilbert, revealed by the cold moonlight, was
seen upon the limbs of the chesnut tree, his face against the window
frame, the knife shining in his hand—while the old man, enshrouded in
the darkness of the passage, listened for the fatal word which was to seal
the maiden's shame, Reginald of Lyndulfe, pressing his lips to the burning
cheek of Madeline, gathered her closer to his breast.
“Come! Fly with me to night—this hour—this moment—”
Frenzied by his guilty passion, he said these words, and did not feel
that the Lie of his heart was written upon his forehead, darkened by the
swollen veins.
“Mercy! I am but a poor weak girl—alone in the world—”
With a last effort, she endeavored to free her lip from his kiss, her
waist from his tightening arm. The effort was vain. Her loosened hair
floated over his shoulders, as his kisses burned her lips.
Gilbert, clinging to the withered limb, beheld the flushed face of Reginald,
and laid one hand upon the sash of the narrow window. His face,
pressed against the glass, was hideous with hatred and despair. One blow
of his sturdy arm, and the sash would fall before him; with his right
hand he clutched the knife.
“Warm kisses—” Gilbert muttered through his set teeth—“Hah!
There is a gay dress beneath your coarse gray coat—a spangled dress of
silk and di'monds. By * * *! I'll make it gayer and brighter with
your—”
The Huntsman, laying one hand upon the sash, grasping the knife with
the other, his eye dilating as it was rivetted by the scene within the chamber,
felt the withered limb bend beneath him. With an oath, he endeavored
to grasp a higher branch of the tree, but the knife fell from his
hand, as the withered limb, with a sudden crash, snapped under his
weight.
He fell; the knife clattered upon a heavy mass of granite at the foot of
heard nothing but the echo of the snapping branch. When he recovered
his consciousness, he found himself hanging by the arms to the lowest
limb of the huge chesnut, his feet dangling near the earth. Above him
shone the window of Madeline's room.
“Curses on it! I'm crazy, I believe! To lose my hold at sich a moment!
They are watchin' me, too—watchin' from yonder thicket. But
it does not need their watchin' to make me go forrad now.”
Releasing his hold, he fell on his feet, picked the knife from the stone,
and, placing it between his teeth, began to ascend the tree. Once, as he
clomb from limb to limb, he turned his head over his shoulder. Through
the clear heavens the moon was shining brightly. The farm-house, the
thicket near, and the distant woods, were darkly contrasted with the glittering
waste of pure white snow.
“They watch me from the thicket!” muttered Gilbert, as he sprang
upon a limb, which commanded a view of the interior of Madeline's
chamber. As the stout Huntsman, whose brain was somewhat bewildered
by the events of this crowded night, looked through the window panes,
an oath escaped from his lips.
He saw that chamber by the rays of the lamp, the bed yet bearing the
impress of the maiden's form, the quaint, old-fashioned furniture, the
dressing-bureau, and the door which led into the corridor of the farm-house.
But neither Madeline—nor her seducer were visible.
From the limb—on which Gilbert poised his weight, grasping a branch
above him—to the window, was a dangerous leap, but he did not pause to
think. With a desperate bound he reached the window, dashed the sash
before him—it hung on hinges and opened like a door—and in an instant
stood in the centre of the chamber, beside the maiden's bed.
All was silent there.
“They've gone together—she has fled with him—” the features of the
Hunter, distorted by rage, became softened suddenly by a look of rude
but unutterable anguish. “Mad'lin'! This is a little too hard to bear. So
good and pure as you was, that an angel couldn't scarcely be a better
thing—Now—in a few hours—all your goodness gone—”
He clenched the knife, and gazed wildly round the chamber.
“Yer Bible's thar, gal—and you could do it! Leave the man that 'ud
'a torn his heart into splinters for you—But it's his work, his devil's
tongue—”
He turned, and, with a cry of surprise mingled with hatred, beheld that
the door leading into the corridor was open.
“I'll follow you, my fine feller, and paint yer spangled feathers with
yer blood!”
As he rushed to the door, his purpose—it was Murder—written on his
rustling leaf, arrested his footsteps.
Again he turned, and, near the foot of the bed, beheld the unconscious
form of Madeline. She was stretched upon the floor; her eyes were
closed; her arms lay stiffened by her side. The dress had been torn
from her bosom by a rude grasp; upon those globes, whose veins, like
threads of azure, were traced beneath the transparent skin, the livid print
of a brutal hand was visible.
Gilbert knelt beside her. His face was from the light, which streamed
over the back of his head, glowing upon his chesnut curls. The agony
that convulsed his features was lost in the shadow.
No groan came from his compressed lips; perchance the light of contending
love and hatred grew deeper and wilder in his eyes, but not a
sound betrayed his agony.
“Beautiful gal, with yer brown hair about yer pale face, an' that bosom,
which, as much as I loved you, and as often as you had said you'd
be my wife, I never yit dared to touch, or look upon—an' that bosom
bare, with the print of his hand upon it. Beautiful! An Angel fresh
from 'tother world couldn't be purtier; but—”
The knife which he grasped, rested its shining point upon the floor.
At once the memory of his strange mission came over the hunter—he
trembled like a man who beholds some horrible Apparition rising by his
bed at dead of night.
“She don't breathe. It's likely that she's dead already. As it is,
she'll only wake up to misery and shame—By * * *, I think it 'ud
be a blessed thing to kill her!'
The bosom moved—very slightly—with a pulsation as gentle as the
motion of a feather, agitated by a sleeper's breath. And as it fluttered
with that soft motion, Gilbert beheld a faded ribbon, wound about the
neck of the insensible girl. To this ribbon was attached a small coin,
which lay upon her breast, and rose with the almost imperceptible pulsation.
The huntsman lifted her head, and took the ribbon from her neck.
In the action his hand encountered her luxuriant tresses, and the strong
man felt the tears start into his eyes. Not for the world, or the wealth of
a thousand worlds, would he have touched that bosom.
“It was stainless once—pure as the drifted snow—now—”
Holding the small coin, or medal, toward the light, he endeavored in
vain to decipher the strange figures which were inscribed upon its surface.
The metal was gold; it was very bright, and worn smooth as glass, as by
the pressure of countless hands.
“I can't read it, gal, but I'll take it as a memory of you—”
In silence he wound the ribbon round his neck, and then, with a quivering
hand, placed the point of the knife upon her bosom.
“In the name of the Covenant—” he gasped, and at the same moment
wet with tears; she felt the sharp point of the knife.
Behind the hunter, with a stealthy footstep, which he did not hear,
came the bent figure of an old man, whose blue eyes shone with a cold,
icy light, as he beheld the knife resting upon the beautiful bosom of
Madeline.
“Gilbert!” even in that moment of half-consciousness she knew him.
Nearer stole the old man, his pale face writhing in every nerve.
“It ain't no use now, Mad'lin—” said the Hunter, his face glooming
with a profound despair—“It's too late!”
His hand was upon the hilt—and the blood started, as the point entered
the white breast of Madeline.
A sound of half-suppressed laughter disturbed the silence, and in the
door-way appeared the rotund form and white-bearded face of the jovial
Peter Dorfner.
14. CHAPTER FOURTEENTH
THE INSCRIPTION ON THE ANCIENT COIN.
“For Good or for Evil?” muttered the Unknown, whom we can only
call by his own title—The Invisible Head of the Brotherhood.
His hour of silent thought was over; a slight flush warmed his features,
as he glanced around the silent cell. The hanging lamp still cast
its faint rays over the gloom, and lighted up that solitary figure seated by
table, his cheeks buried in his hands.
“A footstep—one only—is it the footstep of Gilbert Morgan? Does
he return alone? Has he braved the peril of the Ordeal?”
While these thoughts, only half-spoken, occupied the mind of the Invisible,
the footstep grew more distinct—a figure approached from the darkness
of the cell—a clanging sound disturbed the stillness of the place.
A knife lay on the table, before the gaze of the Invisible.
At first, he did not notice the wretched man who stood before him, his
muscular form agitated by an involuntary tremor, his gay apparel of green
and gold torn and disordered. Nor did he remark the cadaverous face,
whose livid cheeks only made the wild eyes and restless lips more painfully
distinct.
His eyes rested upon the knife, as, grasping the hilt, he raised it in the
light.
“It is well!”
The blade was red; it shone no longer; but, as the Invisible held it in
his grasp, a blood-drop, oozing from the point, fell on the table.
“Is it done?—” he surveyed the horror-stricken features of the
Hunter.
The wretched man made an effort to speak, but without success. The
muscles of his throat writhed convulsively, his lips moved as if agitated
by a spasm, but he could not utter a syllable.
He pointed to the knife, and laid his hand upon his heart. There was
something impressive in his silence; something of fearful eloquence in
his agitated face, and sunburnt hand, pressed forcibly upon his chest.
“I need not ask you; the Ordeal was fearful, but you have passed it
like a Man. Yes, like a Brother of the Covenant.”
“He has,” said a voice, speaking from the dark recesses of the cell—
“I saw him strike the blow.”
“And I also beheld the knife as it pierced her bosom”—another voice
was heard.
Shading his eyes with his hand, the Invisible gazed in the direction
from whence these sounds proceeded, and beheld the rotund form of Peter
Dorfner, with his slender companion by his side.
“Retire!” he said—“and at the proper signal, conduct the late Grand
Master to this cell.”
The echo of their footsteps presently died away.
It was with an expression of pity, imbittered by scorn, that the Invisible
looked into the face of Gilbert Morgan.
“And so you buried your knife in her bosom? You loved her, too;
loved her in a rude way, but with all your soul. Did your hand tremble,
as your victim crouched at your feet, and saw the steel flash over her ere
it fell?”
Gilbert did not speak. Trembling, pale, his hands hanging motionless
by his side, he looked vacantly into the face of the Invisible.
“It seems to me that I can imagine the scene. You found her, with
the kiss of her lover yet warm upon her lip. In her own chamber, with
her attire disordered, and her cheek flushed with passion. There were
bitter words between you—fierce reproaches on your part, sullen replies
from her lips. Yet no impulse of love, no touch of compassion, held
you back in your work of murder. She knelt to you—a very beautiful
thing it must have been—a kneeling girl, with her brown hair floating
over her bare bosom. `Gilbert!' she cried, speaking in the same voice
which not long ago thrilled your heart-strings. But there was no mercy
in your eye—resolved to do the deed, you raised your arm, and mangled
the bosom that heaved before you.—”
The hunter tottered backward, and, sinking on one knee, suffered his
face to droop toward the floor.
The Invisible raised his hand to his forehead, and was silent for a
moment.
“Yet let me ask another question. Was the girl who received her
death at your hands a pure or a dishonored thing?”
Bending over the table, he saw the kneeling form rock to and fro, but
received no answer to his question.
“Ah—I perceive the truth of this matter. She was dishonored—you
could not have plunged your knife into a virgin heart.”
Gilbert's face was lifted toward the light, every feature agitated by a
speechless despair. Again his lips moved, but he could not frame a
sound.
“Where did you leave the body?”
Tottering to his feet, the Hunter advanced one step forward, and flung
his clenched hand upon the table.
“Look ye—” he cried, his voice husky and indistinct—“Isn't it
enough that I've done your devil's work? Even if you are a born devil,
you might have a little pity for me. You told me to kill her—I've done
it. Thar is the knife, and here I am. If you've anythin' more for me
to do, jest say it. Arter this night's work, I don't know the thing that
I'm afeerd to do. Speak out—speak out—”
“Where did you leave the body?” repeated the Invisible, waving his
hand with a peculiar motion, as he fixed his eyes upon the huntsman's
face.
As though that waving hand, those eyes, fired with peculiar light, had
been the outward indications of a supernatural power, the Hunter's features
became suddenly rigid, his eyes fixed and glassy, his form stiff and
motionless.
Like a dead man placed in an erect posture, he stood beside the table,
while the Invisible surveyed his stiffened form and rigid face, with a calm
delight, or rather a look of smiling complacency.
“Where did you leave the body?”
The lips of the Hunter moved languidly, while every other feature was
rigid as the features of the dead.
“In her own room—” said Gilbert, speaking no longer in his blunt
woodsman's accent, but in a voice that seemed to indicate a man of education
and refined manners. “In her own room, with her bosom covered
with her blood, and her glassy eyes fixed upon the ceiling.”
“Are you willing to obey me now—obey me in every command, without
a look or gesture of disobedience?”
“I am!”
The Invisible knocked thrice upon the table with the hilt of the knife,
and ere the sound had died away, the form of the Grand Master, clad in
the glittering robes of his office, advanced from the shadows. His
bronzed features were dimly discernible through the lace veil which fluttered
over his face.
“Take the coronet from your brow.”
The Grand Master lifted the coronet of golden leaves from his forehead,
and with it the slender plume and white veil. His face was revealed.
The features were not altogether unhandsome; their regular
outlines, relieved by dark hair—powdered and curled after the fashion of
the time—indicated a proud and sensual nature. But at this moment, the
eyes shone wildly with terror, and the forehead was damp with moisture.
“What would you?” he exclaimed, in tones by no means calm or firm.
“Place the coronet upon the brow of the Grand Master Elect—” the
white hand of the Invisible pointed toward Gilbert's rigid face.
It was with a look of terror that the deposed Grand Master obeyed.
His terror was not without sufficient cause, for the glassy eyeballs and
fixed features of Gilbert resembled the face of a corse. His hand trembled
as he wound the golden leaves about the brown hair of the hunter,
and arranged the plume over his forehead, and saw his ghostly face, but
half-concealed by the veil.
The deposed Grand Master turned once more to the cowled figure.
“The Robe—” and again the white hand was stretched toward Gilbert's
form.
There was a glance of sullen regret, a momentary flashing of the eye
and curling of the lip, as the gorgeously arrayed personage heard this decided
command.
“The Robe—” the voice of the Invisible was stern and penetrating.
The Grand Master seemed to hesitate, but in an instant stripping the
purple garment, glittering with the dagger, the skull, the vine leaves, and
other emblems, from his shoulders, his form was disclosed, attired in the
costume of a man of the world. A wide-skirted coat, fringed with lace,
silken vest and cambric ruffles—he was altogether an elegant and finished
gentleman.
“Place it upon the shoulders of the Grand Master—”
No slave, crouching under fear of his master's lash, could have obeyed
more readily than the deposed Grand Master, for he inserted Gilbert's
arms in the flowing sleeves, and fastened the garment over his broad chest,
without a word.
Gilbert stood arrayed in the robes of the Grand Master of the B. H. A.
C., his rigid features seen—through the veil—with a half-distinctness, that
only made them look more unnatural and death-like.
The late Grand Master, with the moisture starting from his forehead,
every line of his face agitated by fear, awaited in sullen silence the commands
of the Invisible.
“To-morrow morning a ship sails from the City, on a voyage to Canton.
You will take passage on board of that ship, and—” he drew
paper. You can now retire. Brethren—” looking toward the form of
Dorfner and his companion—“I leave this man to your charge.”
The deposed Grand Master turned, without a word, and disappeared
in the shadows.
Once more the Invisible was alone with Gilbert Morgan.
“Cast your eye into the Hall of the Grand Lodge,” said the cowled
Figure—“What do you see and hear?”
This command seems like an idle mockery to us. For thick walls and
dreary passages separate this cell from the Hall in which the Grand
Lodge are assembled. Yet the answer of Gilbert, conveyed in the language
of an educated man, was plain and to the point—
“The lights are burning fast toward their sockets. The Brothers look
toward the door, and murmur the name of the Grand Master. They
await his coming with feverish suspense. Stay! A Brother rises, and
exclaims—`Shall we not close this session of the Grand Lodge, without
the presence of the Grand Master?”'
“It is well—” and a smile stole over the face of the Invisible—“The
fools of the world would call this Magic, or, perchance, doubt that it ever
occurred. So, three hundred years, or scarce three hundred years ago, it
was Sorcery on the part of Galileo to say that the earth moved round the
sun. That Sorcery is now become Science. And ere an hundred years,
this Magic, which enables me to substitute my will for the will of this
rude man,—in a word, to fill his brain with my soul, will be no longer
the wisdom of the devil, but the system of an acknowledged Science. So
goes the world!”
It was almost demoniac in its scorn—the cold smile which agitated the
face of the Invisible.
“You will go without delay to the Hall of the Grand Lodge,” he said,
fixing his dazzling eyes upon the face of the Hunter, “and speak the
words that I will utter to your heart.”
Attired in the robes of his office, dazzling from head to foot in the
paraphernalia of the Order, Gilbert turned away, and, with measured
steps, departed into the shadows. Ere a moment was gone, the echo of
his footsteps had ceased to disturb the silence.
The Invisible laid his white hand upon the heavy volume which rested
upon the table, as he pushed the cowl back from his forehead.
“They are all here—” he muttered, as he unclosed the volume—“a
brave and bloody band, whose deeds extend over the history of two centuries.
Some died in their peaceful beds, encircled by weeping grandchildren—others
on the bloody deck, amid the smoke and flame of carnage—this
rude fellow on Tyburn tree, and his comrade at the yard-arm
of one of his Majesty's ships-of-war. Here I find traced the crooked
signature of Sir Henry Morgan—here, the clerkly hand of the bold
sketched dagger, beside a skull and cross-bones. A bloody and ferocious
band—”
Turning over the broad pages, the Invisible continued—
“The time will come when their deeds will appear but as the idle
fables of tradition. Then the link which bound all these cut-throats and
heroes in one great organization, will be lost—forgotten. Grave men
will write histories, and speak of the buccanier—the pirate—the free-booter—as
isolated facts in the red history of piracy and murder. And I
—I—may survive to read their grave volumes, and smile at their brazen
falsehoods. `Survive'—it is a fearful word—”
As the light reveals the face of this unknown personage, who, seated
alone in his oaken chair, thus mutters absently to himself, we may see
the pale features quiver in every line; yes, we may even behold the large
bright eyes, wet with womanish tears.
“Survive! It is indeed a horrible word. To live until all that you
have loved is grave-yard dust—to live while every good impulse is turned
to evil—to walk around among the tombs of those whom you knew centuries
ago—to see their children, nay, the descendants of your own
children, rise every day in your path, and, at the same time, be conscious
that they can never know you, never call you by name, never, never feel
for you a sentiment that is not hatred and loathing.—`Survive!' Yes,
until the words `our Lord the King' are displaced by `our Brother, the
Chief of the Republic'—and until the `Republic' is crushed beneath the
iron wheels of Despotism and Superstition. There are a great many
things embodied in that word—`Survive!”'
The Invisible started from the chair, and paced along the floor of the
cell. For the first time it is evident to us that his pale face, whose tangled
hair waves from beneath the cowl, is supported by a strangely distorted
form. Even through the disguise of the gown, we may discover the out-lines
of a shapeless hump, rising at the back of his neck, and his face seems
not so much to be supported by a neck, as to rest upon the surface of his
broad chest.
“Always to feel the beauty of the Good, and to love it, and yet for ever
condemned to the Necessity of Evil. What hell of priestcraft can rival
a doom like this? Even now I behold a mariner, fixed upon a shapeless
raft, without rudder, oar, or sail, his eye turned toward the light which
shines from the dark shore He may gaze upon the light, stretch forth
his arms as if to grasp it, but every moment the tide is bearing him silently
and surely away—away, deeper and farther into the blackness and the
night. The fate of the mariner is mine. The raft is beneath my feet,—
the light shines faintly from the shore—but every moment the dark wave
of Necessity bears me farther into the blackness of hopeless night. The
light is growing dim and dimmer—soon it will go out in blackness—yet
yawns beyond me!”
The cowl was thrown aside, and with the cowl, the monkish gown.
Beneath the light stood a deformed hunchback, whose long face, framed
in raven black hair, revealed, in every quivering lineament, a despair too
deep for utterance, too hopeless for tears.
In the personage known as the Invisible, we beheld none other than
the miserable maniac, whom we have beheld before, and heard addressed
by the name of Black David.
Clasping his white hands, as that unutterable despair stamps his face,
he glares upon the darkness with fixed eyeballs, muttering again, and yet
again, the word which has roused him into this preternatural anguish—
“`Survive.”'
In the very midst of this inexplicable despair, his eyes wandered to
the floor—a bright object glimmered there, near his feet. Without
appearing conscious of the action, he bent down and grasped it, and the
light disclosed a small golden coin or medal, to which a faded ribbon was
attached.
No sooner did the hunchback behold it, and at a glance read the words,
and mark the characters which were inscribed upon this medal, then he
sank on his knees, uttering a cry of joy, which pealed upon the stillness
of the cell. With the gestures of a madman, he clutched the medal—
turned first one side, then the other, to the light, and examined it with an
intense scrutiny, that forced his eyeballs from their sockets.
“Here, where the hunter stood, I found it. Ah — I will seek him at
once, and force him to reveal to me how it came into his possession.” He
started to his feet, made one step from the table, but as suddenly came
back again.
“It is the same—the same—” and lifting the tangled locks, as he gazed
upon the medal, he revealed the livid cross, which was stamped—like the
scar of a wound — upon the fair skin of his forehead.
He examined the bright side of the Medal—it bore the figure of a Cross,
the medal, he beheld, on the opposite side, an inscription in old English
characters: “Eola—November 12.—Lyndulfe.”
It may be observed that the figure between the 5 and 6, on the first side
of the medal, was dim and almost illegible. It seemed, as the light shone
over it, to represent either the figure 3 or 8, and thus the inscription either
designated the year 1539 or 1589.
The hunchback held the faded ribbon, which was inserted in an aperture
near the rim of the medal, and gazed upon the inscription which it
bore on either side, with a delight that might have well been termed
madness.
“I will to him—he shall tell me!” With these incoherent words, he
turned from the table once again, and disappeared in the shadows of the
cell, only to reappear after the lapse of a moment. When he turned from
the light, his face was flushed with rapture, but, when he again stood
beside the table, a ghastly paleness had fallen upon every feature. The
livid cross on his forehead stood out distinctly on the colorless skin.
“Madeline—the hunter has torn it from her breast as a memory of his
love—” he uttered the words with difficulty. Then came a groan of horror,
mingled with anguish.
“O, curses, eternal curses upon my iron fate! Madeline at this moment
lies mangled upon the floor of her chamber, or—in case she survived the
hunter's blow — the scalpel of Isaac Behme pierces her bosom, and tears
the living heart from its shrine!”
As though his blood was chilled, his limbs paralyzed, the deformed
maniac stood motionless, with his hands folded over his breast.
“Day is breaking, and it is too late! This girl might have saved me,
not from Death, but from Life; saved me from the unseen hand which
crushes me;—she might have spoken unto me the word which will
bring near the hour of my Death—and I,—fool, dotard! I have murdered
her!”
Once more his gaze was rivetted to the medal—
“Many, many years—centuries of torture—since first it passed from
my hand—ah! It is in vain; I cannot pray. To whom shall I address
a Prayer? At this hour I would barter the gold of a world—I would
exchange intellect and destiny with the vilest serf, only to be able to believe,
only to have the power to frame one word of prayer—”
Strange and incomprehensible words from the lips of the Deformed
Maniac!
He was on his knees, his hands crossed, his head bowed—his lips
moved slowly, but no sound was heard.
The light, streaming above him, glowed upon the flakes of his matted
hair. His face was lost in shadow, but the heavings of his broad chest
betrayed the emotion that thrilled every avenue of his life.
“To whom shall I pray?” he muttered, after a pause—“To God?
To Christ? To saints or angels?”—his voice was marked by a horrible
sincerity as he continued—“There is no God to me. No Christ, nor
Saint nor Angel. There is no other world. There is nothing beyond
the grave but vacancy and slumber. All that I can believe, is, that I am
here upon the earth, doomed to live with impulses of good always struggling
in my heart, and yet always forced to do Evil—to crush pure hearts
into hopeless misery—to blight virtue and beauty—to taint children with
the leprosy of sin, and wither gray-haired age into a polluted grave. This
is my doom—what hath prayer to do with me?”
Let us suppose for a moment that the reveries of this man are sober
truth. That he has lived for some hundreds of years, with the impulse
of Good always fresh within his heart, and yet the Necessity to do Evil
for ever hurling him into the vortex of crime. That for some incredible
crime—say, the most fearful crime that Man can commit—he has been
doomed to live, and live beyond the circle of Almighty compassion.
That the death which he seeks as an unutterable boon is denied him—
that the Judgment pronounced by Eternal Power upon his head is comprised
in this stern decree—
“Live! There is Good all around you, but you must blight it into
Evil. Live!”
Can any thing be more horrible than this?
Once more, let us take it for granted that this deformed hunchback is a
Madman. That it is only a fancy—a mere dream of frenzy—that he has
lived for centuries, and is doomed to live until unborn ages are past.
That it is only a vagary of his distorted reason, which induces him to
believe that for him there is no God, no Christ, no Saint nor Angel.
Can any thing in the Universe be more appalling than this?
To both questions, your first answer, urged from your heart, by feeling
as natural as our love for a Mother, is, simply but earnestly—“No!”
Think again. Pause for a moment. What does the Creed of a Church,
the dogma of a sect hold forth?
That the Almighty Father will inflict upon countless millions of his
creatures, the irrevocable Judgment of an Eternity of Existence, and an
Eternity of Crime.
Which is the most repulsive, my friend? The tradition embodied in
this crude history, or the Belief solemnly taught in the dogma of a
Church?
“Behold—” said a Reverend man, one Sabbath-day, as he surveyed
the thousand faces, mellowed by the mild beams of an afternoon sun—
“Behold the sands that stretch beside the waves of the Ocean. Can you
number those sands? Once every thousand years, a little bird comes to
the shore, and bears away in its beak a single grain of sand. Compute
the years which will be passed ere the bird has borne away the sands on
of the duration of that Eternity of woe which awaits the Damned.”
This, it will be admitted, is a somewhat fearful figure—a somewhat
fearful kind of Religion. While the little bird bears the sands from the
shore,—one grain, only one, in a thousand years—countless millions of
God's creatures are growing older in deathless torture, older in infernal
knowledge, in blasphemous Crime. Can you imagine the depravity
of a Soul that has existed for only a thousand years in Misery and
Crime?
Then do not too hastily deride this Legend of olden tradition, which
asserts, that once, in the history of the world, a Man, created by the all-paternal
God, was condemned to live for ever on this earth; to live at
least while Three Centuries went down to Night; and, feeling all the
while the beauty of the Good and the Pure, was impelled by an involuntary
Necessity to the Evil and Corrupt.
To our Legend once more.
The Invisible, kneeling on the floor, raised his forehead, darkened by
the livid cross, to the light. His eyes, dazzling at all times, as with the
light of a wrecked mind, were raised to the dusky ceiling. Over his chest
were clasped his pale hands, and a slight air tossed his flaky locks gently
to and fro. Never for an instant did he suffer the medal to escape from
his grasp.
He was but a miserable wretch, with a body whose deformity was as
grotesque as it was hideous, and yet his face, marked with ineffaceable
lines, his eyes shining with intense light, his broad forehead, marked by
the livid Cross, indicate an intellect of remarkable power.
Around him brooded the shadows and the silence of the cell, sunken
deep within the hill-side of Wissahikon. He was shut out from the
world, alone with the incredible reality of his fate.
“Could I but believe—” that voice, whose musical accents so singularly
contrasted with the hideousness of his form—“Could I but believe
in a Father!”
There were tears upon his cheeks.
For when he tried to raise his thoughts to God, all was darkness and
chaos. A leaden sky seemed to stretch its hopeless wall between him
and the Great Father of mankind.
With a curse, he started to his feet, and, wrapping the mantle about
him, prepared to hasten from the place.
“To-night has been to me by no means an idle flight of hours and
minutes. Much work—much Evil! Had I but known that Madeline
bore this,—” the medal glittered before his eye—“This upon her bosom,
all would have been well. A quiet grave—a pleasant repose—peace,
peace, after the long night, the ceaseless storm of three centuries. But it
cell of Isaac Behme—”
The yearning desire that was written upon the face of the Deformed,
no pencil nor pen can depict—it was as though a preternatural Soul had
suddenly filled his distorted frame, and lighted his eyes with the fire of
an immortal existence.
“The crime which three centures has not effaced, may be blotted out,
before the rising of the sun!”
15. CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.
THE COMING OF THE DELIVERER.
“He will come!” muttered the Priest of Wissahikon—“At the third
hour after midnight the Deliverer will come!”
The old man sat in the oaken chair, his hands laid on his knees, as he
swayed to and fro with a restless motion.
It was in the circular chamber, panelled with oaken wainscot, and
rendered almost cheerful by the wood-fire which blazed upon the hearth.
In the centre stands the white altar, on which the candles are placed,
their light, struggling through the gloom, shining upon the high forehead
of the solitary watcher, as, with his hands laid on his knees, he sways
slowly to and fro, the silver cross on his heart, glittering like a star.
Thus, alone, for hours he has watched, his eyes of an azure so deep
and serene, fixed upon the cross of Iron which rises in the gloom beyond
the altar. And all the while, as the old man kept his watch, the fire
crackled merrily upon the hearth, and the same light which revealed his
pale enthusiastic face, also shone upon the flagon of silver, the wreath of
laurel, the Bible with antique clasps, resting between the candles, on the
surface of the altar.
Without, all is drear and cold. The Block-house rises darkly amid
the pines, with the moonbeams shining over the frozen snow. Its gates
are flung wide open—the old man awaits his long-expected guest.
“He will come; at the third hour after midnight, the Deliverer will
come!”
These words acquire a singular interest from the tone and look which
accompany their utterance.
Hark—the door opens—the young man with the bronzed face and deep
dark eyes appears—advances to his father's side.
It is Paul, with the kiss of the Wizard's child yet warm upon his lip,
her words of delirious passion yet echoing in his ears.
Scarce an hour has passed since he left his Father's side—a momentous
hour to him — an hour that in future years shall come, clad in impressive
memories, to the Dreamer's soul.
As Paul beheld the pale face of his father, with the high forehead and
dreamy eyes, all memory of the Wizard's daughter rushed suddenly
from him.
Shall that enticing memory ever return to him again?
“Father—” whispers the young man—“May it not be a vain fancy,
after all—this Hope that the Deliverer will come ere the rising of
the sun?”
You can see the old man turn suddenly round—his eye blazes as he
grasps his son by the wrist.
“Seventeen years ago, I left my father-land, and became an exile and
an outcast. Seventeen years ago, I forsook the towers of my race, that
even now darken over the bosom of the Rhine. I, whose name was ennobled
by the ancestral glories of thirteen centuries, turned my back at
once on pomp, power,—all that is worshipped by the herd of mankind.
In my native land, they have believed me dead for many years—the
castle, the broad domains that, by the world's law, are yours, my son,
now own another's rule—and here we are, side by side, in this rude
temple of the Wissahikon. Why is this, my son?—Speak, Paul, and
answer me, why do we dwell together, the father and his children, in this
wild forest of a strange land?”
The son veiled his eyes with his clasped hands: the emotion of his
father's look thrilled him to the soul.
“I will tell you why! Seventeen years ago, as I bent over the body
of my dead wife, even in the death-vault of our castle, on the Rhine, the
Voice of God spake to my soul—bade me resign all the world and its
toys—bade me take my children, and go forth to a strange land!”
“And there await the Fulfilment of Prophecy!” whispered Paul,
raising his head from his clasped hands.
“For seventeen years I have buried my soul in the pages of that
book—”
“I have shared your studies, father! Reared afar from the toil and the
vanity of worldly life, I have made my home with you in this hermitage.
Together we have wept—prayed — watched over the pages of Revelation!”
“You have become part of my soul,” said the Priest of Wissahikon,
in a softened voice, as he laid his withered hand upon the white forehead
of his son: “you might have been noble in your native land; yes, your
sword might have carved for you a gory renown from the corses of dead
men, butchered in battle: or the triumphs of poetry and art might have
with me, devoted life and soul to the perusal of God's solemn book!”
The dark eye of the son began to burn with the same wild light that
blazed over his father's face.
“And our studies, our long and painful search into the awful world,
which the Bible opens to our view, has ended in a knowledge of these
great truths—The Old World is sunk in all manner of crime, as was the
Ante-Diluvian World;—the New World is given to man as a refuge,
even as the Ark was given to Noah and his children.
“The New World is the last altar of human freedom left on the surface
of the Globe. Never shall the footsteps of Kings pollute its soil. It is the
last hope of man. God has spoken, and it is so—Amen!”
The old man's voice rung, in deep, solemn tones, through the lonely
room, while his eye seemed to burn as with the fire of Prophecy.
“The voice of God has spoken to me, in my thoughts by day, in my
dreams by night—I will send a Deliverer to this land of the New World,
who shall save my people from physical bondage, even as my Son saved
them from the bondage of spiritual death!
“And to-night he will come; at the third hour after midnight, he will
come through yonder door, and take upon himself his great Mission, to
free the New World from the yoke of the Tyrant!
“Yes, my son, six months ago, on that calm summer evening, as, with
Catherine leaning on one arm, you on the other, I strolled forth along the
woods, that voice whispered a message to my soul! To-night the
Deliverer will come!”
“All is ready for his coming!” exclaimed Paul, advancing to the altar.
“Behold the Crown, the Flagon of Anointing Oil, the Bible, and the
Cross!”
The old man arose, lifting his withered hands above his head, while
the light streamed over his silver hairs.
“Even as the Prophets of old anointed the brows of men, chosen by
God to do great deeds in His name, so will I,—purified by the toil, and
prayer, and self-denial of seventeen long years,—anoint the forehead of the
Deliverer!”
Hark! As the voice of the aged enthusiast, tremulous with emotion,
quivers on the air, the clock in the hall without, tolls the hour of One.
An hour of the New Year has been gathered to the great ocean of Eternity.
Only an hour ago, as the tones of that bell rung through the lonely
Block-House, like a voice from the other world—deep, sad, and echoing
—the last minute of 1774 sank in the glass of Time, and 1775 was born.
As the echo died away, they knelt silently beside the altar, the old man
and his son. The white hairs of the Priest mingled with the brown locks
of Paul; their hands, clasped together, rested upon the Bible, which was
opened at the Book of Revelations
Their separate prayers, breathing in low whispers from each lip, mingled
together, and went up to Heaven in ONE.
An hour passed. Hark! Do you hear the old clock again? How
those sullen sounds, One—Two—swell through the silent halls.
Still they kneel together there—still the voice of the prayer quivers
from each tongue.
After a pause of silent prayer, the old man rises and paces the floor.
“Place your hand upon my heart, my son! Can you feel its throbbings?
Upon my brow—ah! it burns like living fire! The hour draws
nigh—he comes! Yes, my heart throbs, my brain fires, but my faith in
God is firm—the Deliverer will come!”
Vain were the attempt to picture the silent agony of that old man's face!
Call him dreamer—call him fanatic—what you will, you must still admit
that a great soul throbbed within his brain—still you must reverence the
strong heart which beats within his shrunken chest.
Still must you remember that this old man was once a renowned lord;
that he forsook all that the world holds dear, buried himself for seventeen
years in the wilds of this forest, his days and nights spent amid the dark
pages of the Revelations of Saint John.
Up and down the oaken floor, now by the altar, where the light shone
over his brow, now in the darkness, where the writhings of his countenance
were lost in shadows, the old man hurried along, his eye blazing
with a wilder light, his withered cheek with a warmer glow.
Meanwhile the son remained kneeling in prayer. The lights burned
dimly—the room was covered with a twilight gloom. Still the Iron Cross
was seen—the white altar still broke through the darkness, with its silver
Flagon and Laurel Crown.
Hark! That sound—the clock is on the hour of three! The old man
starts, quivers, listens!
One! rings through the desolate mansion.
“I hear no sound!” mutters the enthusiast. But the words had not
passed on his lips, when Two—swells on the air.
“He comes not!” cries Paul, darting to his feet, his features quivering
with suspense. They clasp their hands together—they listen with frenzied
intensity.
“Still no footstep! Not a sound!” gasped Paul.
“But he will come!” and the old man, sublime in the energy of fanaticism,
towered erect, one hand to his heart, while the other quivered in
the air.
Three! The last stroke of the bell swelled—echoed—and died
away.
“He comes not!” gasped the son, in agony—“But yes! Is there not
a footstep on the frozen snow? Hark! Father, father! do you hear that
footstep? It is on the threshold now—it advances—”
“He comes!” whispered the old man, while the sweat stood out in
beads from his withered brow.
—“It advances, father! Yes, along the hall—hark! There is a hand
on the door—hah! All is silent again? It is but a delusion—no! He is
come at last!”
“At last he is come!” gasped the old man, and with one impulse they
sank on their knees. Hark! You hear the old door creak on its hinges,
as it swings slowly open—a strange voice breaks the silence.
“Friends, I have lost my way in the forest,” said the voice, speaking
in a calm, manly tone. “Can you direct me to the right way?”
The old man looked up; a cry of wonder trembled from his lips. As
for the son, he gazed in silence on the Stranger, while his features were
stamped with inexpressible surprise.
The Stranger stood on the threshold, his face to the light, his form
thrown boldly forward, by the darkness at his back.
He stood there, not as a Conqueror on the battle field, with the spoils
of many nations trampled under his feet.
Towering above the stature of common men, his form was clad in the
dress of a plain gentleman of that time, fashioned of black velvet, with
ruffles on the bosom and around the wrist, diamond buckles gleaming
from his shoes.
Broad in the shoulders, beautiful in the sinewy proportions of each
limb, he stood there, extending his hat in one hand, while the other
gathered his heavy cloak around the arm.
His white forehead overarched large eyes, which gleamed even through
the darkness of the room with a calm, clear light; his lips were firm; his
chin round and full; the general contour of his face stamped with the settled
beauty of mature manhood, mingled with the fire of chivalry.
In one word, he was a man whom you would single out among a crowd
of ten thousand, for his grandeur of bearing, his calm, collected dignity
of expression and manner.
“Friends,” he again began, as he started back, surprised at the sight
of the kneeling enthusiasts, “I have lost my way—”
“Thou hast not lost thy way,” spoke the voice of the old man, as he
arose and confronted the stranger; “thou hast found thy way to usefulness
and immortal renown!”
The Stranger advanced a footstep, while a warm glow overspread his
commanding face. Paul stood as if spell-bound by the calm gaze of his
clear, deep eyes.
“Nay—do not start, nor gaze upon me in such wonder! I tell thee the
voice that speaks from my lips, is the voice of Revelation. Thou art called
to a great work; kneel before the altar and receive thy mission!”
Nearer to the altar drew the Stranger.
“This is but folly—you mean to mock me!” he began; but the wild
and stood silent and wondering.
“Nay, doubt me not! To-night, filled with strange thoughts in regard
to your country's Future, you laid yourself down to sleep within your
habitation in yonder city. But sleep fled from your eyes—a feeling of
restlessness drove you forth into the cold air of night—”
“This is true!” muttered the Stranger in a musing tone, while his face
expressed surprise.
“As you dashed along, mounted on the steed which soon will bear
your form in the ranks of battle, the cold air of night fanned your hot
brow, but could not drive from your soul the Thought of your Country!”
“How know you this?” and the Stranger started forward, grasping the
old man suddenly by the wrist.
Deeper and bolder thrilled the tones of the old Enthusiast.
“The rein fell loosely on your horse's neck—you let him wander, you
cared not whither! Still the thought that oppressed your soul was the
future of your country. Still great hopes—dim visions of what is to come
—floating panoramas of battle and armed legions—darted one by one over
your soul. Even as you stood on the threshold of yonder door, asking,
in calm tones, the way through the forest, another and a deeper question
rose to your lips—”
“I confess it!” said the Stranger, his tone catching the deep emotion
of the old man's voice. “As I stood upon the threshold, the question that
rose to my lips was—”
“Is it lawful for a SUBJECT to draw sword against his King?”
“Man! You read the heart!” and this strange man, of commanding
form and thoughtful brow, gazed fixedly in the eyes of the Enthusiast,
while his face expressed every conflicting emotion of doubt, suspicion,
surprise, and awe.
“Nay, do not gaze upon me in such wonder? I tell thee a great work
has been allotted unto thee, by the Father of all souls! Kneel by this
altar—and here, in the silence of night, amid the depths of these wild
woods—will I anoint thee Deliverer of this great land, even as the men
of Judah, in the far-gone time, anointed the brows of the chosen David!”
It may have been a sudden impulse, or, perchance, some conviction of
the future flashed over the Stranger's soul, but, as the gloom of that
chamber gathered round him, as the voice of the old man thrilled in his
ear, he felt those knees, which never yielded to man, sink beneath him;
he bowed before the altar, his brow bared, and his hands laid upon the
Book of God.
The light flashed over his bold features, glowing with the beauty of
manhood in its prime, over his proud form, dilating with a feeling of inexpressible
agitation.
On one side of the altar stood the old man—the Priest of the Wissahikon—his
his son, bronzed in face, but thoughtful in the steady gaze of his large
full eyes.
Around this strange group all was gloom: the cold wintry air poured
through the open door, but they heeded it not.
“Thou art called to the great work of a Champion and Deliverer!
Soon thou wilt ride to battle at the head of legions—soon thou wilt lead a
people on to freedom—soon thy sword will gleam like a meteor over the
ranks of war!”
As the voice of the old man in the dark robe, with the silver cross flashing
on his heart, thrills through the chamber—as the Stranger bows his
head, as if in reverence, while the dark-browed son looks silently on—
look yonder, in the dark shadows of the doorway!
A young form, with a dark mantle floating round her white robes, stands
trembling there. As you look, her blue eye dilates with fear, her hair
streams in a golden shower, down to the uncovered shoulders. Her finger
is pressed against her lip; she stands doubting, fearing, trembling on the
threshold.
Unseen by all, she fears that her father may work harm to the kneeling
Stranger. What knows she of his wild dreams of enthusiasm? The
picture which she beholds terrifies her. This small and gloomy chamber,
lighted by the white candles—the altar rising in the gloom—the Iron Cross
confronting the kneeling man, like a thing of evil omen—her brother, mute
and wondering—her father, with white hairs floating aside from his
flushed forehead. The picture was singular and impressive: the winter
wind, moaning sullenly without, imparted a sad and organ-like music to
the scene.
“Dost thou promise, that when the appointed time arrives, thou wilt be
found ready, sword in hand, to fight for thy country and thy God?”
It was in tones broken by emotion, that the Stranger simply answered—
“I do!”
“Dost thou promise, in the hour of thy glory—when a nation shall
bow before thee—as in the fierce moment of adversity,—when thou shalt
behold thy soldiers starving for want of bread—to remember the great
truth, written in these words—`I am but the Minister of God in the great
work of a nation's freedom?”'
“Then, in His name, who gave the New World to the millions of the
human race, as the last altar of their rights, I do consecrate thee its—
Deliverer!”
With the finger of his extended hand, touched with the anointing oil,
he described the figure of a Cross on the white forehead of the Stranger,
who raised his eyes, while his lips murmured as if in prayer.
Never was nobler King anointed beneath the shadow of Cathedral arch
—never did holier Priest administer the solemn vow! A poor Cathedral,
kneeling Stranger—a wild Enthusiast, the old man! I grant it all. And
yet, had you seen the Enthusiasm of the white-haired Minister, reflected
in the Stranger's brow, and cheek, and eyes; had you marked the contrast
between the shrunken form of the “Priest,” and the proud figure of
the Anointed,—both quivering with the same agitation,—you would confess
with me, that this Consecration was full as holy, in the sight of
Heaven, as that of “Good King George.”
And all the while that young man stood gazing on the stranger in
silent awe, while a warm glow lightens up the face of the girl trembling
on the threshold, as she beholds the scene.
“When the time comes, go forth to victory! On thy brow, no conqueror's
blood-red wreath, but this crown of fadeless laurel!”
He extends his hand, as if to wreathe the Stranger's brow with the
leafy crown—yet look! A young form steals up to his side, seizes the
crown from his hand, and, ere you can look again, it falls upon the bared
brow of the kneeling man.
He looks up and beholds that young girl, with the dark mantle gathered
over her white robes, stand blushing and trembling before the altar, as
though frightened at the boldness of the deed.
“It is well!” said the aged man, regarding his daughter with a kindly
smile. “From whom should the Deliverer of a Nation receive his crown
of laurel, but from the hands of a stainless woman!”
“Rise! The Champion and Leader of a People!” spoke the deep
voice of the son, as he stood before the altar, surveying, with one glance,
the face of his father, the countenance of the blushing girl, and the bowed
head of the Stranger. “Rise, sir, and take this hand, which was never
yet given to man! I know not thy name, yet, on this Book, I swear to
be faithful to thee, even to the death!”
The Stranger rose; proudly he stood there, as with the consciousness
of his commanding look and form. The laurel-wreath encircled his white
forehead; the cross, formed by the anointing oil, glistened in the light.
Paul, the son, buckled a sword to his side; the old man extended his
hands as if in blessing, while the young girl looked up silently into his face.
They all beheld the form of this strange man shake with emotion;
while that face, whose calm beauty had won their hearts, now quivered
in every fibre.
The wind moaned sadly over the frozen snow, yet these words,
uttered by the stranger, were heard distinctly by all—
“From you, old man, I take the vow! From you, fair girl, the laurel!
From you, brave friend, the sword! On this Book I swear to be faithful
unto all!”
And as the light flashed over his quivering features, he laid his hand
upon the Book and kissed the hilt of the sword.
16. CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.
THE OLD LONDON COFFEE HOUSE.
“Solemnly, gentlemen, and truly, I must. There's daybreak in the
chinks of the door, and you can hear the kuckerekoos all over the town.
I must indeed—”
The little man smoothed his white apron, with his big hands arranged
his wig, which, sooth to say, inclined too much to the left side of his
narrow forehead, and arranged his hose, which hung somewhat loosely
about his knees. In one hand he held a burnished candlestick, containing
the last remains of a flickering light, and as he spoke, in tones at once
bland and deprecating, he accompanied every other word with a grotesque
genuflection, intended for a bow.
Around the table which stood near the broad fire-place—a circular
table, strewn with pewter mugs, long-necked bottles and broken pipes—
three persons were seated in capacious oaken chairs. Their faces
bloomed with the freshness of Madeira, or, to speak perchance more correctly,
leadened with the stupor of malt and tobacco. For every hand
grasped a mug of shining pewter, and a pipe of plain clay was inserted in
every mouth.
It was a large room, with white-washed walls and a neatly sanded
floor. In one corner, certain vessels glittering on a range of shelves, gave
some indications of the character of the place. The doors and windows
were carefully closed, as if to seclude the belated revellers from the light
of daybreak, and the remains of a glorious wood-fire smoked and smouldered
among the ashes of the hearth.
In a word, this room, into which we have so unceremoniously entered,
was nothing less than the famed public hall or bar-room of the “London
Coffee House,” a quaint fabric, with deep gabled roof, which stood at the
corner of Market and Front streets, to the great delight of the town-gossips
and coffee-drinkers of old Philadelphia.
Here the good people thronged to sip their coffee, tipple their Jamaica
rum, discuss the politics of the day, and decide upon the merits of King
George, and the Continental Congress.
The persons who occupied the oak chairs may attract our attention, as
appropriate types of certain classes of society in the year 1774.
One was a burly fellow, whose round cheeks vividly brought to mind
a lively image of the full moon on a Dutch clock, while his scarlet uniform
might have scared whole legions of male turkeys, and frightened a
herd of bulls into hysteries. With one leg—encased in a huge boot of
regaled himself with alternate whiffs of his pipe and draughts of beer.
Near him, with a very long nose, and lips of no character at all, was a
goodly citizen, whose dark attire, soiled by tobacco ashes and beer drippings,
gave evidence of the night-long revel. And beside the citizen,
whose steel buttons and steel knee-buckles spoke of the economical
habits of a careful son of traffic, was a slender youth, dressed daintily in a
wide-skirted coat of brownish velvet, with a buff waistcoat and satin
breeches. His face, rather insipid in its character, was very pale; his
large blue eyes—looking like the eyes of a Chinese mandarin on a porcelain
pitcher—were altogether leaden. As he smoked away, sucking at
the stem of his pipe with an energy that hollowed his haggard cheeks
into caverns, and started his leaden eyes from their sockets, he swayed to
and fro in the capacious arm-chair, with a motion that reminded you of
a crab-apple tossing about in a bowl of hot liquor.
“Must—eh?” said the scarlet gentleman, with a hiccup—“What must
you do, Tadkins?”
“The landlord, as you know, is gone to bed these three hours, and is
sleepin' away now at the top of his speed, with two night-caps on his
bald head, an' I must—indeed I must—”
Here Tadkins, the imposing representative—in the absence of the Land-lord—of
the dignity and beer of the far-famed “London Coffee House,”
elaborated a strange performance in gymnastics, by suddenly dropping his
head, stretching forth his arms, and scraping his right foot over the
sanded floor. This, translated into English, was intended to say, “I,
Christopher Tadkins, tapster of the Old London Coffee House, leave the
drift of my remarks to your good sense, gentlemen!”
“What does he mean?” cried the gayly attired youth, from a corner of
his spacious mouth, very remote from the centre—“Tad, it's rather odd, I
vow, 'fore George—” his favorite way of getting up a little genteel profanity—“Speak
out, man, and don't stand there bobbing your head until
your wig flies off—
“Yes—” remarked the elderly citizen—“enlighten us. Be lucid.
Translate yourself from dumb motion into English. Or, if you're drunk,
say so. We're not severe to-night. It's New Year's morning, you
know—”
The elderly gentleman buried the tip of his nose in the recesses of his
pewter mug.
“Why, gentlemen, you must see that's its reether late—” Tadkins
placed his right hand in the centre of his apron,—“I ax you to reflec'
—you, Antony Hopkins, Marchant—” he bowed to the elderly citizen—
“You, Octavius Germin, Esquire—” a bow to the pale-faced youth—
“an' you, Cap'in Grosby, of his Majesty's hundred and twelfth regiment—”
Poor Tadkins came to a sudden pause. In the fervor of his speech,
he had suddenly lost the idea, on the strength of which he commenced
his profound appeal.
“Well?” grunted the bluff Captain Grosby—“Well?”
“There's no denyin' it, gentlemen, it's as late as daybreak, and you
must g-o!” shrieked Tadkins in utter despair. “If I let you stay any
longer, the Lan'lord will give me such a latherin' to-morrow—that is, to-day—as—”
Again Tadkins came to a sudden halt.
“Germin—” the Captain waved his red hand, encircled by white
ruffles, toward the pale-faced youth—“Just oblige me by heating that
poker, and while it is doing, hand me an empty mug.”
There was a vast deal of significance in his bland whisper. Tadkins
retreated a step in evident alarm, while Germin handed the pewter mug,
with the remark—
“That's easier to manage than a hot poker. Shy it at his wig, but
don't hurt his head.”
Tadkins retreated another step—“Gentle-men!” he gasped.
“Now, Sirrah, do you see me? If you don't put a cork into that hole
in your face, and stop off your jabber, I'll just take the nicest piece of
flesh off the right corner of your cocoanut, that ever you did see. I will,
by —!”
We cannot decipher the oath, from the MSS. which relates this striking
threat, but have no hesitation in giving the assurance, that said oath was
fierce, bloody, royal—altogether worthy of a British Captain, inspired by
a sense of his dignity, and a dozen mugs of beer.
Tadkins, without a word, retreated toward the shelves, where his candle
shone over the array of burnished pewter. Yet, even as he shambled
along, he muttered an inaudible rejoinder, and grew very bitter on the
corpulent Briton, wishing among other things that his nose would set fire
to his face, and straightway reduce him to a cinder, as a warning to all
future ages. From the secure retreat near the furnished shelves, he
watched the drinking-party, with an earnestness that lasted only for an
instant. No sooner had Tadkins placed the candle on a shelf, and
straightened his wig—blacking one eye with the candle-snuff, which adhered
to his fingers, then he fell fast asleep, and snored like a north-wind
whistling through a key-hole.
“To resume—where did I leave off? Now that we're free from the
impertinent interruptions of this fellow—” Grosby looked with a sleepy
stare into the faces of his companions.
“At the stake in the middle of a dark woods with fire at your feet
and a troop of Indian devils dancing round you—” suggested the young
gentleman, speaking the sentence in one short breath.
“One in particular was touchin' you up with a pine torch under your
the light.
“Yes, sirs!” The obese Captain panted for breath, as he forced the
smoke of his pipe through his large nostrils—“There I was. Tied to the
stake. Injins all around. Tomahawks—pine torches—ugly old women,
screaming like so many walking Bedlams. I was there, sirs. A tomahawk
was brandished over my head, but I looked the red scoundrel in the
eye—in the eye, sirs—in the eye—”
The Captain lifted his mug to his mouth, and, with the beer froth
clinging to his large lips, quietly remarked—
“I wonder why he does stay?”
It does not appear that this abrupt remark was connected, in the most
remote degree, with the narrative which the worthy Captain had been so
impressively telling. His companions were too far gone in the abstruse
meditations engendered by the beer mug, to notice this sudden diversion
of the Captain's train of thought. Indeed, Octavius was engaged in the
hopeless attempt to entrap an imaginary black beetle, which flitted between
his eyes and the unsnuffed candle, while friend Anthony muttered
to himself the mysterious words—“Only ten o'clock, my love—not so
late as you think—New Year's Eve, you know—”
He evidently imagined himself in the presence of his indignant spouse.
“Why does he stay?” repeated the Captain.
“Eh? I vow I don't know—” cried Octavius, suddenly brightening
up;—“He said that he would join us at three o'clock, and now it's day-break.
Were there ever such lively roosters in your part of the world?”
he added, as the trumpet peal of an early chicken-cock echoed through
the silence of the town.
“A lord—a lord—” muttered Anthony, with an absent eye, and finger
slowly undulating between his nose and his pewter mug—“A live Lord
in Philadelphia, consigned by his father to my care, and nobody knows
it. Nobody—except you—and you—and—he, he—and me.”
It was no doubt an excellent joke, for friend Anthony chuckled over it,
until his nose resembled a premium pear, at some horticultural exhibition.
“What are you doing?” cried the Captain, with his sleepy eyes fixed
upon the pale youth—“In the name of his Blessed Majesty! Octavius,
my dear—”
“Eight—nine—ten—” muttered Octavius, surveying a little pile of gold
coin, which he had placed upon the table. “If he succeeds, I lose. If
he don't, I win. How do you think it will turn out, Captain?”
The individual addressed seemed to be wrapt in deep cogitations for a
moment, and then answered gravely—
“If she was a lady of quality, I could tell you in a minute. In that
case you would lose. Distinct-l-y, sir! But, as she is a peasant girl, I
joke, to call himself John, plain John,—eh?”
“R-e-g, Reg,” muttered the decorous citizen, writing with the end of
his finger, moistened with beer, upon the white table,—“I,—Regi,—
N-A-L-D-,—nald,—Reginald!”
As though he had accomplished some problem of incalculable intricacy,
the good citizen looked around with a glance of triumph, and pointed to
the name, inscribed upon the smooth board in characters—not of light—
but of beer.
“When did you get a letter from the old boy?” observed Captain
Grosby.
“Yesterday. Mysterious—ugh! very mysterious—” responded Anthony.
Diving his hand into a side-pocket, he drew forth a letter cumbered
by a large seal, and holding it near the light, read from its pages in
an under-tone—“`I charge you, have a care over my—my son—and let no
effort be spared to further the great object of his journey to Phil—Philadel—'
very mysterious!”
“And if he succeeds, I win the guineas,” said Mr. Octavius, making an
earnest effort to draw a cloud of smoke from a cold pipe.—“Why does
he stay? Ha, ha—it must be a delicious interview. The dear little girl
listens to the insinuating stranger, and—”
“Speakin' o' girls reminds me of politics,” remarked the Merchant,
arranging himself in a position of commanding gravity, with one limb
crossed over the other, and his chin very near his knee, while his thumbs
and the ends of his fingers were placed together, with due solemnity—
“Do you think, Captain, that this Continental Congress will ever come to
much? Great talk in the State-house yard, in these days, about the rights
of the Colonies, and—snuff the candle, if I may trouble you, Octavius—
ministerial oppression. Many words, a great many words; and, if I may
use so bold a phrase, an unlimited Ocean of—of—small-talk.”
“Sir. Si-r-r! The name of his blessed Majesty King George is—”
The Captain inhaled an immense volume of smoke, and paid his devotions
to the beer mug. It was quite a pleasure to hear him conclude his
remarkable sentiment:
“That is my opinion, Sir. It is.”
“Exactly my own way of thinking,” said Anthony. “I have always
held those opinions.”
Octavius said nothing, but continued to count his guineas.
“Eh—bye the bye, when do you expect John to leave the city?”—the
Captain turned his leaden eyes toward the citizen.
“Some months will elapse—” began the Merchant, performing a
solemn pantomime with his thumb and fingers, when his words were suddenly
interrupted by an alarming clamor at the tavern door.
“Do you hear, Tadkins? Hello—the fellow's asleep—suppose
way.
“It's very easy to say, Let him in; but when a man has deposited some
two or three bottles of wine within his waistcoat, with a superstructure
of beer and tobacco smoke, it becomes a question how—a man—can
walk—”
Octavius rose to his feet, however, and reached the door, after several
erratic movements to the right and left. No sooner had he removed the
wooden bar, than the latch was lifted, and a figure rushed over the thresh-old
and moved with hasty strides toward the table.
“Hello! Why, you're white as a sheet! Rather an unpleasant object!”
cried the Captain, starting in his chair. “You don't call it a decent thing,
to plunge in upon us, looking like a corpse, do you?”
“What's the matter?” drawled Anthony, gazing vacantly into the face
of the intruder.
It was Jacopo, no longer red and blooming in the cheeks, but pale as a
dead man. His slender limbs trembled under the weight of his rotund
paunch, as he stood by the table, his small black eyes peering steadily
into the lean visage of the merchant. Even his nose, which we have
seen blooming and blushing like a fire coal about to kindle into a blaze,
was colorless now.
“Jacopo! How goes it, man?” Octavius staggered to his side—
“Where's John?—I'm ready—” he leaned for support upon the table,
while his face was invested with the apathy of the last degree of drunkenness—“How's
your health, my boy? Favor this company with a song.”
And then the bewildered Octavius favored the company with a touching
couplet from a pathetic ballad of the olden time:
And so wickedly I did—
As I sail-e-d, as I sa-i-l-ed.”
“Octavy, my love,” politely interfered Captain Grosby—“Hold your
jaw.”
Jacopo did not speak a word in answer. Panting for breath, he looked
silently into the faces of the boon companions, while his features were
pallid with a blank terror.
Anthony dashed his mug upon the table, and staggered to his feet.
“Where's your master?” he cried, as he beheld the terror-stricken face
of Jacopo.
“The fact is, my friends, I'm a little out o' breath—” Jacopo spoke
very slowly, looking over his shoulder toward the door, with the glance
of a nervous man, who fancies that he is pursued by an Apparition. “But
you surely are jesting—you do not mean to say that my Lor—(that is,
John)—is not here?”
A dead silence ensued. The terror imprinted on the face of Jacopo
impressed the boon companions with an involuntary awe. The Captain
rose, and the three gathered around the companion of Reginald
Lyndulfe.
“What's this! Where is he? Your face would frighten the devil himself.
Out with it at once—” and the burly officer shook Jacopo roughly
by the shoulder.
“Out with it, or I won't answer for your health, by —!”
“Has he come yet?” faltered Jacopo, sinking into a chair with a grotesque
sigh, which resembled a snore. “Corpi di bacco! This is very
singular—” he grasped a wine-bottle, and inserted the neck in his capacious
mouth. “A-a-h! I am very chilly. They produce such cold
weather in this new country—”
“Would you be so good as to speak?” thundered the Captain,—when
suddenly a footstep was heard, and a form, crossing the threshold, came
rapidly through the shadows toward the table.
Every eye was turned with the same movement toward the face of the
new-comer. Not a word was spoken, and the breathless silence deepened
the feeling of terror which had been communicated to the revellers by the
broken words of Jacopo.
Reginald Lyndulfe stood disclosed in the light—silent—motionless—
all color banished from his face—his gray surtout thrown back on his
shoulders, with the gay apparel which it had concealed, covered with mud,
and torn in many places. His entire appearance was wild and haggard. In
silence he surveyed every visage, his blue eye discolored by injected blood,
while his hair hung in damp flakes about his forehead, and his compressed
lips, no longer red with youth and passion, wore the color of
bluish clay.
After this silent gaze, he flung himself into a seat, or rather sank into
the chair, with the manner of one who has been exhausted by hours of
fatigue and suffering. Still, no one broke the silence; the boon companions
cast stealthy glances into each other's faces, and then as stealthily
surveyed the faces of Jacopo and his master.
Reginald dashed his cap upon the table, and with his colorless hand
wiped the moisture from his forehead.
“Jacopo—” he said, in a hoarse voice, that was scarcely audible—
“Have you any brandy?”
These words may provoke a smile, but there was nothing like pleasantry
upon the countenance of those who surveyed the haggard face of
the young man. With a hand that trembled visibly, Jacopo reached the
bottle which was labelled “Brandy,” and placed a capacious glass goblet
before his master.
Reginald's hand also trembled as he grasped the bottle, and held it over
the goblet until it contained at least one half a pint of that inspiring poison,
into a demon.
He raised the goblet, and did not set it down until every drop of the
burning liquid had passed his lips.
The surprise, the terror of the company now manifested itself in words.
“Zounds! An old trooper like me couldn't stand such a dose as that,
and I've swallowed the stuff these twenty years. You, my boy, you are
remarkable for your abstinence. I never saw you so much as half-drunk
or quarter-drunk, in all the time I've known you. Zounds! Enough to
kill the devil!”
“A half a pint!” ejaculated Anthony—“and without water!”
“I couldn't drink it if you were to cut me up into coach-whips!” was
the somewhat mysterious remark of Octavius.
Jacopo gazed in silence into the face of his Master. The eyes were
still blood-shotten, the lips livid, the cheek colorless. The brandy did
not seem to have the least effect upon him; at all events its effects were
not in the most remote degree perceptible.
A painful silence ensued.
Reginald held forth the goblet once more, with an emphatic gesture—
“More brandy!” he whispered.
Jacopo lifted the bottle, and paused when the goblet was half-filled, the
bright red liquid shining through the clear glass.
“Go on—” said his master, in that almost inaudible tone.
Again he raised the glass, and drained it to the last drop.
The surprise and anxiety of the company may be imagined. Every
man sank back in his seat, and the same ejaculation quivered from
every lip.
Yet still Reginald sat before them, his cadaverous face, lighted by the
candle, as pale and ghastly as ever. His hands, which were laid upon
his knees, trembled as with an ague-chill; with blood-shot eyes, and
compressed lips, and pallid cheeks, he gazed vacantly into the faces of
the spectators.
“It is very strange—” he said, in that hoarse whisper—“The brandy
has not the least effect upon me. I believe that I am about to be taken
ill with some mortal disease.”
At once the tongues of the spectators were unloosed.
“What is the matter?” cried Anthony.
“There's something dreadful happened to you—” said the Captain.
“The girl—”
At that word, uttered by the slender Octavius, who laid his hand upon
his guineas, a shudder agitated the face of the young man.
“Pshaw—I had quite forgotten our wager. Have not seen her to-night
— she did not keep her appointment — she — she — ha, ha — has
jilted me.”
With his eye fixed sternly upon the astonished face of Jacopo, he
slowly uttered these words, with a miserable attempt to force a smile.
“The guineas are yours!”
“Jacopo, I wish to say a word to you,” whispered Reginald, and he
led the way toward the door, where the light of the breaking day fell upon
their haggard faces.
“Go at once to Mr. Hopkins's house,—secure the package on my desk
—and saddle two of the best horses in his stables. Then you will cross
the river, and wait for me in the woods at Cooper's Point. I will join
you there, within a half-hour.”
“Two of the best horses—how shall I get them over the river?”—
there was a ludicrous astonishment in Jacopo's face.
“There is a ferry from the foot of High street, or you can get the old
Fisherman at Mulberry street wharf to take them over in his flat-boat.
But they must be over the river in a half an hour, or—”
His face became suddenly agitated.
“Jacopo—” he continued, abruptly changing the subject—“You left
the farm-house after I did. Was there any thing like surprise at my sudden
departure?”
Jacopo answered in a whisper, hoarse and thick with emotion—“I was
aroused from my sleep by a loud outcry. I hurried from my room, and
found that the noise proceeded from her chamber—”
“Madeline—” Reginald shuddered, as he whispered the name.
“There was a throng of neighbors gathered there, and as I crossed the
threshold, I saw old Peter standing in their midst, pointing to the floor.
I pressed through the crowd, looking for you, and—”
“Go on—go on—”
“I did not see your face, but your name was spoken every moment, by
the crowd. And—”
“Madeline?” gasped Reginald, grasping his servant by the wrists.
“She was not there—”
Reginald tottered backward, and would have fallen, had not the arm of
Jacopo held him firmly against the posts of the door.
“Go on—” and Reginald cast a beseeching glance in the face of Jacopo,
which reflected the ghastliness of his own features—“speak it at once.
Madeline—was not—there—”
“She had left the farm-house, but Old Peter, who was wonderfully agitated,
pointed to the floor, and called the attention of the neighbors to the
stain of blood, which was visible at his feet. Nay, my Lord, the torch-light
disclosed not only a stain, but a pool of blood—” Reginald's features
became blank with vague horror.
“A pool of blood * * * and Madeline gone—There has been foul play
* * * * but go at once, Jacopo, and obey my commands. Not a word—”
“But, my Lord, you are not well—”
“Fool! Do you hesitate? Let the horses be ready in Cooper's woods,
and—” he glanced over Jacopo's shoulder, towards the table—“Hopkins
will not suspect—a vessel sails from New York to-morrow—go, I say,
and do not fail, for there is more than life at stake—”
He pushed Jacopo through the door, and hurried toward the table. The
faces of the boon companions were turned toward his visage, as he sank
into a seat. Not a word was spoken, but it was evident that they waited
for an explanation of all this mystery, from the lips of Reginald.
“Hopkins, I was about to remark—” the Merchant started up in his
chair—“that is to say, Octavius—” the leaden-eyed reveller raised his
head from his hands—“in fact, Captain—”
Turning from one to the other of the boon companions, and exciting
the earnest attention of every one by his address, Reginald slowly continued—
“Have you such a thing as a well-flavored Havanna cigar?” He accompanied
these remarkable words with a hearty burst of laughter.
There could not have been a more ludicrous surprise, had he asked the
gallant Captain to pull a church steeple from his pocket, or desired the
Merchant to take a merchant vessel of three hundred tons from the crown
of his cocked hat.
“He is drunk,” was the muttered ejaculation of the young gentleman.
“Crazy!” thought Mr. Hopkins.
“Had some love-scene with the girl—” was the reflection of the Captain,
who was a man of the world, and somewhat dangerous to the sex,
withal.
However, the Merchant drew from his pocket a small parcel, carefully
wrapped in yellow tea-paper.
“A sample of the best Havanna—received 'em yesterday from Cuba—”
and he handed Reginald a cigar, observing at the same time, in an under-tone—“White
as a sheet, by George!”
Reginald lighted the cigar, and placing his feet upon the table, soon encircled
his face with a fragrant cloud.
“The fact is, gentlemen,” he exclaimed, as though he had been
silently elaborating some previous subject of discussion—“The Colonies
will not dare to do it. They will talk, but they dare not act—”
And in a moment the company were involved in the mazes of a political
discussion, which, as the hour was daybreak, and three of their number
stupid with the bottle and pipe, and the fourth not far from crazy,
was, in every point of view, a remarkable event.
“They may dress themselves as Injins, and attack whole cargoes of
tea, but when it comes to musket and bayonet—B-a-h!—” the Captain
was decided in his opinions. There was a profundity in his “B-a-h!”
“The fact is, gentlemen, to look at the subject philosophically, every
thing is degenerated in this country. Instead of a Church Establishment,
—and in place of law, order and Christianity, they have a Continental
Congress. The general degeneracy, gentlemen, does not end here. It
extends from the political to the alimentary and convivial world. The
roast beef is tough, and the brandy worse than medicine—”
“I attended some of their big talks, at Carpenter's Hall, in September
last,” said the acute Hopkins—“There were some fiery speeches, but
`Brag is a good dog,' and so forth, as the proverb has it.”
“The idea that any man would be so ridiculous as to—” the young
man possibly may have meant to advance some profound truth, or elaborate
some new theory in political philosophy, but he concluded with
breaking his pipe, and calling on the Captain for a song.
While the discussion continued, Reginald smoked in silence, which was
only broken by an occasional word, evidently uttered with the intention
of prolonging the argument. There was no change in the unnatural
pallor of his face; even the cigar, mild and peaceful in its effects, failed to
dispel the sullen gloom which clouded his features.
“There is no doubt whatever, that when the King is fully informed of
the proceedings of the Continental Congress,” gravely exclaimed the
Merchant, “and put in possession of all the facts connected with this
matter, he will exclaim, with an indignation truly royal—Zounds!
Captain, my pipe has gone out, and I've no paper to light it again!”
The sedate Hopkins surveyed his pipe with an expression of indescribable
despair, as he placed these mysterious words in the mouth of his
dread Majesty, King George.
“I must confess that your figure is by no means lucid,” the Captain
remarked, with a profundity altogether significant of beer and tobacco—
“What in the d—l has King George and the Continental Congress to
do with a pipe?”
“Bah! Captain, this pipe, at which I have been puffing hopelessly
for the last minute, is cold as an icicle. Have you an old newspaper
about you—it's so unpleasant to light one's pipe at a reeking tallow-candle—”
“Not an old newspaper, but a new one. I received it from a friend today,
who came over by the last ship. Just tear a strip off the border;
don't spoil the reading. It must last me for the next three months.”
The Captain flung the paper on the table, and Hopkins began, with
great care, to peel a narrow strip from its border, muttering meanwhile—
“British Gazette and Chronicle. `Novem-b-er—eleventh—Hello!
What is this? `Last dying speech and confession of Greeley, the notorious
Pirate hung on Tyburn,—”'
The Merchant dropped his pipe, and with his eye rivetted by the dingy
type of the London paper, perused the paragraph which arrested his attention,
with undisguised, but by no means sober interest. His lips moved
fixed stare.
“What's the matter?” cried the Captain, taking his huge boot from
the table, and bending forward with sudden attention—“Has his blessed
Majesty taken cold, or is—the—Church threatened with an attack of—”
the redoubtable Captain hesitated for a word, but quietly added, after a
moment—“epilepsy?”
“Just read me a bit of fresh Court news, will you?” suggested Octavius.
Hopkins, however, did not answer, but, growing suddenly pale, continued
absorbed in the perusal of the paper.
“Reginald, will you have the kindness to read that?” With his finger
placed upon the particular paragraph, he handed the paper across the
table. The young man, absorbed in a revery, did not seem to hear him
at first, but the Merchant, starting up from his seat, held the paper before
his face.
“Read that, if you please—the date of the paper is the same as your
father's letter, but it is plain that he had not seen the `Gazette and
Chronicle' when he wrote to you.”
The agitation of Hopkins excited the attention of the young man, whose
features were clouded by apathetic gloom. Seizing the paper, he cast his
eyes over its columns, examined the date, surveyed the advertisements
and the intelligence from court, the debates in Parliament and the announcements
of the theatre.
“It does not interest me,” he said, with a vague stare—“I see nothing
here—”
“That paragraph,” cried Hopkins in his shrillest tone, while, bending
over the table, his long nose almost touched the face of Reginald.
The young man beheld the paragraph designated by the Merchant,
whose face betrayed such singular emotion.
In silence he read, while the boon companions anxiously marked the
sudden changes of his handsome countenance. The agitation of Reginald
was appalling. He surveyed the paper with the glare of a madman,
crushed it in his hands, and scattered it in fragments on the table.
“Look ye—” he gasped, as he placed his hand on the Merchant's
shoulder—“You will find the object of your search in the valley of the
Wissahikon. Her name is Madeline—she dwells in—”
As though maddened by some memory of this eventful night, he turned
hastily away—the half-finished sentence on his lips—and fled with unsteady
steps from the room. As he reached the threshold, the light of the
rising sun streamed over his haggard face, and disclosed his eyes, the
lids inflamed and the balls discolored by injected blood.
“I must away,” he said in a low voice, as his back was to the room
and its occupants, his face to the rising sun—“The horses wait for me at
Cooper's woods, and a ship sails from New York to-morrow—”
He crossed the threshold, and heard his name pronounced by a voice
more hollow and despair-stricken than his own. By the light of the
fresh winter dawn, he beheld a face on which were stamped the indications
of an ineffaceable despair.
“You here—” he cried, and staggered backward in affright,—“Whence
come you?”
And a voice, faint and whispering, gave answer—
“From Wissahikon!”
While these scenes occurred at the Old London Coffee House, in
Philadelphia, events as strange and varied in their interest took place in
the glen of Wissahikon, seven miles away. Let us retrace our steps.
17. CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.
THE SEALED CHAMBER.
“Paul, the Stranger wrote his name upon a piece of parchment, which
I have enclosed and sealed within this paper, in the form of a letter. I
have not looked upon that name, nor must you know it until the time for
action arrives. It cannot be long ere blood must be shed. Perhaps, a
few months will elapse, or another year may pass before the first blood
will flow. There will be a battle—many battles—armies will be swept
away—this new land grow rich in graves. But when the time arrives,
you will break the seal of this letter, read the name of the Deliverer, and
obey the words which you will find written beneath that name. Promise,
my son, solemnly promise, that you will not break the seal, until a year
has gone—”
The light which the old man held in his thin hand—marked by prominent
veins—cast its rays along the gloom of the corridor, which traversed
the Block-house or Monastery from east to west. At one end
was the narrow staircase leading into the upper rooms or cells of the edifice;
at the other the door, opening upon the gate. Near the door stood
the old clock, whose monotonous ticking was heard distinctly through
the stillness. On either side appeared the doors of the rooms on the
lower floor of the mansion.
They stood before a door of dark walnut, whose panels were obscured
by spider-webs. It had not been opened for many years.
Paul surveyed the high forehead and clear blue eyes of his Father, with
a glance which mingled reverence with something of awe.
“I promise, Father,” he said—“Until a year has passed, I will not
break the seal.”
“Come hither, Paul:” the old man had taken a rusted key from the
folds of his robe, and inserted it in the lock of the walnut door—“Enter
this chamber, and listen while I speak.”
The candle which the Father carried in an iron candlestick, revealed a
small apartment, square in form, and without windows or furniture of any
kind. It was panelled with dark walnut. In the centre of the floor arose
an altar or table covered with black cloth, moth-eaten and obscured by
spider-webs, and on this altar an urn of white alabaster was visible.
With a sensation of involuntary fear, Paul crossed the threshold, and
beheld the gloomy features of this coffin-like chamber. His father's pale
face was agitated by an emotion, which resembled the rapture or madness
of an inspired Prophet. His eyes shone with deeper light; a joy that
might well have been called holy, radiated over his high narrow forehead
and trembled on his lips.
“Paul—you behold this sealed packet. I place it within the urn.
Kneel, my son, beside the altar, and promise that you will not break the
seal until a year has passed.”
At his father's feet the young man knelt, while his bronzed face, lighted
by dark eyes, and shadowed by masses of rich brown hair, was strongly
contrasted with the pale face, blue eyes, and snow-white locks of the
old man.
“I promise, Father!”
The Father, after gazing for a moment upon the urn, which stood out
vividly from the dark background, led the way from the chamber. He
locked the door, and again addressed his son—
“Kneel once more. Take this key, and swear that you will not unlock
the door of this room, until a year has passed.”
“I swear, Father!” said Paul, as he knelt in the dust of the corridor,
the light shining warmly over his thoughtful face. He clutched the
rusted key with an involuntary earnestness.
“Come hither, Paul;” and the old man led his son for a few paces
along the corridor. They stood before a door of black walnut, on whose
cobweb hung panels a cross was rudely traced. At the sight of that
door, all that was calm or rapturous passed from the old man's face, and
his down-drawn brow and tightened lips indicated emotions of a far different
nature.
“Father, you are not well—the night air chills you—” said Paul, with
evident anxiety.
The old man's thin lips moved, but it seemed as if he had not the physical
power to frame an audible sound.
Paul gazed upon his father with speechless anxiety and wonder.
“Let me see your hand, my son—”
Paul extended his hand—
“It is a fair hand,—as white and delicate as a woman's hand—and
yet—”
The Father dropped the hand with a shudder.
“Father, you are cold—let me assist you to your chamber—the night
is far spent—and it is very cold in this corridor—”
In a moment, the peculiar emotion which stamped the old man's face
with so much of horror and fear, passed away. He was calm again; his
blue eyes shining with steady light, while his long white hair trembled
gently aside from his colorless forehead.
“Kneel once more—”
Paul knelt at his father's feet.
The old man extended his thin white hand, and placed its slender fingers
upon the brown locks of his son. Both father and son were
attired in robes of dark velvet, somewhat faded and worn; on the
shrunken chest of the old man, and the firm, manly bosom of his son,
shone a silver Cross.
Around them was the silence of night, only broken by the distant
echoes of the winter wind.
“Repeat after me, my son, a solemn vow—”
Paul clasped his hands upon his breast, and cast his eyes to the floor,
trembling, he knew not why, at the touch of his father's hand, at the sound
of his voice.
And then, in accents bold and deep, he repeated the words which came
from the lips of his Father:
“I, Paul, devoted to God from my birth, do vow by his holy name,
never to enter the door of this sealed chamber, before which I kneel, and
whose surface bears the sign of the cross, until—”
The old man paused, and veiled his eyes, while Paul looked up in
wonder.
He awaited the conclusion of the oath, but his Father did not utter the
closing words, until a pause of some moments.
“Until—” repeated Paul, looking earnestly into his father's face.
“Until my father is dead—” said the old man, his voice tremulous and
his eyes shaded by his hand.
Paul hesitated for a moment, and then, his eyes swimming in moisture,
slowly repeated the words—“Until my father is dead.”
“And if you fail in this, Paul, the Curse of God will descend upon you,
and blight you into a hopeless grave!”
For the first time in his life, Paul beheld an expression of fierceness—
anger—rest upon the face of his Father.
“Dost thou hear, my son?” continued the old man, clasping his wrist.
“I hear father, and will obey,” said Paul, looking with reverence into
the venerable face, whose blue eyes gazed fixedly into his own. “Have
I ever disobeyed you? Can the time ever come, when I will cease to
obey?”
The old man pressed his hand kindly upon the forehead of his son.
“God's peace be upon you, Paul,” he said, and, light in hand, hurried
along the corridor toward his chamber. It was his nightly farewell to
his child which he had spoken. Paul arose, and, gazing upon the receding
form of his father, entered the door opposite that of the sealed
chamber.
Ere an instant had passed, he had crossed the threshold, and by the
light of a fading lamp, beheld the familiar features of his own room.
The lamp stood on a desk, and, struggling with the gloom, revealed the
details of a small chamber, with a rude couch in one corner, a window at
its head, whose shutters were fast closed and bolted, and a range of shelves
near the desk, burdened with dusky volumes.
Paul seated himself in the oaken chair, near the desk, and, resting his
cheek upon his hand, fixed his eyes sadly upon the light, and surrendered
himself to his thoughts.
Those thoughts were at once varied and tumultuous. His breath came
in gasps, as he sat enveloped by the gloom and silence of the chamber;
his eye grew large and vacant in its glance.
What power of language may picture the nature of that hour of solitary
meditation?
Now his eye wandered to the shelves, burdened with massive volumes,
with clasps of steel and silver. There were the works of the Astrologers
and Alchemists of the past ages, mingled with the writings of the spiritual
dreamers and religious mystics of Germany, in the sixteenth century.
From boyhood, nay, from very childhood, Paul had dwelt upon their pages,
and as his mind—gifted by the Almighty with a power as strange as it was
peculiar—grew into form, it had been moulded and colored by these written
Thoughts of Astrology, Alchemy, and Mysticism.
And amid the large volumes were two small books, which more than
once attracted the gaze of Paul, as he sat absorbed in that silent self-communion.
The only books, indeed, which were not devoted to the dreams
of Astrology or Alchemy, or the bewildering frenzies of Religious Mystiticism.
Plainly bound, their covers indicating much service, they bore
two rudely emblazoned names; one was “Shakspeare—” the other,
“Milton.”
How the heart of Paul bounded within him, as he thought of the day
when, from an obscure corner of a neglected chest, he had drawn forth
these priceless volumes!
Near his elbow was another volume; it was open, and its broad pages
bore the bold, firm characters of the Hebrew tongue. It was the Bible—
for years; the only copy of the Book which he possessed. Dearer he
prized it, than all his works of Alchemy or Astrology, dearer even than
the reveries of Religious Enthusiasm; it was, to his soul, a thousandfold
more precious than the pages of those seers of the heart, Shakspeare and
Milton.
For from that boldly printed Hebrew volume, the Lord God of Heaven
and Earth talked to him, the unknown Boy of Wissahikon, and talked in
the language of the Other World. The Hebrew did not seem to him the
language of men, but the awful and mysterious tongue of Angels. Its
syllables of music rolled, full and deep, into his soul, as though a spirit
stood by him, while he read, pronouncing the words, whose meaning penetrated
his brain.
Does it not seem to you a thought of some interest and beauty?
Here, enshrouded in the gloom and silence of this cell of the Wissahikon
Monastery, sits the Boy of Nineteen, shut out from all the world—
its experience—its love and hate—a vague blank to him.
And yet, as he glances over the Hebrew page, his soul, escaping from
the narrow room, goes out into a distant land, where the palm trees stand
in the noonday sun, by the shore of the mysterious Jordan, or where the
waves, creeping up the beach of Galilee, break in ripples at the feet of the
God enshrined in flesh.
Or, he is amid the silence and shadow of that Eden whose joy was
without a pang, whose flowers concealed no poison, whose naked Eve
came, sinlessly and without shame, to the lake, and saw the serene sky
arch above her, the clear waters smile at her feet. Then with the builders
of the Babel Tower—with the earnest Moses, leading forth from Serfdom
a nation of slaves, and leading them to Civilization and Religion — with
the warrior-poet David, whose love to Jonathan is beautiful even now,
after the lapse of the many thousand centuries—with Isaiah the Beautiful
and Job the sublime—or, last of all, and most beautiful of all, with that
toil-worn face, which one day looked forth from the hut of a carpenter,
and said to all the world—“God, enshrined in flesh and toil, has come to
walk like a Brother among ye the sons of men.”
The thoughts of Paul, at this still hour, dwell not altogether upon the
pages of the Hebrew Bible, nor do they wander in the fairy world of
Shakspeare, or with the terrible Phantoms of Milton.
“It is strange—but it is true! The words, the very tone of my father,
seem to call me suddenly into a new life. I stand upon the Present and
survey the Past, with fear—with trembling. A singular life has been
mine. Bred afar from the world—within the walls of this forest home—
the only faces familiar to me, are the faces of my Father and Catherine.
Beyond those faces, beyond the forest home lies the great world, a dim
chaos, whose darkness is not enlightened by a single star. Our life has
was worn by our ancestors. We have neither decked ourselves in gay
apparel, nor slain a living thing in order to pamper appetite. Water from
the spring—bread from the corn that grows in the fields, beyond the
woods—the fruits of summer and the bloodless produce of the garden—
such has been the fare, for years, of the old man of Wissahikon and his
children.
“Had I eaten of flesh, or drunken of wine, there might mingle with my
blood an impetuous desire to see the great world, and join in its relentless
war for fame and gold. But here, within these walls, my life shall
glide gently on, until it flows, without a murmur, into that great Ocean
which Men call Death.
“But this Oath—the Sealed Chamber—the strange agitation of my
Father?
“What are his plans in regard to my Future? The Deliverer for
whose coming we watched so long, came but an hour ago—Wherefore
does my father say to me, `Wait one year!' or `Until I am dead,
Paul!'
“I have never heard myself addressed by any other name than Paul
Ardenheim—my father's name is also unknown to me. Hold! Black
David, the deformed, who sometimes comes to the Monastery, and bears
messages for my father to the city, may know our name. Shall I
ask him?
“No! It is not for me to lift the curtain which enshrouds my father's
secrets, and conceals his purposes from my view. It is for me to sit at
his feet, to wait in patience. But—the future of Catherine?—Shall she
dwell for ever in this home? She is so fair, so beautiful,—and yet so
heaven-like in her beauty,—so like one of those women of whom the
Prophet Shakspeare speaks, that I could weep to think of her dying
within these walls, neglected and unknown!”
You will remember, that Paul applied the word “Prophet” alike to
Shakspeare and Milton. They had received their intellect from God, and
all that was good in them was God-like; therefore—so the crude Enthusiast
reasoned—they were his Prophets, whenever they enunciated a divine
thought or embodied a holy truth.
“I cannot banish the thought. It seems to encircle me, and force me
to answer its mysterious questions. It is the thought of the mystery
which overshadows our life,—all dark as I look to the past, darker yet as
I gaze into the future. Father! Father! Would that the time were here,
when, placing me on one hand, and Catherine on the other, your lips
could tell to us the history of your life, and the history of ours!”
Paul felt his brow grow feverish as it rested upon his hand, while his
dilating eyes were fixed upon the half-shadowed walls of his room. It
was an impressive scene. That narrow chamber, dimly lighted, with the
gloom, his bronzed face and earnest eyes manifesting thought at once
intense and bewildering.
Paul arose and paced the floor.
It came upon him suddenly, like a burst of voluptuous music, like a
gush of intoxicating perfume, like a dream of fragrance and moonbeams
—the memory of the beautiful woman whom he had seen to-night, for the
first time.
His cell was full of gloom, but even in the gloom he could see her
flashing eyes,—it was very still in the old Block-house, but through the
stillness he could hear her voice, whispering words of wild, boundless
passion.
Wherever he turned, he saw a vision of a beautiful form, whose bosom,
half-revealed, panted slowly into light, and throbbed into warm loveliness,
beneath his gaze.
It seemed as though the vision had rushed upon him like the frenzy of
a fever—his heart beat in tumultuous throbs—he gasped for breath, and
wildly stretching forth his hands, tottered to the chair.
Veiling his eyes, he endeavored to banish that voluptuous image. But
she was there, before him—he felt her hand trembling softly over his
forehead—her breath upon his cheek. Again, her darkly flowing hair
swept over his face; again his blood was ice and flame by turns, as her
voice whispered gently—“I have waited for you, Paul. Have loved you
—and am yours for ever!”
It was in the midst of this voluptuous frenzy, that Paul cast his glance
toward the light, and for the first time beheld a letter, inscribed with
these words—`To my son.'
“It is from my father. He must have written it last night, before the
Deliverer came. I will banish the maddening memory—and yet—she is
very—very beautiful!”
He broke the seal, and read the letter, traced in the tremulous hand of
his father.
In case the hope, in which I have lived for seventeen years, proves
false, and the Deliverer for whom we have waited in Prayer, for so many
years, does not come—even then, Paul, it is my purpose to fulfil, with
regard to you, the command of the Lord. From your infancy you have
been devoted to God. You have been sacred from the world, set apart
from the faces of men. The relentless lust of traffic, the feverish desires
of ambition, the hollow sophistries and cold selfishness of the great world,
have not polluted your virgin intellect. You have bloomed into life in
the wilderness—a life, pure and serene as the stars. Therefore, to-morrow,
dedicate you to God.
Behold the manner of this dedication.
The upper rooms of our mansion you have never seen. They are
sealed to all human eyes, and have been for years. But when you traverse
the corridor which extends between those rooms, you will read on
those closed doors, the names of Anselm—Joseph—Immanuel.
These were my brothers, not in the flesh, but in the spirit. With me
they left Germany,—left house and home,—and we came into the wilderness
together. Together, in these woods, we reared the altar of our
Brotherhood. Our creed was simple—Love to Man is Love to God.
While you were but a child, and Catherine scarcely a babe of two
years, they died, these brothers of my heart, and left me alone in the old
mansion. In their death-hour, I vowed a solemn vow that you and Catherine
should be devoted to the great work of our Religion. I vowed it,
clasping their chilled hands, with their glassy eyes fixed upon me—vowed
it to each one as he sunk back in the wave of death. A month or more
intervened between their deaths—in the space of half a year they all
were gathered to the grave.
—To-morrow I will solemnly dedicate you to the work which those
brothers loved all their lives, and clung to with unfaltering faith in the
hour of death.
You will be called upon, first of all, to take this vow—“In the presence
of God, and surrounded by the skeletons of the Brothers of the good
cause, I do vow to devote all my efforts, to bend my life, my intellect,
my wealth, to the progress of that cause.
“And in order that my strength may not be weakened, my heart clogged,
or my brain clouded by any tie of earth, or taint of earthly passion, I do
further solemnly vow, in the presence of the dead, never to contract marriage,
nor to look upon a woman with the eye of sensual love. My only
bride shall be the good cause—my only hope and aim in life, its final
success.”
Are you ready for this vow, my son? Let your time be passed in
Prayer, so that the hour of sunset to-morrow does not find you unprepared.
While the young man perused this paper, his face indicated powerful
emotion. There was no color in his rounded cheeks, when he came to
the last words. The paper fell from his hands, and, with a sudden failure
of all physical or mental strength, he sank unconscious in his chair.
The lamp, glimmering with a faint lustre over his marked features and
motionless form, seemed not to disclose a living but a dead man. The
stern mental contest which had shook his reason to its centre, and deprived
every nerve.
It was after a long pause that he awoke from his stupor, but with his
first glance of consciousness he beheld his father's letter. At once he
started from his seat, and pulling forth a drawer, which was concealed in
the side of the desk, he was about to place the letter with the manuscripts
which the drawer contained, when his attention was suddenly enchained
by a new object of wonder. A slip of paper, not more than two inches
in breadth, lay on the manuscripts, its bold characters standing blackly
out from the white surface. On this paper, Paul beheld a few words,
written in a quaint and vigorous old English character. The ink was
scarcely dried; the paper was different in quality from any he used;
indeed, as Paul, ere perusing its words, held it between his eyes and the
light, he beheld the date of its fabrication, woven in its texture, surmounted
by a British Crown and coat of arms. That date was
1590.
“The ink is scarcely dried—I have no paper like this in my desk, nor
have I ever seen any thing of this kind in possession of my father. The
character is strange—but let me read it first, before wasting the time in
vague conjectures—”
To Paul, Baron of Ardenheim:
Thou seekest to know. Enter the door with the Cross upon its
panels. Search the Urn. The Past and future will be opened to thee.
“There is no signature,” exclaimed Paul, as he sunk back in the chair,
utterly bewildered—“The mystery of my life grows darker! Who
placed this paper in my drawer? Whose hand traced these singular
words? Can it be that my father wishes to test my faithfulness to the
vow which I took upon myself not a few moments ago? But no—it is
not my father's hand. These words were written by a firm hand, whose
nerves knew not a single tremor of weariness or age. Oh, for a ray of
light to shine upon this mystery!”
Again he examined the paper; the ink was very black, the writing distinct
and bold. The “water-mark,” or date of the fabrication of the
paper, was seen clearly, as he held it before the light—1590.
“`Enter the door with the Cross upon its panels!' It would be perjury.
`Search the urn—' there is an urn within the Sealed Chamber—
but, I must not think of it. It would be treason to my father—yes, the
shame of falsehood would blister on my forehead. It cannot for a
moment influence my thoughts, this idle message sent to me by unknown
hands—”
While these thoughts, half-uttered, flashed through the brain of Paul,
in his ears.
The paper fell from his hands, and rested on the desk beside his
father's letter.
“The Past and the Future will be opened to thee!”
Paul heard these words, as though a spirit had spoken them gently in
his ears.
“I swore a solemn oath, that I would not—” he uttered the words,
and starting from his seat, paced up and down the floor of his narrow
room.
All was breathlessly still—he could hear the ticking of the old clock,
which stood at the remote end of the corridor, or hall—it seemed to him
that he could also hear the frenzied throbbings of his heart.
He was lost in a wilderness of conflicting thought. He was at once
possessed by a yearning desire to know the mystery of his life, and with
a terrible consciousness of the guilt which would darken his soul, in case
he violated his oath.
“Paul, Baron of Ardenheim,” he muttered—“Baron of Ardenheim!
I have heard those words before! To-night—it was when I stood on the
rock of Wissahikon. Baron Ardenheim! Is it my father's title, the
name by which he was known in the great world?”
Paul took the lamp, and went from that cell—the dearest home of his
hours of thought—and closing the door, stood in the gloom of the corridor.
An unbroken stillness prevailed. The lamp revealed the door on
which the figure of a Cross was traced — shone distinctly upon its panels,
while all around was gloom. Paul's features became violently agitated as
he glanced upon the door; he stood like a man bewildered by a supernatural
spell, gazing upon the dim Cross with expanded eyes.
“The Past and the Future shall be opened to thee!” he murmured,
and advanced a single step.
Then came another pause, in which Paul stood without motion in the
centre of the corridor, his face colorless, his eyes expanded and unnaturally
brilliant.
“No! No! In the name of God, I dare not think of it!—Yet the
Past is to me a dim chaos—the Future a starless midnight, peopled only
by phantoms * * * * No! I will to my father's couch, and press my
kiss upon his lips as he slumbers, and then come back to my room again
to bury these fearful thoughts in Prayer!”
Passing along the corridor—the old clock throbbing all the while
through the breathless stillness—he saw that the door of the room next
to his own was slightly opened.
It was his sister's chamber.
Inclining his head toward the dark panels, he listened—
All was still, save the low, soft breathing of the sinless sleeper
“God's blessing upon thee! There are no frightful phantoms to mar
thy rest—no infernal temptation scares thy soul from its dreams. And
yet—it is a strange thought—thy fate is like unto mine. Thou must take
the vow, and swear with me, never to look with love upon the form of a
living thing—”
His brow clouded by a sombre expression, Paul passed on, his face
agitated in every feature. Next came the door of the old man's chamber.
Paul bent his head toward its panels—all was silent—his father slept.
Softly unclosing the door, Paul passed the threshold, the light glimmering
dimly over the details of a cell-like place, with a rude couch in
one corner. With a noiseless footstep Paul advanced to the couch, and
saw the form of his father, prostrate in slumber, the profile of his aged
face turned toward the light. He had flung himself upon the plain bed
without removing the dark robe from his spare limbs, and as he slept, the
silver cross shone like a point of flame upon his breast.
His eyes were closed, his face very calm, and the light imparted a
faint glow to his snow-white hair.
Beside his bed, his lips firmly set, and his eyes glaring from the fixed
brows, stood his son, whose broad chest heaved with violent agitation, as
he silently surveyed the calm image of venerable age which slumbered
before him.
Moved by the violent throbbings of his heart, the Cross which he wore
now disappeared, and as suddenly flashed into the light again.
As the eye of Paul became more accustomed to the gloom of his
father's narrow room, he beheld a singular statue which rose at the
head of his couch, starting from a recess in the panelled walls. Paul
beheld this statue with an involuntary tremor, for the words which his
father had many times spoken to him, came vividly to his memory, at
this lone hour of night and thought.
“When Man is free from all manner of bondage, when the mission of
the Redeemer has done its perfect work, then shall the Lead become Gold,
and the Gloom be turned into unutterable Joy.”
These words had often fallen from his father's lips—as Paul looked
upon the singular statue, half-revealed by his light, he remembered them
with painful distinctness.
It was a figure of the Saviour, moulded or carved in lead, the form
clad in the humble garments of toil, and the face stamped with a look of
unutterable sadness. The large motionless eyes, the lips agitated by a
smile that had more of sorrow than joy for its meaning, the great forehead,
stamped with a sublime despair — all moulded of lead—impressed
the heart of the gazer with sensations of peculiar awe.
“That Image, Paul—” the old man was wont to say—“Is the Image,
not of the Saviour triumphant over death and evil, but of Jesus imprisoned
among the creeds and sophistries of the Church. There is a singular
of a Hussite heretic, who, imprisoned by the followers of Papal power,
was offered life and liberty on one condition. `You are an artist,' they
said—`Your hand is cunning in the arts of painting and sculpture. Carve
for us an Image for our Altar, and you shall be free!' The heretic, encumbered
by his chains, heard them, and lifting his sunken features from
the shadows of his cell, faltered a response to their request. `Of what
metal will you have it?' `Of gold!' `Whose image shall I carve?' `The
Blessed Saviour triumphant over death—' `Give me some lead, and let
me have a furnace, so that I may prepare a model of the statue which
you desire! They consented. For weary days and nights, the Hussite
was secluded in his cell, toiling steadily at his labor. They became impatient,
but he replied, pointing to the statue, imprisoned in its mould,
`Soon it will be done.' One morning he unclosed the door of his cell.
While his form, wasted by persecution and toil, trembled like a leaf, and
his cheek, hollow and care-worn, looked like the cheek of a corse, he led
the throng of priestly Lords across the threshold. `You asked of me an
Image of the Saviour triumphant over death. I could not mould a Lie
into gold, for I felt that my hour was near. So I moulded Him of lead,
and moulded him, not as he appears in the Bible, but as he is in your
Church, chained by your hollow forms and blasphemous ritual. Behold
—behold—the Image of the Imprisoned Jesus!' He said this, Paul, and
while the Priests encircled him in fiery anger, he fell back cold and dead.
That Image was hurled into some forgotten corner, for the Priests felt that
its divine despair was an eternal rebuke upon their heathenish worship.
But the followers of Huss lifted it from the dark corner, they bore it to
their secret place of worship,—and now it is here, in the home of Wissahikon,
a stern Image of the Church, which imprisons the Soul of the
Blessed Saviour in a leaden and lifeless ritual. The day comes, my
son, when the Lead will become Gold, and the unchanged gloom be turned
into changeless joy; when the Lord, no longer imprisoned by creeds, shall
walk freely once more, into the homes and hearts of Men!”
Such was the singular tradition of the Imprisoned Jesus.
—It may have been that the dull hue of the lead deepened the singular
impression which the Image produced; but as Paul held the light near
and nearer to it, it seemed to him that he did not merely behold a face
and form of lifeless metal.
“I cannot banish the thought that a Soul is imprisoned in that leaden
mass. A Soul enclosed in the fixed eyes and despair-stricken forehead
of the Image—a Soul that listens to me now—watches me as I stand beside
my father's couch—reads my heart—and reads the Future of my
life, which is dark and terrible to me!”
Paul shrunk back from the cold leaden eyes of the Image. “I will
press my lips to my father's forehead, and then retire to my bed!'
There was something altogether impressive in the sight—that young face
marked by the traces of powerful emotion, pressed against the withered
countenance of the old man.
As Paul bent down, the light which he held glowed more warmly over
the leaden Image, and by the uncertain ray, the smile which dwelt upon
the sad face of the Imprisoned Redeemer, seemed to change into a sneer.
“Good night—God's peace upon your gray hairs!” murmured Paul,
but his Father did not hear him. He slept the calm slumber of a serene
Conscience.
Paul raised his head, and for the first time, as the rays of his lamp
wandered from the face to the form of the Image, he beheld the extended
hand, and felt all his serenity of soul vanish before a sudden tempest of
temptation and thought.
For on the forefinger of that leaden hand an iron key was suspended,
bearing a label on which these words were written, and written in his
father's hand—
“THE KEY OF THE SEALED CHAMBER.”
“Can it be,” gasped Paul, “that my father means to tempt me? Father—”
he extended his hand as if to rouse the aged man, but as suddenly
withdrew it—“No! he has left the key suspended to the hand of
the Image, so that I might become accustomed to it, and forget all temptation
in the force of mechanical habit.—It is a massive key, and the
label which it bears has been written not many hours ago—”
He touched the key, and felt his hand drop to his side, as though detected
in an act of guilt. The face of the Image seemed to smile upon
him, in deep compassion.
Paul extended the light, and regarded the key with a fixed glance, while
the Image looked upon him with that sad smile, and the aged man slumbered
unconsciously beneath his gaze.
His face manifested an intensity of mental agony; there was no hue
of life upon his cheek; while his lips were firmly compressed, his large
dark eyes glared fixedly upon the leaden hand and the iron key.
It was a moment of fearful thought.
Paul started at a sudden sound—but in an instant became calm again—
it was only the old clock striking the hour of four.
“Father, the trial is terrible—” faltered Paul. “This ordeal fills my
brain with madness. Ah, there is a hope—I may for ever place a barrier
between my soul and this horrible Temptation—”
With a sudden grasp he seized the key, and casting one glance toward the
slumbering face of his father, he strode madly to the door. On the threshold
he paused, held the light toward the bed, and looked over his shoulder.
That light gleamed faintly over his father's face, but as its ray shone for
a moment over the image, Paul with a shudder saw the leaden features
move, and the fixed eyeballs glow with red lustre.
He dared not look again, but holding the light in his left hand, and
clutching the key in his right, he closed the door of his father's room.
He hastened with unsteady steps along the corridor in the direction of his
own chamber.
“The key shall tempt me no longer—” he said as he hurried along—
“In a moment, through the window of my room I will hurl it forth into
the darkness and snow!”
He stood before his chamber, but the same ray that disclosed the panels
of his door, also shone upon the Cross of the opposite door—the door
which led into the Sealed Chamber.
Paul rushed madly toward it, as though all power of self-control had
suddenly passed from his brain. While his face was marked with the
traces of that frenzy which boiled like molten fire in every vein, he extended
his hand, and attempted to insert the key in the lock. His hand
trembled, and the attempt was vain.
Paul sank on his knees. For a moment all was a blank; his senses
were deadened by a sudden stupor.
When reason and consciousness returned, he found himself still on his
knees, the key clutched in his cramped fingers, while the cold damps
moistened his forehead.
“Ah, the fearful trial is passed. I am saved.”
Slowly he rose to his feet, and was turning his face away from the
Cross on the door, when a hand was laid upon his shoulder.
It was not the firm clasp of a vigorous hand, but its pressure was soft
and gentle. And yet that scarcely perceptible pressure held Paul as motionless
as stone. He could not turn and look upon the person whose
hand touched his shoulder, but, conscious of the terrible danger which he
had just escaped, he feared to gaze into the face of a human being. The
blush of shame glowed on his cheek.
“It is my father!” the thought crossed the mind of the Enthusiast—
“He has watched me, and seen me place the key in the lock—”
He was afraid of the old man's wrinkled face and deep blue eyes.
The hand was still upon his shoulder, its soft pressure imparting a singular
warmth to his frame.
“Father—” Paul began.
“Paul!” answered a voice, that broke in deep emphasis upon the stillness
of the corridor.
And the hand which had pressed his shoulder, touched his neck with
its fingers. Paul felt the blood burn in every vein, as he turned, and, holding
the light in his quivering hand, gazed upon the intruder.
Did the pale face and high forehead of the old man meet his gaze? Or
the soft eyes and golden hair of Catherine?
“Paul, are you afraid of Fortune! Afraid to cross that threshold and
stand face to face with your future fate!”
It was the beautiful face of a woman, the large dark eyes of passionate
love, that met the gaze of Paul, as he heard the voice, whose every accent
fired his blood.
“Ah—madness again—” and Paul retreated from the vision of impetuous
loveliness which glowed upon him from the gloom of the corridor.
“The Wizard's child!'
She was there, her form enveloped in a robe of rich velvet, bordered
by glossy fur. Around her face, gathered the dark hood, whose folds
gave new beauty to her face and relieved the intense blackness of her
hair. Her eyes, lighted up with a clear unchanging radiance, flashed upon
him from the shadow of their long fringes — her velvet robe was agitated
by the motion of her proud bosom.
This vision completed the bewilderment of the Enthusiast.
“Has earth and heaven combined against me? Is it not enough to be
tempted by my own heart? Not enough to feel the key of the Sealed
Chamber in my grasp, and see the door gloom before me, its Cross burning
my very eyes with an incredible fascination? Must the air give forth
its Spirits, and the image which haunts my brain take bodily shape, and
come in incarnate loveliness to my side! Away—away—I will not peril
my soul, I dare not break my Oath—I cannot, cannot fling a lie into my
father's face!”
Deep and echoing, his voice swelled through the corridor. The warm
lips of the woman parted in a smile.
“I am no spirit, Paul,” she said, and flung back her hood. Freely and
in copious waves, her raven hair descended upon her shoulders. While
her olive cheek was fired with vermilion, and her large eyes swam in
moisture, and the ripe redness of her parting lips was contrasted with
the whiteness of her teeth, she touched his arm with her soft hand, and
glided nearer to his side.
“Whence come you?” cried Paul.
“Is it so far from your home to mine? Only a mile, by the path that
leads over the Wissahikon, and through the woods.—”
“But the night is cold — the ground is covered with snow — the forest
dark and dreary—”
“I know it, Paul, but the Voice bade me seek your home—”
“The Voice?” echoed the bewildered Paul.
“Do you not remember?”—again she smiled, and dashed aside the luxuriant
hair from her face—“It was the voice that told me long ago of you
and your love. And after you left me, not many hours ago, after you
thrust me from you and—”
She laid her finger upon the slight wound which marred the pale beauty
of her forehead.
“After all this had occurred, and I was desolate and alone, the Voice
spoke again and told me that you loved me still, told me that you would
and power.”
How her eyes flashed into new brightness, as, placing her hand upon
his neck, she uttered these words!
Paul was spell-bound. It was no spirit voice that spoke, no spirit hand
that trembled over his neck. It was a beautiful woman, whose proud loveliness
glowed into voluptuous life, as her lips murmured—“We should
climb the height of fame and power!”
“After the voice had spoken these words of hope to me, I slept. In my
dreams I saw your face. Again I heard the Voice—`Would'st thou aid
thy lover in the direst moment of his fate? Away to the home of Paul—
away by the path which crosses the Wissahikon, and terminates at the
door of the Monastery. The door is open—thou wilt find thy lover
trembling on the threshold of his Fortune. Bid him enter the Sealed
Chamber and fear not.' I obeyed, Paul—and am here.”
“The Sealed Chamber!” echoed Paul.
“Do you fear?” and the touch of her hand, trembling over his forehead,
filled every vein of the Enthusiast with the frenzy of passion. “Do
you hesitate? I am but a weak woman—” how proudly her bosom
heaved as she said the words! “I may not pierce the cloud of mystery
which encircles us. But to woman, in her very weakness, God hath given
a power akin to Prophecy—it is the instinct of her heart, it is the inspiration
of her love. That power, Paul, tells me that your future—our future,
Paul—lies within the Sealed Chamber. Do you love me? Enter, and do
not fear!”
It seemed to Paul that he could listen for ever to the music of her voice;
and while her eyes flashed in all their brightness, and her form, gliding
closer to his own, heaved and swelled in every vein; the Enthusiast
could not turn his gaze away, even for a single moment, from this picture
of voluptuous beauty.
“You love me!” he gasped—“You, whose glances fill my soul with
new life, whose form seems to me more beautiful than a dream of Heaven
—you—”
“Love you!” exclaimed the Wizard's daughter—“Is it so strange,
when I have seen your form, in my dreams by night and dreams by day,
for more than a year? Do you still hesitate? The key of your Fate is
in your hand—”
“But the Oath which I took, not one hour ago, kneeling on this very
spot, at the feet of my father—”
Upon the brow of the beautiful girl darkened a slender vein, swelling
with a serpentine outline from the transparent skin.
“Father!” she echoed, her face so near the visage of Paul, that he felt
her breath upon his cheek—“I remember—”
And she clasped her forehead with her hands.
“You remember—”
“The words of the Voice,” said the Wizard's daughter: “as it bade me
seek your home, it also said—`Tell him, tell Paul, that the man who calls
himself his Father, has no right to that sacred name—”'
Paul shrunk back from her side, looking into her glowing face with a
glance of vacant terror.
“Who calls himself my father—”
“`Tell him also, that the mystery of his life is concealed within the
walls of the Sealed Chamber. Once beyond its threshold, he will know
his father's name—”'
Had these words been spoken by the withered lips of age, the glow of
anger would have crimsoned the face of Paul, the fierce denial risen to
his tongue.
But they were uttered by lips that were ripe with youth and passion;
and as they fell on the listener's ears, his eye was enchained by a face
whose eyes flashed with love, through the intervals of long flowing hair.
As he heard the strange revelation, he saw the tumultuous motion of her
velvet robe, he felt the trembling of her form, as she pressed nearer to
his heart
18. CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.
PAUL ALONE WITH THE TEMPTER.
“Lady, I would speak with you—” he exclaimed, as he led the way
into his own room, and placed the light upon his desk. “Let me have
one moment of calm thought,—only a moment—” and his gaze was
rivetted to the key of the Sealed Chamber, which he clenched in his
right hand.
The girl, whose eyes shone with changeless brightness, sunk into a
chair, her robe quivering with the impetuous pulsations of her bosom. Not
once did she remove her gaze from the pale features of the Enthusiast.
There were some moments of unbroken stillness—Paul was alone with
the Wizard's daughter.
Not in her own chamber, as some few hours ago, but in that cell of the
Block-house which had for years been the home of his thoughts. Resting
his brow upon his hand, he could only gaze in her face, and grow
wild and bewildered with the dazzling beauty of her eyes.
As he gazed, his mind was agitated by contending memories. All that
he had ever read of woman, came crowding on his brain, in a throng of
contrasted images. She seemed to him like some form of which he had
read; like the fascinating image of one of those women, whose surpassing
beauty gives freshness and bloom to their memories, even after their loveliness
has crumbled into grave-yard mould, and the shadows of dead ages
brood darkly over their dust.
Was it Ruth, so pure and beautiful, who, with her brown cheek lighted
by the Judean sun, bent toiling amid the full sheaves of the rich man's
field? Bathsheba, whose dazzling loveliness made the Poet-King a
Traitor and Murderer? Or the star-eyed daughter of Egypt, whose gorgeous
beauty inspired the Son of David with that glowing Love-drama,
called the Song of Solomon? Or the Juliet of Shakspeare, the Eve of
Milton, or some creation of his own brain? Did she resemble the voluptuous
form, which, gliding one summer day before Herod the King, so
maddened his soul, that he gave her, as a birth-day gift, the head of the
Baptist?
The impression which the beauty of the Wizard's child made upon the
soul of Paul, mingled these images with a darker association. She seemed
to him something like the tender Esther, the daughter of Mordecai the
Jew, with a shadow of Shakspeare's Lady Macbeth, darkening over her
white brow.
Yes, even as Paul felt the inspiration of her eyes, she seemed a beautiful
embodiment of some fearful deed, the splendid shrine of a Satanic
Thought.
“You hesitate—” she said, raising her white hand and sweeping the
luxuriant hair from her face.
Paul was silent. He could hear the monotonous sound of the old clock
—the throbbing of his heart—and the death-like stillness impressed him
with an omen of approaching Evil.
“Hesitate, when there is greatness to be achieved, glory won by a solitary
exertion of your will!” She bent forward, until the light shone fully upon
her face—her eyes grew brighter, her lips assumed a more passionate red.
“Greatness—Glory?” echoed Paul, in an absent tone; and then came
a murmured thought—“What grandeur of earthly power is worthy for a
moment to be placed in the balance with the possession of this beautiful
form? What glory like the beauty of her eyes—”
“Listen to me, Paul. My life has been like your own, strange and dark
with mystery. Yet I feel that our fate is linked, through good and ill,
for life or death, either for purposes of glory, or for deeds of shame.
Your heart confirms my words. Our destiny is one. It is not for me to
explain that which is so dark with mystery—I can only speak that which
I feel—”
“Speak—you would have me break my Oath, scatter confusion and
unpardonable crime—”
“No, Paul. I would have you as great, as noble as your destiny. I
know not the world, have no intelligence of its people or its passing events,
but I feel that the time comes, when a strong arm, nerved by a great soul,
may grasp a crown, even from the hand of death, and carve a glorious destiny,
even from the elements of carnage and ruin.”
“It is well — a crown, a throne! But the hereafter—” Paul pronounced
the word with shuddering distinctness.
“The hereafter?”—and her face was stamped by a vague wonder.
“The Other World, that unknown sea, whose waves break in indistinct
murmurs on the shores of this life—” Paul wildly exclaimed—“The
Hereafter! O, it is terrible to think, even for a moment, that we are but
as the beasts of the field. That to-day we live, and to-morrow we are but
loathsome decay. To dream for an instant, that there is no other world—”
“The Other World! It is a mystery; perchance it may be happiness,
perchance misery. Or, it may be nothing but a long and dreamless sleep.
It is in this world that we live. For this world we were born. I know
that I live; the breath of the flowers, the joy of the sun, the thought of
moonlight—all are dear to me. But the other world is like a vague mist,
stretched over the eastern sky at early dawn. That mist, passing away,
may reveal the rising sun, or only disclose a darker cloud!”
Paul started from that lovely countenance with affright. Her words
chilled his blood. So beautiful, and with no consciousness of a Better
World!
She was an Atheist. It was true. With all her beauty, her grace of
step, and magic of look and tone, she had no definite conception of a
future state, no actual belief in God. True, she prayed, but it was rather
a form of the lips than an inspiration from the heart. Her father, led
by his stern fanaticism, had reared her thus, and the end of all his teachings
was to impress her only with the joy of existence in this world. The
Voice, speaking from the stillness of her chamber, completed this singular
education. All that was Religious in her nature, bent from its proper
tendency, became distorted into an insane Love, a grasping and boundless
Ambition.
That insane Love, that unlimited ambition, were centred in the image
of Paul of Ardenheim. She looked upon him as the embodied form of
her Thought. He was her Future, her Happiness, her—if we may speak
it thus—only Hereafter.
Paul gazed sadly and with fixed eyes upon her glowing face. She
was near him; her voice broke like music over the silence of his cell;
her bosom swelled beneath the dark robe, and her tresses, agitated by the
wind which came through the aperture of the door, waved slowly to
and fro.
“Thou art so very beautiful!” he said, completely intoxicated by the
strange brightness of her eyes—“Thy face so fair to look upon, thy voice
like the delicious music of a daybreak dream, thine eyes shining ever with
a light that seems to me like the brightness of a heavenly soul, and yet
thou—even thou—”
Shrinking from her gaze, he covered his face with his hands. He had
not the courage to complete the sentence. Even this beautiful woman,
with the voluptuous form and starry eyes, the voice that thrilled, and the
lips that glowed with the warmth of passion, even she must die! This
was his thought, but he could not speak it.
Absorbed in his reverie, Paul murmured to himself—“The white bosom
to the charnel, the grave worm upon the radiant brow! The voice that
thrills will be silent! There will be no light in the face, for that face will
be a skull, those eyes but hollow orbits, vacant—dark—sealed forever.”
There was a hand upon his shoulder, and Paul heard her voice again.
Heard it in every low whispering accent, but could not raise his eyes.
“`And thou must die!' This is your thought—” her voice grew tremulous,
nay, Paul felt the hand tremble, as it touched his shoulder—“It is
true, I must die. But—” and her voice grew firm and strong again,
breaking in distinct emphasis on the listener's ear—“But not until my
Destiny is accomplished—not until our Fate is fulfilled!”
How the triumph of her voice pierced the listener's ear, and made the
blood dance in his veins!
“Life is before us, Paul, a goblet filled to the brim with love, with
power. Shall we refuse to drink it, Paul, ay, to the last drop, because
the goblet is held by a skeleton hand, or dash it down, untasted, because,
as we raise it to our lips, Death stands mocking as he gives the cup?”
Radiant with beauty, she glowed before him, her eyes full of light, her
olive cheek glowing with fresh bloom.
“Come, Paul. Do not falter now. To your task. The oath—the
injunction of the aged man—these are but a part of the ordeal, which
decides your fate and mine. Arise and seek your Destiny!”
She laid her hand upon his arm, yes, upon the key clenched in his
right hand.
“I am lost—I tremble—there are Phantom forms before my eyes, and
strange music, like a chorus of angel's songs and the laughter of fiends,
rings without ceasing in my ears—”
“Do you falter? Up, and know your fate. It is the hour, Paul, when,
from the Past and the Future, the shadows will roll aside, as a mist
from the dawning day. Pass the threshold—know the mystery of the
Sealed Chamber, and—Paul—canst thou not read my thought ere it is
spoken—
“Speak!” Starting from his seat, Paul endeavored to read her meaning
in her eyes—
“This room shall be our Bridal Chamber,” whispered the Wizard's
daughter.
“And the hour of our Bridal—” Paul advanced a single step.
—“When you have passed the Ordeal. I will await you at the threshold
of the Sealed Chamber—”
“Our Bridal!” echoed Paul, and grasping the light, he hurried from his
room, and in an instant stood in the corridor again
19. CHAPTER NINETEENTH.
THE THRESHOLD OF THE SEALED CHAMBER.
It was not the moment for calm thought, for every vein swelled with
new life, and the heart within him throbbed with such violence, that even
in the cold corridor, he panted for breath, for air.
“I will dare the worst, for you—” his voice was indistinct, hoarse
with emotion.
With a trembling hand he placed the key in the lock. The Wizard's
daughter regarded his ghost-like face with a look of glowing triumph.
“Enter,” she softly whispered—“Enter and learn the Past and the
Future!”
Paul turned the key—the door began to recede—the heavy air which
passed through the crevice, almost extinguished the light. That air
seemed tainted with the odor of the dead; it resembled a blast from the
unclosed jaws of a charnel.
The Wizard's daughter regarded him with an expanded eye, and love
and curiosity mingled in the expression of her beautiful face.
“Do you falter now?” she said.
There was a soft footstep, and a gentle hand raised the hand of the
woman from the neck of Paul. Between them glided a young girl, who
gathered a dark mantle around her white dress, and with her loosened
hair resting in a golden shower upon her shoulders, and her clear blue
eyes distended by a look of vague alarm, she gazed now in the face of the
voluptuous woman, now in the ashen visage of Paul.
“Catherine!” and he turned away from the innocence and angel-like
purity of his sister's face.
“Paul,” exclaimed the pure girl, in tones whose calm serenity by no
means resembled the impetuous accents of the dark-haired woman—“You
stand on the threshold of the Sealed Chamber—”
There was a sad reproof in her gentle eyes.
“The Sealed Chamber—what know you of its mystery?”
“Do you frown upon me, Paul? Are you angry with your sister? An
hour ago, aroused from my sleep by the sound of father's voice, I saw
you kneeling at his feet, I heard your vow.—O, Paul, you do not dream
of breaking that vow—”
More darkly swelled the serpentine vein upon the forehead of the
Wizard's daughter, as she beheld the pure face of Catherine, fired with a
holy emotion, as she clung to her Brother's neck.
“He is not your father,” she cried—“He has in reserve for you a
Future darker even than the Past—”
The mild face of Catherine was turned toward the beautiful woman;
her blue eyes shone with wonder and alarm. She shrunk trembling from
the light of her flashing eyes.
“This scene fills me with terror, Paul—” whispered the sister, clasping
her brother's wrist—“Can it be? You stand on the threshold of the
Sealed Chamber, about to violate your oath!”
“Catherine—Catherine—” groaned Paul, as the hand which grasped
the key fell nerveless by his side. “I am terribly tempted—my will is
not my own—”
He turned wildly from that face, whose blue eyes, fair skin, and golden
hair, symbolized a pure and child-like soul, to the dark cheek, flashing
eyes, and jet-black hair, which embodied the idea of a proud and voluptuous
spirit.
It was the eventful moment of his Fate; the calm love which came like
Peace from God, as he looked upon his sister's face, contended with the
frenzy of passion which fired every vein, as his glance encountered the
gaze of the dark-haired woman.
“Come, Paul—to your own room—it is an Evil Angel that stands so
beautiful by your side.”
Paul surrendered his hand to the grasp of his sister, and turned his face
away from the door.
The eyes of the Wizard's daughter glared with a brightness that was
almost preternatural. With one proud step she advanced, her flashing
eyes and wildly floating hair, making her look like the spirit of some
feverish dream; she grasped his wrist, and pointed to the door, while the
dark vein swelled more distinctly from her fair forehead.
“You are afraid!” she sneered, pressing her nether-lip beneath her
white teeth, until the blood started—“The door is open, the threshold free,
and you are afraid to stand face to face with your Destiny! O, shame
upon me, that I ever sank so low, even in my thoughts, as to bestow my
love upon a coward heart like thine!”
“Your hand from my neck, sister,” shrieked Paul, maddened by the
look of the proud maiden—“There is no time for thought. I must go on—”
Grasping the light, which showed his convulsed countenance in every
lineament, he dashed over the threshold of the Sealed Chamber.
The door closed behind him, and all was darkness in the corridor.
“Father!” shrieked Catherine, but there was a firm hand upon her
mouth, a frenzied arm around her neck.
“Be still, Catherine—” said the fierce though tremulous voice of the
strange woman. “It is the dread moment of your brother's fate; be silent
therefore, or—”
Catherine struggled but feebly, as that arm wound closer about her neck,
while the firm hand rested upon her lips.
“Or, if you must speak, let every word take the form of a prayer.
Kneel and beseech the Angels to guide your Brother in his lone communion
with his fate!”
All was thick night in the corridor. Catherine could not see the burning
eyes of the strange woman, but she felt her writhing heart, as the arm
gathered her in a stifling embrace, and trembled as the fevered breath
fanned her cheek.
“I will be silent,” faltered the Sister—“I will kneel here in the darkness
and pray for my lost Brother!”
The strange woman's arm no longer entwined her neck.
Catherine sank on her knees, and folding her arms, looked up to
heaven. Even through the gloom and darkness, her pure soul reached
out its arms to God.
What pen is there to picture the horror of that moment to the Wizard's
daughter.
While her bosom bounded beneath her clasped hands, she muttered in
a half-coherent tone, her doubts and hopes mingling in strange confusion:
“He will come forth, with joy on his noble forehead * * * * Have I
advised him to his ruin and shame * * * * Together we will mount the
steep pathway of ambition; he will be noble, and I shall be his bride,
his * * * * A terrible doubt—should the voice deceive * * * * All is still
—I hear no sound * * * a cry—silence—a groan * * * Paul! Paul!
* * * No answer! Ah, this will kill me—I can endure it no longer.
Better die a thousand deaths than be tortured by suspense so horrible!”
And while the voluptuous girl murmured her hopes and fears, in accents
tremulous and broken, the pure Sister kneeling at her feet, prayed to
Heaven in a calm voice.
The voice of the old clock rolled through the Block-house, and “Five!”
pealed from the bell.
There was no sound within the Sealed Chamber; Catherine ceased
to pray, and bent her head against its panels, but could not hear the
slightest echo.
The proud girl too, sweeping her hair aside from her face, listened in
of his step. All was still.
“Paul!” cried the gentle voice of Catherine.
“Paul!” spoke the trembling accent of the Wizard's daughter.
No answer! Within the Sealed Chamber silence and mystery—in the
corridor darkness and suspense—it was an hour of unutterable anguish.
At last there was a sound—Catherine uttered a prayer, and the dark-haired
woman an exclamation of joy.
It was a groan of agony, and yet they were glad to hear it. Glad to
know that he lived!
“A footstep—he comes—” cried the Wizard's daughter.
It was a footstep, but unsteady and irregular as that of a man who,
bewildered by wine, reels from the hot air of the revel, into the cool, fresh
atmosphere of dawn.
The door unclosed, and Paul Ardenheim appeared on the threshold. In
one hand the light, in the other the key.
Catherine sank on the floor with a cry of horror. Even the woman
with dark hair and proudly voluptuous bosom, staggered backward, and
leaned for support against the opposite wall of the corridor. She buried
her face in her hands, while the insensible form of Catherine lay at her
feet.
The face of Paul Ardenheim thrilled the Wizard's daughter with a feeling
of horror, beyond all power of language to define or analyze.
She heard the key turn in the lock, but could not raise her face from
her hands. He was passing near her—his wild unsteady step awoke the
echoes—yet, winding the hair about her face, she shrunk closer to the wall,
afraid of his touch.
He was gone—she heard the echo of his footstep far down the corridor
—shuddering she turned her face over her shoulder. She saw him as he
hurried along; his back was toward her; the light shone over his long
dark hair, but did not reveal his face.
He was near the end of the corridor—she saw the light shining upon
the face of the old clock, when the sound of an opening door was heard,
and a white-haired man came forth and stood in the path of Paul Ardenheim.
“Back, old man!” The Wizard's daughter heard the voice, saw the extended
arm, and all was darkness. The light had been hurled to the floor.
By its last gleam, she beheld the old man's white hairs waving round
his forehead, as he tottered backward, while his face glowed redly for a
moment, and then with a dull sound he fell.
20. CHAPTER TWENTIETH.
THE CORSE OF MADELINE.
“Very beautiful!” said the Wizard—“Even in the last moment, when
the soul hangs fluttering on the motionless lips!”
His voice, deepened by enthusiasm, awoke the echoes of the subter
ranean vault.
The pale spiritual light, shining from the aperture in the top of the altar,
bathed his face in its rays, while all around was shadowy, and the farther
corners of the cell were wrapt in thick darkness.
In that light, his features were marked and impressive. His form bending
with age and care, made his face appear as though it rested in the centre
of his shrunken chest. Covered with wrinkles, the lines deeply traced,
and the high forehead surmounted by a black skull-cap, from which the
hair escaped in straight flakes of silvery whiteness, the face of Isaac Van
Behme bore the stamp of a fanaticism, that was to terminate only with
his existence. The eyes—in color now blue, now deepening into gray—
were expanded beneath the white brow, with a wild, unearthly stare.
Around his thin lips trembled a smile of inexpressible joy.
Clad in a loosely flowing gown, with his pale hands, with long attenuated
fingers, clasped upon his breast, the old man stood near the altar; and as
the light imparted a rosy flush, his face appeared ten years younger; but
when it cast a glare of faint azure, he looked like a phantom, a Demon
summoned to his task of evil,—like any thing but a living man.
His eyes, dilating with rapture, were downcast—
“It was a brave thought, right brave, by my soul!” he murmured, with
a burst of shrill laughter—“To use the horse of friend Dorfner, and place
her form upon it, and thus convey her to my home! The horse I turned
down the path by the stream—Dorfner will wonder much when he seeks
his horse to-morrow!—Wherefore did the Huntsman strike that blow and
pierce her naked breast? Jealousy, I ween—'Twas a good star that led
me to her side, just as the hunter struck the blow and fled, with the bloody
knife in his hand—a most propitious star! But I must not delay—look!
How the soul flutters as it is about to take its flight!”
Near the altar a rough pine board was placed, supported by two rudely
constructed tressels.
On this board was laid the form of a naked woman, whose outlines
were distinctly defined, amid the shadows of the vault. The light shone
mildly over the image of sinless purity, revealing the hands stretched by
the side, the limbs disposed in the serene attitude of the grave, the face
by soft brown hair, which descended over the neck and shoulders. A
single lock strayed over the edge of the board and dangled on the floor.
It was like a form of pure white marble, warming into heavenly life,
under the chisel of some inspired sculptor—so fair, so pale, so beautiful!
The face was pale, but a single spot of intense red burned in the centre
of each cheek, like a rose-bud peeping from the snow.
Beneath the bosom was a hideous stain of crimson—it was blood flowing
from a fatal wound, and spreading imperceptibly over the rough board
on which the unconscious form was laid.
Poor Madeline!
There may have been no mercy in the eye of your Seducer, when he
gloated upon your half-revealed breast, but the cold eye that now gazes
upon your uncovered form—is there any thing of pity in that fixed and
icy glare?
Her nether-lip moves gently, almost imperceptibly, and a slight pulsation
stirs the bleeding breast.
“She lives! The great Secret is within my grasp—`one drop of blood,
warm from the heart of a tempted but sinless maiden,' will reward me for
these gray hairs—for the toil of twenty-one years,—and ripen the liquid,
now simmering within the altar, into the Elixir of Immortal Life. It is a
glorious thought! Blessed be the Star that shines upon me at this still
hour!”
Isaac examined the wound, which covered the lower part of Madeline's
breast with blood; his face became rigid in every outline as he pursued
his painful scrutiny.
“The wound is not fatal!” he said, with an accent of profound regret—
“The knife glanced aside. The hand that struck the blow was tremulous
—with a little care, the maiden might recover, and go forth in youth and
loveliness again.”
Isaac was silent. His brow became corrugated, his mouth distorted
by an almost grotesque grimace. He was occupied with dark and dangerous
thoughts. “Shall I falter now? When my footstep is on the
threshold of Eden, and the fruit of Immortal Life within my grasp? And
yet * * * a Murder * * * the world would cover my gray hairs with
scorn, the law consign me to the gibbet * * * not a child but would
curse my name. Yet, with the sacrifice of this one life, I may give life,
knowledge to thousands, and raise mankind to godlike power. Only a
life,—a single life—now fluttering on these lips—only this, between me
and Eternal Youth!”
More dark and singular grew the expression of Isaac's face. His down-drawn
brows almost concealed the cold, icy glare of his eyes; his mouth
worked convulsively.
He glanced over the unconscious form, and saw the bosom swelling
began to spread into perfect bloom.
“I will get my scalpel,” said Isaac—“It is in the Tower. There is
no time to be lost!”
Not once did he pause to contemplate the actual dangers of his position.
Might not the body of Madeline be traced to his home, and the guilt of
Murder be laid upon his gray hairs? This might occur before an another
hour, but the old man did not for a moment pause to think of it.
“There is no time to be lost!” he said, and while the bosom throbbed
slowly, and the rose-bud bloomed into a ripe flower, he hurried along the
floor and from the cell.
Five minutes elapsed ere the sound of his returning step aroused the
echoes of the vault.
“The day is breaking, the day whose setting sun shall shine upon the
brow of an immortal being!” Thus muttering, the old man came from the
gloom toward the altar, whose light—suddenly changed from soft red to
faint azure—invested his agitated face with an unearthly glare.
“Too much time has been lost already — it is but the sacrifice of a
life, and—”
Brandishing a scalpel or dissecting-knife in his upraised hand, he stood
in the pale blue light again, beside the altar in which the fire burned; the
sacred fire, that, in the long watch of a lifetime, had never once gone
out, or even been dimmed by the loss of one pure ray.
The cry of anguish which came from Isaac lips would have pierced a
heart of stone.
There was the rough board, stained with a small pool of blood, but the
body of Madeline was gone.
The Wizard's uplifted arm fell by his side; his face betrayed the death-like
stupor which palsied his reason, and crushed his stern fanaticism
into a dull apathy.
He pressed his hands upon the board, and stained his fingers in the
blood—
“It is a delusion. The body is here, but mine eyesight is dim. No
footstep but mine and that of David the Idiot has ever crossed the threshold
of this vault—it cannot, cannot have been taken away by human
hands!”
With mad shrieks, gestures as frantic, the old man ran to and fro,
now lost to sight in the dark corners of the place, now tearing his thin
locks, while the light disclosed his horror-stricken features. In vain were
all his frantic cries, in vain his earnest search—the body of the wounded
girl was nowhere to be seen.
How had she disappeared? Whose hands had borne her form from the
vault?
Isaac hurried from the place, while the dark passages echoed his frantic
cries. It was the work of a moment to ascent the stairway and attain
the ground-floor of the mansion. The lantern shone dimly from the corridor
at the head of the main stairway. Without an instant's delay, Isaac
hastened up the stairway, and reached the door of his daughter's room.
He listened for a moment, pushed it open, and crossed the threshold.
The hanging lamp shed a faint light over the room, glimmering on the
surface of the mirror, and imparting a grotesque outline to the curtains
of the bed.
For a moment Isaac bent his head and listened. A death-like stillness
reigned. Rushing to the bed, he dashed aside the hangings and extended
his hand through the shadows. That withered hand rested upon a warm
cheek, and the regular breathing of an untroubled sleeper came gently to
the old man's ear.
“It is well! My daughter slumbers—she cannot by any chance
have—”
With the sentence unfinished, the old man turned away, and hurried
from the room, closing the door with a sudden crash.
Scarcely had the echo of his footsteps died away, when a face appeared
amid the cumbrous hangings, and, by the faint light, the large lustrous
eyes and fair forehead, darkened by a swollen vein, were seen.
“He does not suspect my absence—Ah! My heart throbs as though
it would burst. How I shuddered, as, standing in the darkness of the
hall, only a moment since, I saw him go down into the secret cells of the
mansion!”
And the Wizard's daughter, attired in her velvet robe, with the hood
drawn over her hair, rose from the bed, and slowly paced the floor.
“Had I been a moment later, all would have been discovered—O, it is
indeed fortunate that I returned in time to fling myself beneath the coverlet,
ere my father came to my bedside! Had I been absent, when his extended
hand sought to press my cheek—”
The proud girl shuddered, for there was something in the icy manner
and lonely life of the old man, which impressed her heart more with awe
than love.
Then, as she paced the floor, she suffered her dark hair to float loosely
over her shoulders, while her thoughts, only half-uttered, still centred
upon her lover—
“Paul! He will come—perchance within the hour—would that I
could unravel the mystery of that fatal room! Did he strike the old man
to the floor? I cannot tell, for his face—'
She shuddered at the memory.
“In the darkness I left the Block-house, and hurried through the silent
woods to my home. And Paul—where does he wander now? Would
that he were here, his hand linked in mine, his lip upon mine own! Then,
and read the bright landscape of the coming years, with the eye of
Prophecy.”
Do not smile at the passionate extravagance of the proud girl, who,
reared from infancy in the silence of these forests—alone with her enthusiast
father—afar from the great world—has been taught, by a Voice that
speaks from the air, to love the mysterious Paul of Ardenheim, to invest
his face with the mad idolatry of a boundless passion!
Wild in her passion, extravagant in her words, she is yet surpassingly
beautiful, and might walk among the coronetted dames of a royal court,
and not feel abashed amid the noblest or the fairest of them all.
One hand rested upon her bosom—it was firmly clenched. Her small
foot beat the floor with a nervous motion. The serpentine vein started
in black distinctness from her forehead, and, with her hair floating along
her olive cheeks, she stood in the centre of her chamber, near the light,
like a statue of some dread though beautiful Angel.
“What means this singular agitation of my father? He cannot—no!
no! Yet wherefore seek my chamber at the dead of night? It was but
an impulse of fatherly love.—Paul! Will he ever return?”
She crossed the floor with that proud step, which added a wild charm
to the voluptuous beauty of her shape, and, standing in the casement, saw
the first blush of the coming day, glowing softly over the dark woods.
The rays of the lamp and the flush of the dawn mingled, and created a
light at once uncertain and spectral.
“Hast thou beheld him?” a low, musical voice, started the Wizard's
daughter from her reveries.
It is the Voice—” ejaculated the ambitious girl—“I have beheld him.'
“Did he enter the Sealed Chamber? Had he the firmness to look the
Future in the face?”
He entered the Sealed Chamber,” exclaimed the Wizard's child.
“Didst thou see him come forth again?”
“I did—” she covered her face with her hands, and trembled at the
memory of that Face.
“Where is he now?”
“I know not! Speak to me and answer!” and, with her brow darkened
by a frown, the girl advanced to the centre of the room—“It is my turn to
question, yours to reply. Hast thou not spoken falsely? Hast thou not
cheated my soul with an idle delusion? If thou art indeed a voice from
some good Angel who watches over the strange course of my life, then
tell me at once the mystery of that Sealed Chamber! Wherefore that
awful countenance? wherefore the arm extended and the blow? Where
is he now, this Paul of Ardenheim, whose life is linked with mine own?”
It was a singular thing to see the proud girl, gazing upon the vacant
whose purpose incomprehensible
There was a pause; no answer came.
The Wizard's daughter placed her hand upon her forehead, and with
her finger pressed the swollen vein.
“All will be made known to thee in time!” was the response of the
Voice, uttered in a tone of profound sadness.
“Ah—it is a delusion. I am dreaming. Yes, reared afar from the
world, I have become the victim of my own fancies. I have oftentimes
read of madness—am I not a wretched maniac, an object of pity and
loathing?”
“Thou art not the victim of idle frenzy, but the child of a glorious
Destiny. Be patient, and all will be well.—Hast thou ever dared to penetrate
the recesses of thy father's most secret cell?”
This last question, uttered in a tone that seemed affected by sudden
emotion, startled the beautiful girl, with involuntary surprise.
“Never!” she replied.
“Hast thou not this very night crossed the sacred threshold of that
cell? Pause and reflect. Do not speak falsely, for more than life depends
upon your answer.”
“I have never crossed that threshold—” was the firm answer of the
wondering maiden.
The Voice was heard no more.
While the kiss of day grew rosier on the eastern sky, the girl remained
motionless and pale in the centre of her chamber, listening in speechless
intensity for the accents of that Voice, but no sound awoke the echoes. All
was still and breathless. Her face was very pale, the serpentine vein
upon her forehead very dark and distinct, as she turned toward her
couch.—
Meanwhile, the Wizard, after a fruitless search through every nook and
recess of his mansion, returned again to the silence and dim radiance of
his earth-hidden cell. Advancing to the altar, he started as he beheld a
dark form crouching at his feet.
“The Idiot here! Wretch! Hast thou dared to cross this threshold
unbidden?”
He spurned the hunchback with his foot—
“Arise, and answer me! Didst thou remove the body of the dead
girl?”
While his thin features glowed with rage, he gazed upon the shapeless
form of the Deformed, and once more pressed his foot upon his neck.
Black David slowly rose, and with the tangled hair drooping over his
features, confronted the old man.
“Eh! Measter?” he muttered—“Dost touch Black David with thy foot?
arm is strong. Measter must not strike him in anger.”
The Wizard saw the angry light of the hunchback's eye, and took him
kindly by the hand—
“Pardon, David, pardon—I am sore distressed. The great hope of
my life is crushed—but you cannot comprehend me. Speak to me,
David—it grieves me that I was angry with you—speak, my friend.
Didst thou remove the body of the dead woman? Tell me where thou
hast hidden it, and all shall be forgotten. Ha, ha, you merry knave! You
thought you would frighten your old master—is it so?”
“Dead body?” growled Black David—“I know nothing of your dead
bodies. I was asleep—and thou didst spurn me with 'ee foot—”
Sullenly the Deformed turned away, leaving the old man alone by the
altar.
“He has not taken her away—” muttered Isaac—“It is plainly to be
seen that the poor idot has had no part in this deed—”
And while the Wizard, standing near the altar, murmured these words,
the Deformed leaned against one of the pillars of the vault, and placed his
hands upon his face—
“This hope has failed me. The body of Madeline is gone—I know
not whither. Isaac cannot tell—his anguish is too deep to be feigned.
His daughter, too—Ah! that in planning so much of evil to others,
I only bring evil to myself!”
Isaac heard the voice of the Deformed, and, turning from the altar,
exclaimed—
“Come hither, Black David. Art angry with me?”
He took the hand of the hunchback within his own, and led him
toward the light.
“Why man, dost thou cherish malice? Again I tell thee that it grieves
me that I was angered with thee. Hah! What is this—a tear!—”
A scalding tear fell on his hand as he spoke; and even through the tangled
hair, he saw that the face of the hunchback was bathed in moisture.
“Dost weep? Art angry with me still?” again repeated the old man,
an expression of compassion softening his rigid lineaments.
But the Deformed dashed his hand aside, and glided into the shadows
of the cell.
The silence which ensued was scarcely broken by a sound, while half
an hour elapsed. The pale face of the Wizard looked haggard and spectral
by the light of the altar-flame. He stood clasping his hands and
gazing vacantly toward the light, every lineament impressed with despair.
The Deformed was lost in the shadows; his sorrow, too deep for
tended or for tears, was buried in the profound gloom of the cell.
At last a sound disturbed the stillness. Its unearthly emphasis came
through closed doors and thick walls, and broke upon the silence of the
which pressed the white lips and smothered the last cry of life, ere it
was uttered. Low, indistinct muttering, that sound pierced the thick
walls; it seemed to the Wizard as though the old mansion was suddenly
endued with life; as though he heard the throbbings of its heart.
The Wizard's daughter approached the bed. Parting the curtains, she
suffered the light to penetrate the gloom which hung over her couch.
Very beautiful she looked as she laid aside her robe of velvet and fur,
and suffered the dark hair to stream freely over her bosom. With the
name of Paul upon her lips, she sank upon the pillow, drawing close the
curtains, so that no ray of light might break the gloom of the sacred
retreat.
Soon she resigned herself to slumber; but in her slumber there came
a dream of a shadowy path, leading far down into the nooks of a summer
wood. There were threads of sunshine quivering over the sod; flowers
peeped from the vines that trailed among the branches; the murmur of
trees, and birds, and streams, woven together, fell on her senses like the
blessing of good angels. But suddenly, from the flowers which, trembling
from the vines, overarched her way with bloom and fragrance, projected
the head and fangs of a beautiful serpent. She started away with
horror, but an inexplicable fascination drew her near and nearer to the
snake, whose skin of bright green was varied by drops of gold. A dreamy
music issued from its expanded jaws; there was a strange fascination in
its eyes. Unable to advance or recede, she stood spell-bound, when the
serpent sprang from the leaves, and buried its fangs in her bosom. She
saw the blood, she felt the coil of the snake about her neck, and—
The dream was gone, but in its place, a terrible reality. Buried in the
pillow, with her couch shrouded by the hangings, she felt a hand upon
her breast, and heard the sound of deep-drawn breath. Her blood grew
cold; she could not speak or move; the overwhelming terror held her
dumb.
The hand was there—she heard the deep-drawn breath—and panted
for air, as though the chamber was filled with the atmosphere of pestilence.
She would have given the world for the power to move or speak; there
was something fearful in the darkness which encompassed her, in the cold
hand which pressed her bosom, in the deep-drawn breath which was
heard distinctly through the stillness. Her senses were deadened by a
sudden stupor, which, while it left her without speech or motion, also left
her painfully conscious of the cold hand laid upon her breast. * * * *
By a violent effort, she dashed aside the curtains of her bed—all was
dark in her chamber. The curtains, closed over the window, shut out
the light of the dawning day; the hanging lamp was extinguished. As
pressed her neck—she was nerved by despair and terror—with one
frenzied motion, she sprang from the bed.
Standing thus in the shadows of her chamber, her form, only half-covered,
quivering with cold, she gazed toward the bed, whose outlines
were but faintly distinguishable, and listened for that almost inaudible
sound of deep-drawn breath. She heard it once more—it seemed like
the gasping of a death-stricken man.
Then her terror found utterance in a shriek which pierced every nook
and chamber of the old mansion.
Trembling in the centre of the room, afraid to move toward the bed or
toward the window, the light of the dawn growing stronger every moment,
she looked fixedly toward the bed. Was it a fancy? Did she indeed
behold a white arm extended from the shadows of of the bed?
There came a light, a red light, somewhat obscured by heavy smoke,
—it flashed from the opened door, and disclosed that half-naked form, the
face unnaturally pale and the eyes bright with preternatural fear.
The maiden turned toward the door, and by the sudden light beheld the
pale visage of her father, glowing in every line with singular triumph.
Over his shoulder appeared the face of the Deformed, the eyes shining
with supernatural lustre from the shadows of the matted hair.
And then, turning her gaze from the door, as she beheld the eyes of
her father and the Deformed enchained by some object near her, the
Maiden beheld—not the image of Paul Ardenheim, nor yet some hideous
spectre summoned by blasphemous rites from the shadows of the Other
World.
It was a naked form, with arms folded over the blood-stained breast,
with brown hair waving freely, in glossy curls, over the white shoulders;
eyes uplifted, wet with tears, gazed in the face of the Wizard's child, and
a voice broken by the very intensity of fear, thrilled on the silence—
“Save me! Save me! For I have no friend, no hope but in you—”
It was Madeline, the Orphan Girl of Wissahikon.
| Paul Ardenheim, the monk of Wissahikon | |