BOOK THE FOURTH. THE QUEEN OF FLORENCE.

CHAPTER THE FIRST. A SILVERY MOON AND A CLOUDLESS SKY. THE AGED DAME OF THE COT ON THE HILLSIDE LEARNS THE MYSTERY OF AN UNFASTENED DOUBLET.

“Night among the mountains—oh, glorious and beautiful!” arose the voice of the Wanderer, as with one bold grasp he attained the topmost rock of the hoary steep, rising far above forest and stream—“Night among the mountains—the calm moonbeams sleeping on the lake—the boundless azure arching above—the rolling sweep of forest and the rugged outline of precipice and steep—the far-off convent, its towers looming through the distance, like a cloud of evil omen—Night among the mountains, glorious and grand and beautiful!

“Thank God for the breeze, the cool and freshening breeze! It sweeps over my forehead, burning as with the ravages of hidden flame, it bears the fever from my cheek, and the madness from my brain. And yet I must on, and on—afar I behold the peaceful cot, appearing amid the luxuriance of the hill-side vines—my steed lays bleeding and dead in the vale below, still must I on, and on!

“God of Heaven, will that face never depart from my soul, the brow darkened by superhuman hate, the eyes all aflame with the Curse of the Fratricide, the white lips, and the sunken jaws; with the blood oozing from every pore! Even now I behold the face! And to her ear—help me Saints of Light—to her ear must I bear the manner of his doom!

“The moon shines in the heavens, calm and beautiful—when the mild radiance of her beams pales before the glory of the uprising sun—then, then, will the angels of fate, write in the books of the Unknown, the Doom of Adrian, the last of the race of Albarone!”

And as the words broke murmuring from his lips, he flung his form from the summit of the steep, and grasping with eager hands the point of each projecting rock, at last descended to the bed of the valley, and sped onward on his errand of woe, while higher in the heavens up rose the moon.

High in the heavens arose the full orbed moon, and calm and lovely was the sight, as enthroned in the very zenith of the boundless azure, this thing of beauty and of beams, shed a shower of silver radiance down on the silent bosom of the quiet vale, mirroring her rounded glory in the deep waters of the mountain lake, giving a ghastly lustre to the white precipice, from whose foundations arose the walls of the lonely convent, mossy with age and darkened by time.

In this wide world of ours—so runs the wild rhapsody of the Chronicler of the ancient MSS.—in this wide world of ours, there are, I ween, many things sublime and beautiful and grand, yet what sight may compare with a cloudless heaven, a silvery moon and a lovely extent of woody hills and grassy vales? Never minstrel struck harp—never romancer spoke the fancies of his brain, that did not hymn thy praise, O! beauteous thing of brilliance and of beams! For ages and for ages thou hast held thy way of glory through the arching heavens—thou hast looked down upon warriors marching in all their pomp, and thou hast beheld their withered forms strewn over the battle plain;—lovers have poured forth their love beneath thy light, and again thou hast looked down upon their quiet graves;—nations have risen and fallen;—monuments that gave promise of eternal duration, have crumbled in the dust;—cities have towered in deserts, and deserts have won the place of gorgeous cities, yet still kind nurturer of holy thoughts, inspirer of heavenly fancies, yet still thou passest on in thy course of light, and thus, with brilliance unpaling and unpaled, glorious as when God first bade thee roll through the azure expanse, thou shalt urge thy way until the final trump of doom.

Arising in the calm moonbeams, the roof of the lonely cottage gave its wreathing vines, all gay with flowers, to the motion of the night air, while the gleam of a taper, shooting from a crevice of the closed lattice, varied the shadows which darkened over one side of the tenement, by a single thread of light.

Meanwhile the beams of the taper gave light to the principal chamber of the cottage, where the stately mother of Leone the student, sate wrapt in deep meditation.

“Strange!”—thus she murmured—“Strange! Scarce seven days since we first concealed ourselves in this lonely vale, and Adrian—ha! I may be overheard—Leone has won the friendship of this noble youth of Florence. Not that he acquires honor thereby—by my troth, no!—the youth is a good youth, and a fair, but the friendship of Emperors cannot add glory to the heir of Albarone—fool that I am!—ever repeating the name of our race! Strange it is, very strange, that the gentle Florian should take up his abode in our cot! He is ever with Leone!—They walk, they eat, they drink together, and together they pursue their studies! The fair stranger shall in time become the leader of armies—but my son—the last of an honored race, shall become a—monk. The thought is maddening!”

The dame arose and hurriedly paced the room. As she strode to and fro she perceived the door of Leone’s apartment slightly ajar, and impelled by mere restlessness, she took a mother’s privilege, and softly entered the room.

No sooner had she opened the door, than a sight met her gaze, that caused her to start back to the very threshold with astonishment.

Seated beside the table, on which a taper cast its dim light, over the opened volume, the chairs of the students were drawn close together, their backs were turned to the dame, the arm of Leone was around the slender waist of the gentle Florian, and with their heads laid one against the other, the rich golden locks of Leone mingled with a shower of flaxen tresses that fell over the shoulders and down the back of the fair stranger.

Treading on tip-toe and much wondering at the unusual length of Florian’s hair, the dame approached.

“Thou art weary, my love”—the whisper broke from Florian’s lips—“thy dress is soiled with dust and torn by travel—thy face is wan and haggard, and—the Virgin save me—thine eyes are bloodshot! Thou hast been absent two long and weary days. Hast journeyed far to-day, Adrian?”

“A score of miles, since the sunset hour.”

“And thou didst see the old castle yet again?”

Adrian replied in a whisper, and then as they conversed in low murmurs, the dame observed the form of her son agitated by a slight trembling motion, while ever and anon he turned his head aside veiling his face in his hands.

Nearer drew the dame, and looking over the heads of the students, a tremor of surprise ran over her frame, her hands were involuntarily raised, her thin lips parted, her gray eyes expanded, and her eyebrows arose to the very roots of her hair. Silent she stood and motionless as stone.

The evening being somewhat warm, the broach that fastened Florian’s doublet at the neck, was unloosed, and the opening garment gave to view a neck of the most surpassing whiteness, spreading into shoulders of flowing outline, and budding into a bosom of virgin tracery of form, all glowing with the warm blood of youth, and heaving with the pulsations of passion.

CHAPTER THE SECOND. THE CLOUD GATHERS AND THE SKY DARKENS.

The dame essayed to speak. Her voice died away in an unmeaning rattle of the throat. One hand she extended, and seizing Leone by the shoulder, with the other she tore the maiden from his embrace—

“Apostate!” she began in tones that trembled with rage, “is it thus thou honorest the race whose name thou bearest. Away!—I will never look upon thee more! Away!—and with thee take thy——, I will not speak the title of shame;—Away!”

As she spoke she raised her hand to strike the shrinking maiden, who, with head drooped on her bosom, and quick blushes coursing over her face, strove hurriedly to fasten the broach of her doublet.

“Strike her not, mother!” cried Leone, throwing himself before the damsel, “Assail her not with words of shame!”

He took the hand of the blushing maiden and continued—“Fear not, love, there is none to harm thee. Mother, behold my bride!”

“Annabel!—Thy bride? Wherefore this concealment? Why this unmaidenly disguise? How is’t, my son—how is’t?”

“As for the disguise it was assumed to aid her escape, and then,”—he whispered into his mother’s ear—“and then I thought thou wouldst not affect the niece of the—the—s’life, mother, I cannot speak the word of any one connected with Annabel!”

“My son, my son! what hast thou done? Answer me—befits such doings with thy profession? Art thou not intended for a minister of Heaven?”

While the dame spoke, the figure of a monk darkened the opened doorway, advancing to Leone he threw back his cowl, and discovered the dark brow, the wan face, the flashing eyes of Albertine, the monk.

“Lord Adrian,” whispered the Monk, “at the hour of sunset, when the dark storm arose, howling its requiem over the remains of the Fratricide, thou didst hasten from the castle of Albarone, bound for this lonely valley. Thou hadst not gone an hour’s journey from the castle walls, when I tracked thy footsteps, bearing news of fearful import. Thy haunt hath been betrayed to the tyrant, by a traitor from the lonely valley. Even now, the Duke spurs his steed toward the valley of the mountain lake, attended by a band of minions; even now the voices of his bravoes startle the air, shrieking for thy blood!”

“And the Invisible?” whispered Adrian—“where is their dagger of vengeance, while the tyrant rides abroad on his errands of wrong?”

“Listen, Lord Adrian! This very night, while the Duke is absent from the walls of Florence, will Lord and Monk, Prince and Peasant, joined in the solemn oath of the holy steel, arise in the might of men who have sworn at the very Altar of God to be free, and ere the morrow’s sun, Florence the Fair and Beautiful, will own another Sovereign! The Invisible work in secret, as doth the earthquake—man alone beholds the bursting of the storm!”

“Hark! I hear the sound of horses’ hoofs, mingled with the clatter of arms!”

“God of Heaven! The Duke approaches!” shouted the Monk—“I must be gone—all thought of escape for thee and thy bride is vain! Adrian, Adrian, bear a firm heart through the perils of this night, and in the morrow’s dawn will blaze the star of thy Mighty Fortune! Hath the Duke any issue, or is he the last of his line?”

“He is the last of his race,” answered Adrian, “why dost thou ask?”

“Thou wilt learn anon!” exclaimed the Monk.

He turned and sought the door, but as if struck by a sudden thought, he again approached Adrian, and whispered in tones that seemed to come from his very soul—“Fare-thee-well, Adrian, fare-thee-well! I have loved thee much, very much. There was a time when my heart was as young as thine, my soul as pure. But now—Ha! now I would have my revenge, although the chasm of hell yawned beneath me—nay, although between me and the object of my hate yawned the gulf of perdition, I would leap the abyss and drag him down, down to the eternal flames that now hunger for his accursed soul—Fare-thee-well, Adrian—I’ll never see thee more!”

The Monk was gone. The fearful look that fired his countenance, and the awful tones in which he spoke, haunted Adrian Di Albarone until his dying hour.

Scarcely had Albertine disappeared, when there was the sound of trampling feet in the outer apartment, and presently the figure of his Grace of Florence occupied the doorway, while the heads of his followers were seen looking over his shoulders.

He looked around the apartment with a curious eye, as if he sought the wanderers. At last his glance rested upon the form of the disguised Annabel, and advancing toward the damsel, he flung himself at her feet, exclaiming with all the grace of attitude and expression at his command.

“Fair Ladye, it is with joy beyond the power of words to tell, that I hail thee by the title of the—Fair Ladye Annabel, Countess Di Albarone!”

“How sayst thou?” exclaimed Annabel, forgetting her boyish disguise in her eagerness, “How sayst thou? Ladye of Albarone?”

“Aye, fair Ladye. Thou art now the Countess Di Albarone, soon shalt thou be my own loved Annabel, Duchess of Florence.”

The Duke leaned earnestly forward, trying to look as much like a lover as might be—his face wore an expression of deep solemnity, his protruding eyes made an effort to sparkle, and his attempt to soften his voice, gave one the idea of a magpie trying to sing.

Annabel cast an agonized look at the Duke—

“Sayst thou nought of my father?” she exclaimed. “Is he sick?—is he ill?—Tell me that I may hurry to him!—For heaven’s sake tell me!—my father is—”

“Dead!” cried the Duke.

“Dead!” echoed the dame, starting with surprise.

Annabel heard no more.

“Coward and tyrant,” shouted Lord Adrian, as he caught the sinking maiden in his arms, “away with thee from this humble tenement. Defile not my bride with the pollution of thy touch—By the honor of my race! I would give the brightest jewel in the coronet of Albarone, for one good blow at the carcass of this craven hound!”

“Ho! art thou here my gay springald?—Thy bride, indeed?—Guards advance, seize the miscreant!—I will teach him to raise his unholy hand against his liege Lord!—away with him to the lowest dungeon of yon convent. On the morrow he shall be carried to Florence, there to answer for his treason!”

Unarmed and weaponless Adrian beheld himself at the mercy of the tyrant. The soldiers advanced,—in vain was his defence—in an instant he found himself in the hands of his foes, and as the minions bound his hands behind his back, he heard the beetle-browed Balvardo—for he was among the throng—whisper in the ear of the Duke—

“At what hour my Lord?”

“‘Slife canst not do it without my bidding?—When all in the convent is still—at midnight let it be done!—See to’t!”

“Aye, aye, my Lord, at midnight it shall be done!”

“And the Bridal,” cried the Duke, turning to the Ladye Annabel, as she rested in the arms of the Countess. “The hour after midnight shall witness the joyous scene—the marriage of the Duke and his betrothed!”

CHAPTER THE THIRD. THE DEATH BOWL. THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE RAVISHER STARTLE THE SILENCE OF THE MAIDEN’S CELL, WHILE ADRIAN PREPARES FOR HIS DOOM IN THE VAULTS BELOW.

It was in a lone chamber, where the dark walls, unrelieved by tapestry or wainscotting, were rendered yet more sad and gloomy by the fitful flashes of a taper, placed upon a small table of blackened oak.

The sable hangings of the couch standing in one corner, the floor of stone, wearing the same dead and leaden hue, the massive furniture of the room, and the grotesque carvings ornamenting the heavy pillars, all were in unison with the grave-like silence of the air, which seemed heavy with doom and burdened with death.

In the centre of the apartment, her white robes loosely flowing around her peerless form, her fair and rounded arms upraised, her head slightly inclined to one side, her cheek, now warm with hope, now pale with fear, stood the Ladye Annabel. Her hair of sunshine luxuriance was swept back over her neck and shoulders, while her bosom rose in the light, and her breath came thick and fast, the convulsive gasps, breaking the death-like silence of the apartment, with an echo of strange emphasis.

Sleep had fled from her eyelids. She arose and watched, she knew not why, but still she watched and trembled as she listened to the slightest sound.

“I listen, I tremble, and my heart is chilled with a nameless fear,” murmured the Ladye Annabel, pacing the dark floor of the apartment with indecisive and hurried steps. “The hour wears slowly on, the fatal hour after midnight, when this unrelenting Duke will claim my hand, this hand already given to another, by the minister of Heaven! Holy Mary! behold the bridal—a lonely cell, hidden in the depths of this fearful monastery, the altar of black, the dark-robed monk, the tyrant-Duke and the victim; the time, the hour after the bell has tolled midnight, no hope, no aid, afar from human consolation, or the voice of human friend—such will be the second bridal of Annabel, wife of Adrian Di Albarone!”

She paused with an involuntary thrill of fear, as the vivid details of the picture rose before her mental vision, and then came another thought of horror—the bride must be widowed ere she weds a second time.

While dark and fearful imaginings haunted her soul, and well nigh crazed her brain, the fair and gentle Ladye Annabel felt a strange and deadening sleep stealing over her frame, and with a half-muttered prayer to the Virgin, she sank slumbering on the couch, the hangings of sable closing over her form, and concealing her from the sight.

All is silent within the cell. Low, suppressed sounds break from distant parts of the monastery, half-heard shrieks, and deep-muttered groans. For a dreary half hour, the cell is left to silence and solitude; when a distant footstep is heard, then a strange echo runs along the corridors of the Convent, and the small door of the lonely room, grating on its hinges slowly opens, and a Figure, buried in the folds of a sweeping robe of black, and bearing a small lamp of iron in an extended hand, stalks cautiously along the floor of stone.

The Figure paused with a trembling and indecisive movement in the centre of the floor, and then a face flushed by wine, and ruddy with excitement, was thrust from the folds of the robe of black.

“All silent and still,” exclaimed a voice, indistinct with wine. “An half hour of midnight—the sleeping potion has taken effect! It has, by St. Antonia!”

He approached the bedside, and with the trembling hand of a coward, flung back the sable hangings of the couch. The light of his lamp, fell vividly upon the form of the sleeping maiden, as she reclined on the sable furs covering the couch, while her flowing robes, white as the undriven snow, gave a strange contrast to the ebony darkness of the bed.

“I’ faith she is beautiful—eh, Aldarin? Faugh! I forgot—the man is dead! That bloom upon her cheek—’tis like the opening rose. How soft that heave of the bosom as it rises from the folds of the white robe—torn to pieces by wild horses—that arm, with the dress falling softly around its outlines, the small hand, the tapering fingers—a most accursed fate—and the attitude, the cheek reclining on the arm, the form laid so carelessly along the couch, the feet, small, delicate—torn into a thousand fragments, an arm here, a leg there, and—By the Saints I must e’en crave a kiss of this sleeping beauty—”

And stooping slowly over the bed, with the lamp extended in one hand, the Duke glanced nervously around the room, and then with a rude grasp of the flaxen tresses, he wound the other around the maiden’s neck, his unholy hands touched her virgin bosom, with its globes of beauty heaving and throbbing as his fingers pressed the snow-white skin, while his sensual lips, steaming with wine, were pressed upon her unstained cheek, his grasp growing closer, and his eyes gloating over the Ladye’s face and form, as that kiss of pollution rested on her cheek.

“Ha—ha!—the sleeping potion,—she is mine—she is mine. The braggart Adrian hugs his death in the vaults below—I gather his bride to my arm in the cell above. Ha—ha—the sleeping potion!”

No thought of mercy, no whispering of pity, no silent pleading of right, for a moment restrained the purpose of the ravisher.

He gathered her form closer to that breast which had never been the home of one ennobling thought, he wound his hand around her neck; again was her bosom and cheek polluted by the plague-spot of his touch.

“She is mine!” chuckled the ravisher. “Mine, and none other than mine!”

The Ladye Annabel murmured in that fatal sleep, she tossed her rounded arms wildly to and fro; the potion was in her veins, and around her heart, and the nightmare on her soul.

Another start, and she awoke.

She slowly unclosed her large blue eyes, she fixed their glance upon the flushed countenance of the ravisher, with a look that went to his very soul, and caused the arm that encircled her form to tremble like a leaf tossed to and fro by the wind.

“Murderer!”

The solitary word broke from her lips, and her look of wild gaze was again fixed upon his face. He trembled before her glance—he quailed like a whipped hound—he unloosed his hold.

“I am not,” he muttered, springing backward from the couch. “It was not me. He is not dead; he lives—”

“Murderer!” she again murmured, in that low, deep-toned voice, while her face of calm and dreamy beauty was stamped with a weird expression that awed the ravisher to the very soul.

“Even now thy evil angel writes thee liar, in the book of thy misdeeds. Even now thy victim writhes in the throes of death within the vaults below; ay, ay, beneath thy very feet he dies. Why stand ye over the corse? Doth not the pale face and the cold brow fright ye? On whom is fixed the glare of those stony eyes—on whom? On thee, murderer, on thee; on thee they glare with the accusing glance of death!”

“She is crazed! Save me, all good saints—she is crazed! She sweeps toward me with a measured stride! Great God! she walks not—she glides slowly on; she moves like a spirit—a thing of air!”

He shrunk back, cringing before the glance of those eyes from which all reason had fled; he shrunk back step by step as she advanced, awed by the upraised arms, with the robes of white waving slowly to and fro; awed by the supernatural look visible in every line of the face of the Ladye Annabel, and in a moment found himself leaning for support against a dark stone pillar of the cell.

“Murderer!” she murmured, looking him full in the face. “I hear thy victim groan, I hear him writhe. Look ye, good angels, he denies it, and look, look how the red blood drops from his trembling hands!”

With that look which filled him with involuntary horror, she glided backward step by step, she reached the small door of the cell, and flung it open with her outspread hands.

“He denies it, he denies it; and the blood—ha, ha, ha!—hark how it patters on the floor!”

With that low, muttered laugh which chilled his very blood, for it was the laugh of madness, the Ladye Annabel again awed the Duke of Florence—the ravisher in heart—with her gaze, and then springing through the cell door, her form, with its waving robes of snow, was lost to his sight.

He saw her form no more, but a low muttered laugh came whispering along the galleries of the monastery, and half-formed words broke on his ear.

“Where is now the ravisher, flushed with wine and maddened with lust; where is now the proud Duke, haughtily attired in robes of price, with dishonor on his heart, and the foul purpose on his soul?”

Crouching against the wall, trembling in every limb, his eyes vacant with terror, his whiskered jaw half dropped upon his heart, his hand still nervously grasping the iron lamp, he listens to the low, muttered laugh creeping to his ear from the far distant corridors; he listens and shakes with fear, but says no word.

Along the dark galleries she flees, filling the old arches with echoes of that low muttered laugh; through the midnight passages she winds, stairways she ascends, and her delicate feet descend the dampened steps of stone; alone, in darkness, and in nameless fear, she glides on her flight of terror.

The cool air sweeps over her fevered brow, the dampness of the atmosphere chills her bosom, and by slow degrees the flight of madness, caused by the drugged potion, passed from her soul, and the Ladye Annabel is restored to reason and to thought.

Oh! fearful reason, oh! terrible thought, to which madness were joy, insanity, in its wildest flight, happiness the most intense.

“The bride must be widowed, ere she weds a second time!”

She rushed on, never heeding the darkness; she rushed on, never heeding the cold. She might save him yet; oh! even yet she might save him.

And through the dark passages of that deserted part of the monastery she wound, until her hands, extended on either side, touched the opposite walls, wet with moisture, and crawling with vermin; when the echo of the arches, succeeded by a dead, deafening murmur, told Annabel that she strode along a confined corridor, far under ground, growing narrow and yet narrower at every step.

A moment passed, and her extended hands were met by waving folds of tapestry, that swept across her path, and terminated the narrow corridor. Thrusting her hands eagerly among the hangings, she turned them suddenly aside, and started back with surprise, as a broad belt of light was thrown along the gloomy passage. With hushed breath and a throbbing heart, she gazed beyond the hangings of dark leather, and while her blue eyes dilated with wonder and fear, she beheld a strange and startling scene.

Two figures were kneeling upon the floor of an apartment, narrow and confined, as regards dimensions, and square in shape, hung with gorgeous folds of embroidered tapestry, dark-green in hue, with matting of strange pattern and curious device, brought from the far Eastern lands, strewn over the pavement of the room. The only object that broke the uniformity of the place, was a dark robe flung over some massive body in an obscure corner.

The light, clear and brilliant in its flame, placed on the matting between the kneeling men, threw its vivid beams on each face and form, over every line of their features, over every point of their apparel.

The Ladye Annabel stifled an expression of surprise which rose to her lips at the vision of this luxuriously furnished cell, in the midst of gloom and damp, and then with a writhing heart took in the details of this strange picture.

One of the kneeling figures was a soldier, the other was a monk.

The soldier, with his muscular hand laid on his bent knee, grasped a massive sword; his beetle brow surmounted by stiff and matted hair, giving a darker expression to his small and ferret-like eyes; while his companion, robed in the dark attire of a monk, with a pale, solemn face, lighted by the glare of an eye that seemed to dilate and burn, looked upon the man-at-arms with a glance meant to read more than the rugged visage—meant to read his very soul.

The Ladye Annabel listened to their low and muttered conversation with her very heart mounting to her throat.

“Thou wilt do it—eh, Albertine? Thou knowest my orders, sir monk?”

“The steel or the bowl?”

“The same, by the fiend! The hour—when the clock of the tower strikes twelve. He said so—thou knowest whom I mean. Why that dark and bitter smile? Blood o’ th’ Turk, monk, that smile shows thy white teeth—I like it not!”

“Nay, good Balvardo, be not angered with me. I was but painting a quiet picture to my fancy. Our victim, his eyes rolling in the death-struggle, his blue lips whitened with foam, his arms outstretched with the last convulsive spasm, and then—ha, ha!—the music of the death rattle! ’Tis excellent, i’faith, the picture—ha, ha, ha!”

“Look ye, monk or devil, whate’er ye be, I’m your man, when a good deed of cut-and-thrust is to be done, and the wretch is despatched with a blow. But as for this merry-making over the dead, I like it not. Blood o’ Mahound, not a whit of it! I can wet my sword in a man’s blood as nicely as your next man, but it likes me not to wet my tusks with the vile puddle, and grin while the red drops fall from my lips. No more o’ your death grins, monk, or—’s death!—we quarrel!”

“Ho—ho—ho! so the humor suits ye not, honest Balvardo. Dost know the depth of the sea, or the number of the millions slain by old Death? Then know the hate I bear my victim; then count the lives I would crush in my revenge, had he as many as the millions trampled under the feet of Death! Is’t not cause for merriment, good Balvardo?”

“Look ye, sir monk, thou hast ever been known as the prime tool of his grace,—’s life! I should mention no names,—and therefore do I resign my part in this night’s work to thy hands. When ’tis done, thou knowest—”

“Where shall I place the body?”

“Here!” cried the hoarse voice of the soldier, and the Ladye Annabel saw him rise; she beheld him striding across the matted floor, toward an obscure corner of the apartment; she beheld him as he placed his rough hand upon the dark robe flung over the rising object.

“Here let him rest,” he cried, raising the robe, “and rest forever!”

The Ladye Annabel beheld a sight that gathered the big drops of sweat thick as the death dew on her forehead. Her heart was swelled to bursting, and she turned away from the sight for a single moment, with the impulse of overpowering horror.

When she looked again, the black cloth was again resting on that object of terror, while Balvardo was advancing toward the monk with his usual heavy and measured stride.

“Hast aught to hold the wine, good Balvardo?”

“In yonder closet thou wilt find the wine. Here is—curse this cloak, how its folds tangle about my body!—here is the goblet.”

The Ladye Annabel felt the death-like feeling of ice creeping around her heart; and as she looked, she thought she beheld the monk Albertine grow pale with horror, while his compressed lip seemed to tell a story of fearful yet hushed emotion.

The goblet held forth in the hand of the Sworder, was the goblet of gold with which the poisoner of the Red Chamber had administered death to the lips of Julian, Lord of Albarone.

“Man!” exclaimed Albertine, with a blazing eye and livid lip, “how came this goblet—this death-bowl—in thy possession?”

“‘Slife! Dost not know the story? One of the witnesses who gave testimony against that—that—I mean he who sleeps in yonder chamber—received this goblet as a mark of the accuser’s gratitude. I was that witness. Blood o’ th’ Turk, there goes the clock—one, two, three. Sir monk, to thy duty.”

“Father of mercy, he is false at last!”

And as the words broke from the Ladye Annabel’s lips, she beheld the monk take the goblet in his hands; she beheld him empty a paper filled with white powder into its depths.

She could look no more; a cold, icy feeling seemed to freeze the very blood around her heart; her limbs refused their support; she sank slowly down upon the damp floor, and yet the words spoken in the adjoining room came to her ear like the echo of far-off shouts.

“Four, five, six. Monk, wilt delay all night? To thy victim!”

The monk strode across the cell, holding the goblet under his robe; he approached a spot where the tapestried hangings, slightly swept aside, disclosed the entrance into another room.

“Adrian,” whispered the monk, “dost sleep?”

“Sleep!” echoed a hollow voice from the inner cell. “Sleep, when there is fever in my brain, and fire in my heart! Dost jest, good Albertine?”

“Nay nay, Adrian, I jest not. I have a sleeping potion which will give thee rest.”

“The rest of the grave, in the arms of the skeleton-god,” muttered Balvardo, with a low chuckle.

“Would that thy potion could minister sleep eternal,” spoke the hollow voice, and a hasty footstep was heard. “And yet I would not die yet—no, no! She still lives. I would not die, save in her arms, and by her side!”

And as the voice sounded strange and hollow through the cell, the tapestry rustled, and Adrian Di Albarone stood before the monk.

Adrian Di Albarone it was, but the manly form was bent with chains, the black velvet attire of the student was soiled and torn; while the faded countenance, the sunken cheek, the lips compressed, the hollow eye-sockets, and the quick and fiery eye, all told a tale of the agony of years endured within the compass of a single hour.

He stood before the monk, and his chains clanked as he stood, while his wild eye drank in each line of Albertine’s visage.

“You spoke of a soothing potion, good Albertine.”

“Seven, eight, nine,” muttered Balvardo.

The monk spoke not a word; he strode to the closet—he seized the flask of wine—he filled the goblet to the brim.

“Drink, Adrian,” he cried, “drink, and be refreshed!”

Adrian raised the goblet to his mouth with his chained right hand—he wet his lips with the ruddy wine; and then, as if seized by some fearful spell, he stood motionless as death, while his right arm straightened slowly out from his body, with the hand convulsively clutching the bowl of death.

“It is, it is!” he shrieked. “It is the goblet of the Red Chamber! God of Heaven, what means this mystery? Speak, Albertine. Wouldst thou betray me?”

“Ten!” meanwhile continued Balvardo, in the background.

“Adrian!” cried the monk, starting back with a solemn gesture, “I stand upon the verge of the cliff of Time; beneath me roll the surges of that shoreless ocean which men name Eternity! Ere the morrow’s dawn, I leap from the cliff; the surges of that awful sea will bear me on—on to the vast Unknown! Thinkest thou I would betray thee? Drink, and be refreshed.”

“Eleven, twelve! the time is up!” soliloquized the sworder.

“I drink,” cried Adrian, with a wild gesture, “I drink; for thy words are truth, and thine eye bears no falsehood in its glance! I drink the goblet of the Red Chamber to the dregs!”

A shriek that might never be forgotten rang through the corridor and chamber, and a slight form, arrayed in robes of white came rushing from the folds of the tapestry.

Adrian beheld the dreamy face of the Ladye Annabel, her cheek pale as the robes she wore, while, with glaring eye and voice of horror, she shrieked:

“Drink not—in God’s name do not drink—the bowl is drugged with death!”

He flung the bowl aside, but ere it left his hand it was received in the quick grasp of the monk; he raised his chained hands on high, and ere they were lowered, his Bride lay panting on his breast!

Oh, where is the magic of human words that may picture the deep and fearful interest of that meeting, the gush of contending feelings, the rapture sparkling in the eye and beaming from the lip, the heart all pulsation, the blood all fire, the arms flung convulsively round each other’s neck, the look of the Doomed, the long, last, lingering look upon the face of the beloved, her upturned eyes, her cheek now crimson and now snow, her tresses of gold waving over her robes of white, and her form of beauty flung over his bosom, with every vein swelling with delight, every nerve quivering with joy!

They meet as lovers meet, when, standing on the opposing rocks of Time and Destiny, they fling their arms across the chasm, nor heed the vast eternity that yawns below, ready to engulf and destroy.

“Drink not, oh, Adrian, drink not—the bowl is drugged with death!”

“The time is up,” muttered the hoarse voice of Balvardo—“The guards are within call, good monk, an’ he refuses the dose.”

“Adrian Di Albarone,” cried the monk, fixing his full and solemn eyes upon the chained knight, “drink the bowl, I implore thee! By the memory of the Cell of the Doomed, by the memory of the Chapel of the Rocks, by the memory of the perils we have shared, the deaths we dared together, in the name of thy father, whose ghost now looks down upon thee, in His name, most solemn and most dread, I adjure thee—drain the goblet to the dregs!”

“Dark and mysterious man,” cried Adrian, sharing the wild glance of Albertine, “give me the bowl, I drink——”

“Adrian, for my sake touch it not—poison nestles like a snake within its depths!”

“Hold me not, Annabel—grasp not my arm—”

“For the sake of God, oh, do not, do not drink!”

“I must, I must! It is not thy hand, Albertine, that gives the bowl—it is the hand of Fate, thrust from yon blackening cloud, which all my life has thrown its shadow over my path! Give me the bowl—though ten thousand deaths were darting from each sparkle of the wine, still—I drink, and drain the goblet to the dregs!”

In vain the upraised arm of the Ladye Annabel, in vain her look of fear, her voice of horror!

As she clung to his chained arms, he raised the goblet to his lips, he drained it to the dregs.

“He smiles,” muttered Balvardo, “the monk smiles as he gives the death-bowl! I see not his cloven foot, nor do I see his horns—not a whit o’ ’em. Else might I suspect the devil were lurking in yon monkish robe.”

Adrian handed the goblet to the monk.

Albertine received it with a deep and meaning smile.

Scarce had the hand of Adrian been extended in the act, than his arm fell like a weight of lead to his side, and Annabel felt her lover leaning heavily upon her shoulder, while her fair arms might scarce stay him in his fall to the floor.

“Monk,” cried Adrian, as, sinking upon one knee, he fixed his ghastly eyes upon the face of Albertine; “monk I trusted thee, and thou art false!”

“His brow is cold,” murmured the Ladye Annabel, as, sinking on her knees by his side, she supported Adrian’s head upon her virgin bosom. “See! the big drops of the death-dew stands out from his forehead—and this, monk, this is thy work!”

As the terrible look of the dying man met his eye, Albertine seemed struggling with some terrible pang, but when the words of Annabel and her look of intense agony came like a death-bolt to his heart, he hurriedly advanced, he looked at the group, he spoke in a voice tremulous with agitation, yet deep and solemn in its every accent—

“Ye scorn me now, fair Ladye, and raise your hands in a gesture of reproach most terrible to bear; yet the day will come, when the voice of scorn will be changed to the sound of pity, when those very hands will strew fresh flowers over my grave!”

“Has —— given up its model of devils!” muttered Balvardo, in the background. “‘Slife, I can murder a man in hot blood or cold blood, but as for this heaping taunt on taunt—I like it not—by the Blood o’ th’ Turk!”

“He is dead—cold and dead,” murmured the Ladye Annabel, as she gazed upon the pallid face of Adrian. “He does not breathe; Mother of Heaven, I cannot feel the beating of his heart!”

Ere the words had passed her lips, the dying man sprang with one bound to his feet; and while his bloodshot eyes rolled ghastlily from face to face, he flung his arms aloft, and tottered across the chamber, laughing wildly and with maniac glee, as he pointed to the dark object rising from the floor, covered with the folds of the dark robe, that swept over its surface like a pall of death.

“Monk, behold—behold the doom of Adrian of Albarone!” he shouted with a wild and husky voice, as he stooped, with a sudden movement, and tore the robe from the object which it concealed. “There, there stands the assassin, here the victim, and—ha, ha, ha!—behold the coffin!”

He swayed heavily from side to side; he flung his arms hurriedly aloft in the vain effort to preserve his balance, and then, with a fixed and staring eye, he gazed upon the face of Albertine with a look that froze his blood.

“Monk, I trusted thee, and thou art false!”

The sound of a falling body echoed around the room, and the lifeless form of Adrian Di Albarone lay extended across the coffin, while the out-spread hands clutched the dark panels with the convulsive grasp of death.

“Wait one hour,” muttered the monk to Balvardo; “wait one hour, ere thou bearest the corse to the grave. ’Tis now the midnight hour: an hour from this time, the Duke—ha, ha!—will wed his bride; an hour from this time, and thou mayst bear the corse to the grave!”

“Be it so,” growled Balvardo. “Then this pestilent Adrian will trouble me no more! Blood o’ Mahound, the grave is a wondrous sure prison; it needs nor bolt nor bar; old Death stands jailor at its door!”

“Ladye!” cried the monk, as he advanced to the side of the Ladye Annabel, raising the maiden, whose senses seemed stupified with horror, from the floor, “behold the corse of thy love! Advance, Ladye—rest thee by its side—gather the head of the corse to thy bosom! Watch beside the corse one hour—a single hour—and let nor man nor devil wrest the lifeless body from thy grasp!”

The Ladye Annabel opened her large blue eyes with a stare of vacant wander, and smiled as she gathered the head of the corpse to her bosom, twining her fair and delicate lingers in the golden hair of the dead.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH. THE CELL OF ST. ARELINE.

A lamp of iron, all rusted and time-eaten, suspended from the arched ceiling of a small apartment of the convent of St. Benedict, reserved in especial for strangers, threw a dim light over the figure of his grace of Florence, reposing on a velvet couch, and upon the blazing armor of the attending men-at-arms, who waited beside their lord.

A smile, full of self-satisfaction, rested upon the lip of the Duke, and a glance full of agreeable fancies lit up his eye, as he contemplated the fulfillment of all his schemes.

“The forward boy punished for his insolence,”—thus ran his musings—“done to death for the treasonable act of lifting his hand against his liege lord—this accomplished, the fair Annabel is mine, and with her I acquire the rich domains of Albarone. A servitor but a moment since bears me intelligence that she has recovered from her madness. By’r Ladye, my exhausted coffers shall be replenished to the brim! Ha—ha ha! Then I shall war and conquer. Why not I as well as others of my rank and power? I shall war—I shall conquer—I shall—”

“My Lord Duke,” exclaimed a sentinel, thrusting his head from between the folds of a sable curtain that hung across the apartment, dividing it from an adjoining chamber, within whose walls were the followers of his grace. “My Lord Duke, a monk of the convent craves audience with your grace—shall I admit him?”

“Aye, let him enter.”

And in a moment, there stood before the Duke a monk attired in the dark robe of his order: his hood was drawn over his face, and, with depressed head and folded arms, he seemed to wait the commands of his grace of Florence.

“Thy errand, sir monk?”

“I come by the bidding of the Father Abbot, to lead thee to the cell of the blessed St. Areline.”

“Ah! I remember me. As I dismounted at the gate of the Monastery, the reverend abbot told me that it had been a custom, from time past memory, for all strangers visiting the holy house of St. Benedict, to pass an hour in the cell of this saint—St. Areline, methinks she is styled. Further, he told me the saint has the power of revealing future events. Is’t so, holy father?”

“Even so, my Lord Duke. When besought, on bended knee, in the silence of midnight, the form of the blessed saint appears fired with supernatural life: her eyes flash and her lips move, and the doom of the suppliant—whether for good or for evil—is revealed.”

“At midnight, say’st thou? ’Tis a lone hour. By’r our Ladye, but the evil one may have something to do with the matter.”

“That may not be, my Lord Duke. The holy Areline died in the odor of sanctity. The scorner and the outcast of heaven alone doubt her holiness and power. For three centuries hath the fame of St. Areline been sounded abroad, and now it were sin unpardonable to say aught against her sacred name.”

“Lead on, holy father; in God’s name, lead on: I’ll follow thee. Hugo! I say, Hugo!”

The face of the ill-looking sentinel with the squinting eye, appeared among the folds of the sable curtain.

“Hugo, where is Balvardo, thy comrade—eh? Speak quickly—where is Balvardo?”

The sinister eye of the sentinel squinted yet more fearfully; he looked confusedly round, and stammered forth:

“My Lord Duke, he is—he is—”

He paused suddenly, and finished the sentence by pointing downward with the forefinger of the right hand, with a sort of diving motion.

“Ah! I had forgotten that, good Hugo! Thou wilt attend me, vassals; and ye, sirs, shall also accompany me to this midnight ceremony.”

While he thus spoke, the monk threw open a door at the end of the apartment opposite the sable curtain, and, followed by the Duke, attended by Hugo and the two men-at-arms, with torches in their hands, he presently was traversing a long gallery, with his head still depressed and his arms still folded on his breast.

“By’r our Lady, but thou art wondrous chary of thy good looks!—eh, sir monk?”

“It becomes not a sinner like me to be otherwise than humble. It becomes not a poor brother of St. Benedict to assume an erect port and a bold countenance before—his grace of Florence!”

“Well said, by my troth! Whither art leading me, holy father? Ha! a stairway; it extends above us as though it had no end. Ugh! how those torches glare—how gloomy these arches seem! Lead on, sir monk!”

Ascending the stairway, they found themselves in a winding gallery, with floor of stone, low arching roof, and narrow walls. Through the mazes of this passage they swiftly wound, and presently they stood at the foot of another stairway.

“By St. Peter!” exclaimed the Duke, “but these passages are like the windings of a witch’s den. How runs the night, holy father?”

“When I left the halls of the convent, the sands of the hour glass had fallen to within an half hour of midnight.”

“Ah! we shall be just in time for the trial of St. Areline’s power. Another gallery! By’r Ladye, but this is wondrous! In the name of thy patron, St. Benedict, I adjure thee, monk, tell me are we not near our journey’s end?”

“See’st thou yon oaken door that terminates the gallery? The oaken door with large panels, and topped by arches of dark stone? There an’ it please thee, my Lord Duke, must thou leave thy attendants, and alone, and in the dark, we will enter the cell of the blessed St. Areline.”

“How? Leave my attendants? ‘Alone,’ sayst thou? ‘In the dark’? Beshrew me, sir monk, but this saint of thine is somewhat difficult of audience!”

“The reward she offereth is beyond price. A knowledge of the future—the dim and shadowy future! Thou shall behold thy coming deeds written in characters of light; thy future conquests shall spread themselves before thee like the varying beauties of a lovely landscape. Thou shall—”

“‘Slife! thou talkest well! Enough: we stand before the oaken door. Enter—I’ll follow thee!”

The monk passed his hand over one of the panels of the huge door, and pressing a secret spring, a narrow passage was opened, through which the brother of St. Benedict disappeared, followed by his grace of Florence.

“There they go,” Hugo exclaimed as the panel closed. “There they go upon their madcap adventure. The saints save me from all such folly!”

“And me, comrade,” cried the tallest of the men-at-arms, letting the sheath of his sword fall heavily upon the pavement of stone.

“I say amen to your prayers,” exclaimed the other, looking very wise in the torchlight.

“Ha! what noise is that?” cried Hugo, as he gave a sudden start.

“’Tis down in the court-yard,” exclaimed the tall man-at-arms. “Hark! ’tis the clashing of swords—the rattling of spears—the clashing of armor.”

“Shouts, too!” cried the other soldier, “Ha! war cries! ‘Slife! it sounds as if they were battering down the gates! Hark! again! and again!”

And thus, while the sounds waxed louder, and the cries grew fiercer in the court-yard below, the men-at-arms, and their companion, Hugo, waited, with the utmost impatience the coming of their lord.

An hour passed.

The Duke had not appeared. The tall man-at arms fixed his eyes upon the massive door, and struck the secret panel with his spear, urged by all the vigor of his stalwart arm. Another and another blow. The wood yielded, and the open space gave passage to the man-at-arms, who forced his way through, followed by his comrade and Hugo of the sinister eye.

Their torches flashed upon the walls of a square apartment, with floor and roof of stone. No living creature was there. A small, narrow door gave entrance to another apartment. Three pillars of time-worn stone supported the arched roof, and divided the place into three sides, with floor of variegated stone. One side of the apartment, was concealed by a curtain of sable velvet.

This Hugo hurriedly drew, and in an instant his ungainly figure was reflected in a vast mirror of dazzling steel, which, reaching to the arched ceiling above, twice the height of a man, extended on either side as wide as it was high. Around the apartment was no sign of passage way or secret door; all was bare and rugged stone, and the place was without bench, stool, couch, or furniture of any kind.

“By’r Ladye!” shouted Hugo, “that monk was the—devil, and he has run away with our lord! W-h-e-w!”

And the three fairly shook with mingled surprise and terror, which was presently increased to alarm and horror by the clashing of arms in the outer apartment.

CHAPTER THE FIFTH. THE WONDERS OF ST. ARELINE.

No sooner had the oaken panel closed behind him, than the Duke found himself cautiously groping his way in utter darkness, being guided by the sound of the footsteps of the Monk.

Presently the Monk laid hand upon the Duke’s shoulder.

“Kneel, mortal, kneel,” he exclaimed in a voice which the Duke thought wondrously changed of a sudden, “kneel and behold the wonders of St. Areline! Speak not upon the peril of thy immortal soul!”

Upon the pavement of stone the Duke sank down, and the Monk began to murmur certain mysterious words, in a low, yet deep tone, and thus he continued for the space of the fourth part of an hour, when a light was seen dimly gleaming at one end of the place, and presently another and another, and gradually increasing in radiance they soon appeared to the wondering eyes of the Duke, dancing within the surface of a vast mirror of dazzling steel.

Strange it was that although the meteors,—for such they seemed—grew more brilliant every moment, and shed a more intense brightness along the surface of the mirror in which they shone, yet not a ray of light escaped to illumine the apartment, and the figures of the Duke and the Monk were wrapt in mid-night shadow.

And now soft clouds of feathery mist began to roll within the surface of the mirror, and the meteors gradually faded away into an universal brightness, which like the mellow beams that herald the coming day, poured a flood of rosy light over the tumultuous chaos within the dazzling steel.

“Behold!” cried the Monk, “behold the blessed St. Areline!”

A dim and ghastly form arose from amid the rolling clouds, far in the distance; nearer it drew and nearer, and presently the outlines of a nun, attired in the solemn hood, and sweeping robes of white, became clear and perceptible.

Advancing to the front of the mirror with a gliding motion, the hands of the spectre were folded upon its breast, and the hood of white, hung drooping over its face.

The Duke trembled with terror, and his brow was wet with large drops of moisture that oozed from his shivering skin.

“Mortal!” exclaimed a voice, soft as the tones of a spirit of light,—“mortal, what wouldst thou know?” The voice came from the shrouded face of the spectre.

With tremulous voice, and as if urged by some invisible power, the Duke shrieked forth—

“I would know my doom—I would know my fate!”

The hood fell back from the head of the Spectre, and its arms slowly extended!

“O Jesu!” shrieked the Duke,—“Look, look! the skeleton hands, the fleshless skull, the hollow eyes! One hand grasps a cross, and one a grinning skull.—Look, look!”

“Speak not!” whispered the Monk, “speak not upon pain of eternal doom!”

The voice again sounded through the cell.

“Dost thou seek in the name of the Holy One? Dost thou ask trusting in his Saints?”

“I do!”

“Thou art answered!” and the bare and hideous bones of the spectre head were covered, quick as a flash of light, with ruddy and healthy flesh, the hollow sockets gleamed with dark and brilliant orbs, and the skeleton hands glowed with life, as a skin of rosy loveliness shrouded the disjointed bones.

“Thou art answered!” and as the spectre whispered the words, a skeleton form came gliding along the mirror, holding an hour-glass in its fleshless hand.

“Behold!” exclaimed the vision pointing to the things of graves, “behold thy doom?”

A shriek of horror came from the lips of the Duke.

“O, horror of horrors!” he shouted, “It is the form of Death!—Look! look! Behold! He turns, he turns with a ghastly smile—he points to the hour glass!” The tyrant, assassin and betrayer started forward with every nerve quivering with the intensity of his terror. “O God of Heaven! The Sands of the glass are run!”

“Ha!” shrieked the Monk, with a wild yell, that sounded like the howl of a dying war-horse. “Heaven wills it, thy sands are run, thy doom is fixed!”

A stream of light poured around the cell, brighter than the blaze of the noon-day sun, and a clap of thunder shook the pillars to their very centre.

With his eyes rolling with affright, the Duke glanced upward, and beheld the Monk standing erect, his arms outstretched, and his hood cast backward from his face.

“O God! Thou here! Albertine—thou here!”

“Ha! It is I!—Thy fate—thy curse—thy doom!”

The Duke felt himself seized in a grasp of iron, and hurriedly dragged along the pavement of stone.

In a moment he heard the sharp spring of a door closing behind him, and brushing his hand over his eyes, to restore his fading vision, he looked around.

A spur of the whitened steep on which the convent was founded, arising some twenty feet above the body of the mass of rock, was imbedded in the darkened wall of the tower, with its summit extending in a platform some three feet square, toppling over the dark abyss below.

Level as the sun-dial and smooth as polished steel, the summit of the rock, projecting from the tower, might scarce afford a resting place for footstep of human thing. In silence and in awe the Duke gazed around.

Above was the moonlit sky, below far, far below, a hundred fathoms down sunk the dark and shadowy abyss, separated from the waters of the lake by a ridge of rocks, that arose along the shores of the mountain tarn, overlooking the sullen blackness of the impenetrable void, on one side, while on the other towered and frowned above the walls of the gloomy convent.

Gazing hurriedly around, the Duke beheld the walls of the Monastery, extending on either side of the tower, in whose stones the platform-rock was imbedded, all smooth, even and moss-grown; at his back leading into the cell of St. Areline, was the secret door, fashioned in complete resemblance to the wall around, fast closed and secured, while high overhead arose the dark and frowning fabric of the tower, its rugged outline, rising like a thing of omen into the dim blue of the midnight sky.

This platform of rock was never looked upon by the peasantry of the valley, save with wonder and with awe—a thousand dark traditions, named the tower as the scene of many a deed of murder, and a thousand legends dyed the platform stone with the crimson drops of innocent blood.

“Where am I,” shrieked the Duke with a low, murmured whisper. “It is a dream, a dream of horror!”

“Thou art in the temple of my vengeance!” the response came hissing between the clenched teeth of the monk. “Behold its roof, yon sky, the walls, the boundless horizon, the floor, the wide earth; and the place of sacrifice, yon bottomless abyss!”

CHAPTER THE SIXTH. THE WATCH BESIDE THE DEAD.

“All—all is dark!” the voice broke wild and whisperingly through the midnight gloom of the place—“I have been dreaming—ah, me—a sad and darksome dream! Methought Adrian lay cold and dead in my arms, while my hand was entwined in the locks of his clustering hair, as they fell over his lifeless face. It was a dream, a fearful dream—yet—mother of heaven—do I still dream, or is this darkness real?”

She extended her hands, she passed them hurriedly along the floor, where her form lay prostrate, and as she thus wildly sought to grasp the form so lately reposing in her arms, she exclaimed with a murmured shriek—

“It flashes on me! All is real—The coffin and the corse, the assassin and the bowl of death—all is dark and terrible reality!”

Passing her cold and stiffened hands, slowly along her forehead, the Ladye Annabel endeavored to recall the tragedy of that fearful night, in all its details of horror, and as scene after scene, action after action, word succeeding word, came back to her memory, another fearful mystery passed like a shadow over her brain.

“The corse reposed in these arms—where is it now? Who hath stolen the body of the dead from my embrace? And the coffin—it is gone! They have borne him to the grave!”

And as the low whispers broke from her lips, this fair and gentle creature, whose nature was soft and yielding, as is ever the nature of a true woman, in moments of calm and sunshine, yet susceptible of deeds of the highest courage and noblest determination, in the hour of storm and cloud arose from the floor, her frame all chilled and stiffened by the hard repose of that fearful watch, and extending her hands she wandered slowly around the chamber, seeking with hushed breath, for the coffin and the corse.

All was darkness, thick and intense darkness.

Slowly and with cautious steps she paced around the room, passing her hands along the folds of the tapestry, or extending her small and delicate foot in the effort to touch the coffin, but her search was all in vain. She wandered around the chamber, until her recollection of the particular features of the room became vague and indistinct, and at last with trembling hands and a bewildered brain, she stood erect and motionless.

“All—all is vain!” she cried—“corse and coffin are all gone. They have borne him to the grave!”

While the weary moments dragged heavily on, she stood silent and unmovable, endeavoring to catch the faintest echo of a sound, or hear the slightest whisper of a voice, but all was silent as death.

At last a distant and moaning murmur reached her ears.

Gradually though slowly it deepened into a booming sound, and at last the subterranean arches of the old convent seemed alive with gathering echoes, and the long corridors gave back the tramp of footsteps and the hum of human voices.

“They come—they come”—whispered the Ladye Annabel—“They come to bear me to the bridal!”

The bell of the convent, deep-toned and booming, rang out the hour of—one—the fatal hour after midnight.

“Strike for the Winged Leopard—strike for Albarone!” the shout came echoing along the corridors.

“Strike for Albarone and Florence!” the mingling war-cry reached the ears of the maiden. And in a moment, the tapestry, concealing the entrance to the room from which Adrian had issued ere he drank the bowl, was hurriedly thrust aside, and amid the blaze of torches, the Ladye Annabel, beheld the glare of armor and the flash of upraised swords, while the stern visage of the warrior-band were gazing upon her pale countenance and trembling form.

“Saved, by St. Withold!” shouted a soldier, springing from the crowd—“Ladye tell us, in God’s name, where is the Lord Adrian?”

“They have borne him to the grave!” was the whispered and ghastly response.

The bluff soldier turned aside, and it might be noted that his blue eyes were wet with tears. In a moment he again faced the crowd of warriors.

“Behold the Queen!” he shouted, and the men-at-arms sank kneeling to the floor—“all hail the fair Ladye Annabel, Duchess of Florence!”

And the solitary chamber rung with the echo of the thunder shout—

“All hail the Fair Ladye Annabel, Duchess of Florence!”

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. THE COFFIN AND THE CORSE. THE CLOCK STRIKES ONE, AND THE SWORDER SEALS HIS FATE BY A TOUCH OF THE FATAL SPRING.

Far beneath the Convent, down in the very bosom of the earth, far beneath the chamber of the death-bowl, alone and in darkness, rested the coffin and the corse for the space of an hour, awaiting the spade and the Sexton, the priest with his prayers, and the grave with its silence.

The sound of trampling feet, broke along the silence of the earth hidden passage, and presently, through the crevices of the dungeon door, thin rays of light streamed along the cell.

Then there was drawing of bolts, and rattling of chains, and in an instant the ruddy glare of torches, revealed the ill-looking form of Balvardo, standing in the doorway, and beside him stood a short, thin old man, with slight locks of gray hair, falling upon his coarse doublet.

There was a vacant and wandering expression in his eye, while his parched lips, hanging apart, gave an idiotic appearance to his countenance. The long, talon-like fingers of his withered right hand, grasped a spade covered with rust, and eaten by time.

“Ha—ha!” laughed Balvardo. “The potion which I gave her, some hours ago, wrapt her in a sleep, like the slumber of old death. Blood o’ the Turk, how her hands clutched the body o’ the dead, when I first tried to tear it from her arms—even in her sleep she clutched it! I have him at last—sound and sure! He escaped me in the cell of the Doomed, escaped this sword in the Cavern of the Dead, and—and—now, by the fiend I have him at last!”

The Sworder advanced to the Coffin, he gazed upon the pale face of the dead, with a long and anxious look.

“He, he, he,” chuckled the old man. “Why did thou hate him, noble Captain?”

“I know not,” muttered Balvardo, with an absent air, “yet I always had a sneaking suspicion that one day or other, this man, now a corse, would work my death! A queer feeling always haunted me, that made me feel like the felon walking to his doom, so long as this—father-murderer remained alive! Now he is dead, but I fear him yet, and will fear him till he is safely buried i’ the earth!”

“Thou wouldst cover his face with this rich, yellow earth?” sneered the ancient man,—“He, he, he! The grave hides all secrets!”

“To thy duty, Old Gibber-jabber,” exclaimed Balvardo, “Here’s thy man. Lay hold of him, and help me to drag the coffin to the other side of the dungeon. Pull him along—there—there!”

Throwing the coffin upon the damp earth, the old man placed a smoking lamp near the prostrate head of the corse, and then intently watched the motions of Balvardo, who was drawing the point of his sword along the surface of the earth.

“Let me do’t, let me do’t, most noble captain,” exclaimed the old man, pushing Balvardo aside,—“for years, and years, and years, man and boy, have I wielded this good spade, here in these nice, cozy, comfortable chambers! He—he—he! To think a fellow like thee, with that miserable tool, that is unworthy to be called a—spade—to think that a stranger like thee, should think to excel me—Old Glow-worm—in laying out a grave!—He—he—he!”

“Old Glow-worm!—Ha, ha, ha!—a choice name by my soul!”

“A very good name; they call me so—they who bring me food every day—they poke it through the big door through which thou didst pass, most noble captain. A merry time we’ve had of it here—a merry time!”

“We!—who dost thou mean?”

“Well! Thou art a fool, beshrew me!—we, I and my comrades, who always receive our food at the big iron door. Here, long, long, very long, we have lived in these nice cozy chambers.—Sometimes they fight and kill one another—then I dig their graves! See! how nicely the rich earth turns up! This is a spade!”

Prattling after this fashion, the poor old idiot turned up the earth till he stood in a square hole about a foot in depth, when a glance at the pale visage of Adrian arrested his attention.

“He, he, he! They always look so!—Queer,—eh, noble captain!”

“What! hast ever had any other business of this sort?”

“Why, bless ye, most noble captain, I’ve put scores and scores of them under the rich, yellow earth. They bring ’em to me—they at the big iron door. This is earth for ye! Look! how the spade sinks into the mould!—He, he, he!”

“What an old devil!” muttered Balvardo to himself. “How canst thou be merry in these gloomy pits! eh, Old One!”

“Merry?—He, he, he! Merry didst say, why bless ye, when I and my comrades gather round our food, I am as merry as is the sound of this spade, driving into the earth! Merry! why I sing, most noble captain, I sing!”

“Thou sing! Ha, ha, ha! Thou, indeed!”

“Why not I, eh? Beshrew me but thou art a fool! I can sing such a right mirthful song—but they never like it—they my comrades!”

“By Saint Peter, I’ll wager a stoup of wine, that thou didst never see the light of day—eh, old rat?”

“Day! what is that?—But for my song—here goes!”

And then busily plying the spade, in a cracked voice he sang the following words, in a sort of wild chaunt, which he occasionally varied by sounds that resembled the yell of a screech-owl.

THE SONG OF THE ANCIENT MAN.[8]

DIG THE GRAVE AND DIG IT DEEP.

As he sang, the old man plunged the spade lustily into the earth, and throwing aside the large lumps of clay, he continued with great glee—

He wound this up with an unnatural noise, half shriek, and half yell, and the hollow and dread dungeon arches gave back the strain.

“He, he, he!—I know a merrier catch than that! List ye, my noble captain.”

He then made a motion with his hand, as if in the act of drinking, and then a shout of wild laughter sounded through the cell.

He swept his spade around with maniac glee, and then in a voice louder and shriller, while his shrunken breast heaved with the wildness of his emotion, he sang,

“A brave song! Ha, ha, ha! By my faith a brave song! Where didst pick it up, Old Screech-Owl, eh?”

“Glow-worm is my name,” replied the other demurely,—“Glow-worm—ah! but this is rich earth! Look! what big, lusty clumps. He, he, he! How cold and pale he looks—he that I am to bury—See!”

“He doth look cold and pale!” muttered Balvardo. “Is the grave deep enough, Devil-darkness? Let’s house him in’ th’ earth without delay.”

“The grave scarce reaches to my middle—deeper let us dig it, noble captain—deeper!”

“I tell thee, Devil-darkness, I cannot look upon the cold and stony face of the dead! Deeper thou mayest dig the grave—but the body must be hidden from sight in the meanwhile. ‘Slife—I left my cloak in the vaults above, and I have no robe to throw over the coffin!”

“He—he—he, thou’rt a brave man, yet poor old Glow-worm knows more than thee! Look around the cell, most noble captain, and tell me what thou see’st!”

“I see the rough walls of stone, the roof of rock, the floor of clay. Not a whit more, by the Fiend!”

“Look again—pass thine eyes along the wall opposite yon oaken door. What see’st thou now, most noble captain?”

“I see a bolt of iron, rusted and time-eaten, projecting from the wall—”

“Wouldst know how to open a passage into the stone room, next to this cell? Move the bolt quickly to and fro, and yon massy stone will roll back into the stone-room! Thou canst lay the coffin within its walls, until the grave is deep enow.”

“The bolt moves—ha! The stone, the massive stone glides from the wall—another push at the bolt! There—blood o’ Mahound, I behold a dark passage into this dismal room! ‘Slife! there is a current of air rushing from this open space—what may it mean?”

“Dost wish to hide the corse? Eh—most noble captain? Lay hold of t’other end o’ th’ coffin, and I will raise this end. We’ll bear it to the stone-room!”

In a moment they raised the coffin, and bearing it toward the open space, Balvardo retreated backwards, through the passage, and in another instant was lost to view, while the foot of the coffin still projected into the dungeon-cell.

“Bear it through the passage, Glow-worm!” cried Balvardo. “In a moment we will have it laid along the floor of this dreary place!”

“It is heavy,” cried the old man; “my strength fails me. Thou wilt have to bear the burden thyself, most noble captain! Glow-worm lifts no heavy burden!”

“Be it so,” growled Balvardo. “Slife I like not to be alone with the dead! Slowly, slowly, drag the coffin along the floor of stone, there—it rests against the wall! Now for the grave.”

“What dreary sound is that, thundering far above? Oft have I heard it, yet ne’er could tell what it might mean?”

“The Convent clock strikes—one!” muttered Balvardo. “A few moments and my reward is sure!”

“Beware the secret spring!” shrieked the old man, as though his crazed mind had been fixed by some sudden thought. “Beware the secret spring! It sticks from the floor near the very wall, where thou hast laid the coffin. An’ thy foot presses the spring the stone rolls back, and—he, he, he—thou art buried alive!”

It was too late! Even as the old man spoke, Balvardo stumbled along the floor of the stone-room, his foot pressed the point of iron projecting from the floor, and the massive rock rolled back to its place, in the masonry of the substantial wall.

“I fear, I fear,” murmured the old man, gazing around with an affrighted look; “I fear they,” pointing above, “they will lash me for this! He, he, he! I bade him beware of the spring within the stone-room, and he would not. I cannot turn this bolt, the old man is not strong enough. Ha, ha, here is a torch; Glow-worm has not had a torch in his hand for years! Ho, ho, ho, the noble captain came here to bury the dead, and, ho, ho, ho, he is buried alive!”

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH. THE FATE OF THE BETRAYER.

SWEETER THAN THE LOVE OF WOMAN, DEARER THAN GLORY TO THE WARRIOR, POWER TO THE PRINCE, OR HEAVEN TO THE DEVOTEE, IS THE CONSUMMATION OF A LONG SOUGHT AND SILENTLY TREASURED REVENGE.

“Where am I?” shrieked the Duke, as he stood upon the platform of the convent tower. “’Tis a hideous dream, ’tis a fearful nightmare! Ha! my brain reels. I’ll gaze no longer down the fearful abyss! Is there none to awake me, none? Horror of horrors! This demon hand will strangle me, closer and tighter it winds around my throat, ah!”

A wild laugh of intense joy came from the chest of the Monk. “I feast upon thy misery,” he cried, “wretch, I banquet upon thy agony! Ha, ha, ha! The glory of this moment I would not barter for all the joys of heaven! Dost thou shiver, dost thou tremble, well thou mayst! Look down, far, far below! Dost see any hope there, what says the whitened precipice? Hath the dark abyss no voice? Look above, canst glean naught from the frown of the tower that is over thy doomed and devoted head? Or mayhap the secret door may afford thee consolation? Speak—thou for whose crime earth hath no word, hell no name, speak that I may feast upon the music of thy quailing voice!”

Tighter he wound his grasp around the throat of the trembling wretch, and with his dark eye flashing with all the frenzy of supernatural revenge, he shook the form of the Duke over the awful abyss.

“Is’t thou, good Albertine? Hold, hold, or I shall fall. ’Tis a fearful steep! Behold, a flock of snow-white sheep are grazing in yon distant vale, they seem but as mice at this fearful height. Thou, thou wilt not harm me, good Albertine?”

“Look, look!—Behold her pale form is floating in the moonlight, her face is wan, and her look is that of despair! Ha! her glazing eyes are fixed upon thee—thee—her BETRAYER! She beckons me over the steep!—I come—I come!”

“Nay, good Albertine, grasp me not so tight!—Bring to mind the days when we were sworn friends—”

“Friends? Doomed man, the memory of former days shall but hurl accumulated torture upon thy head!—Friends?—Ah! like a dream it comes over my mind! I was a peasant boy—thou didst raise me to rank and power, and I have loved ye as brother loves brother. Could my life have served thee, it would have been laid at thy feet. My life thou did’st not take. No! no! But the treasured hope of years, the glowing fancies of a musing boy, the anticipations of happiness that haunted my dreams by night, and lived in my thoughts by day; these—at one fell remorseless blow, thou did’st sweep away. It was upon her grave; the grave of thy victim, that one thought possessed my soul. For years and years have I planned, have I schemed, nay wept, prayed for the fulfilment of that thought. And now it is fulfilled. I have thee in my grasp! Think’st thou a thousand worlds would buy thy craven life? That heaven or hell would tear thee from my hand?”

Again he gave utterance to the frenzied joy of his soul in a loud wild laugh, that burst fearfully upon the midnight air.

“Albertine spare me, spare me! Take not my life.”

“Spare thee? and yon pale form waving me onward? spare thee? wretch, I tell thee all nature is celebrating thy doom! The moon is sinking below the horizon, and the stars gleam through the gathering pall of darkness like funeral fires! Spare thee!”

“Ha! whence come those shouts! I may yet be saved!”

“Thou mayst be saved—ha—ha—ha! It gives me joy to drag thee o’er this steep, craving and hoping for life, to thy latest grasp! Look around Urbano, Duke of Florence, look around and behold the fair and beautiful earth, scene of thy crimes—nay, nay THY CRIME—behold the earth for the last time!”

It was a weird and awful scene.

The dizzy height of the platform rock, the vast azure with its boundless horizon, all beaming with the grandeur of the stars, the massive hills sweeping around the mountain-lake, darkening the clear waters with their midnight shadow, the pile of rocks uprising beyond the darkness of the unfathomable abyss, the silence and the awe that rested upon the hour, broken by the sound of far-off shouts, while on the very verge of the eastern sky, bloody and red, the full-orbed moon was sinking slowly down, casting a dim and lurid light over mountain and stream, convent and plain—all formed a scene of dark and fearful interest.

The Universe, awful and vast, seemed to hold a strange sympathy with the Revenge of Albertine the Monk, the stars gave their solemn light to the scene, and the blood-red moon lit up the funeral pile of the Doomed.

“I gaze around, ’tis an awful scene. And thou, thou wilt spare me, good Albertine?”

“As thou didst spare thy victim, when her voice rung in thy ears of stone, shrieking for pity!” The response came hissing through the clenched teeth of Albertine! “Betrayer, I again tell thee all nature is celebrating thy doom! The moon is sinking below the horizon, and the stars gleam through the gathering pall of darkness like funeral fires!”

Thrilled with terror and appalled to the very soul, by the erect form and flashing eye of the Monk, the Duke stood trembling and quivering like a reed, on the verge of the platform rock.

“Choose the manner of thy death! Leap from the rock, or behold, I raise before thy very eyes this dagger; the dagger of the Holy Steel!”

“Thou wilt not slay me thus, good Albertine,” shrieked the Duke. “Mercy—for the sake of God—mercy!”

“Thine own mercy I give back to thee! Leap from the rock, or this dagger seeks thy heart. Ha! that pale form, that dim and shadowy face, floating in the midnight air, with the eyes of speechless woe! She beckons me onward. He comes, pale spirit—thy betrayer comes! An instant, and lo! before the bar of eternity he shall tremble at the frown of the Unknown!”

It was a scene of sickening horror, yet dignified and consecrated by the mighty revenge of the monk.

His face pale as death, his lips livid with fear, his eyes rolling and vacant in their glance, the Duke stepped tremblingly backward, while the monk strode one step forward, raising the keen steel aloft, with a slow movement, yet with a quick eye and a determined arm.

“Leap—leap—or the dagger seeks thy heart!”

The Duke looked wildly around, and, shaking his hands aloft, gnashed his teeth in very despair.

Another moment!

The monk alone stood on the platform, while a rushing sound swept through the air, far, far below, as though a weight of iron had been toppled from the rock.

Albertine slowly advanced to the edge of the platform, and gazed into the void below.

With a fixed and glaring eye, with the dagger raised aloft in his right hand, he gazed below, and beheld the folds of a garment waving through the darkened air, while a yell most fearful and maddening to hear, came shrieking from the darkness of the void, resounding to the very heavens above, until the air grew animate with the sound of despair—unutterable despair.

Then came a crashing sound, as though a heavy body had fallen against the projecting points of the rugged rocks, and then all became silent.

Silence gathered over the universe, like one vast brooding shadow of omen and doom.

The wild flush of excitement vanished from the face of the monk.

With a calm brow, a compressed lip, a cheek pale as death, and a full dark eye, that seemed blazing forth from the shadow of the brow, he folded his arms silently on his breast, and looked up to the midnight heavens.

“She beckons me over the steep, she beckons me; and, with her burning eyes fixed upon my face, she waves her hands, and bids me—on, on! She points to the scenes of the past: God of my soul, how real, how vivid, how like the pictures of memory! The cottage in the vale; the sunshine sleeping on the roof sheltered by vines; the lordly hall and the friend—the friend—the outrage, the lifeless form, and then comes the spirit of my desolation, laughing with scorn as he points to the shadow blackening o’er the dial plate of destiny!

“Nay, nay, wave not thy hands with that slow and solemn motion—glide not so ghastly to and fro—thine eyes burn in my very soul! I come, I come! Albertine glides onward to his bride!”

With folded arms, with calm and immovable countenance, fixing his glance upon the vacant air, without a fear, a sorrow, or a sigh, the avenger stepped from the platform rock, and with the speed of an arrow driven home by the strong arm of the archer, he sank into the darkness of the abyss.

There was a low moaning exclamation of joy, and the setting moon looked on the falling form no more.

CHAPTER THE NINTH. THREE DAYS ELAPSE. JOY COMES AND POWER, BUT DEATH HAS GRASPED THE VICTIM.

The morning sunshine, streaming through the deep silled casement of the convent cell, filled the lonely chamber with light.

The arching roof and the pavement of stone, the dark gray walls, thronged with monkish effigies, and the distant corner of the room, all glowed with warm glimpses of the daybeams, while a solitary soldier strode slowly along the floor, his brow darkening with a frown, as, with his clear blue eyes fixed on vacancy his mind was absorbed in painful thought.

“St. Withold! and all the Saints in heaven or earth save me now!” he absently muttered, as his right hand grasped the hilt of his good sword.—“Here’s a new wonder, a fresh mystery! Three—three days agone—we were all fighting and slashing, leading murderers to death, and pulling Dukes from their thrones, daring death in as many shapes as swords are fashioned, and all for my Lord Adrian, and lo! we bend all things to our will, dethrone the tyrant, and fill the people’s throats with an outcry for the new duke, and what comes next? Answer my good Robin—answer my old friend—where is the new duke? God knows, and the Saints might tell, an’ we knew how to ask them, but not a whit does Rough Robin know about the matter. The old priest was wont to tell me that the ways of Him above—off with thy cap, Robin—were full of mysterie. I never knew what he meant till now—”

The small door of the cell slowly grated on its hinges, and as the yeoman turned to discover the cause, he beheld standing before him a cavalier whose form was attired in glossy purple and bright gold, yet all soiled and tarnished with dust, while his young face, pale and careworn, bore traces of the fearful struggle that had shaken his soul within the past few days.

“Ah—Guiseppo! Pale and careworn—thine attire covered with dust—thy broken plume sweeping o’er thy brow——whence came ye boy, in such attire and in such a ghastly trim?”

“I greet thee, good Robin. Yesternight I left the Castle of Albarone—this morn I journeyed from the walls of Florence!”

“Thou dost bear a message?”

“I come from the nobles and the people of Florence! Three nights agone the old walls of the fair city rang with the clash of arms and the peal of trumpet, while the tramp of contending foemen shook the floor of the ducal palace, and the glimmer of their swords was reflected in the very mirrors of the Tyrant-Duke. The morning dawned at last, and dawned on Florence, no longer oppressed by the tyrant, or awed by the vassals of his power. Then it was that the nobles of Florence named their new Duke, then it was that the people confirmed their choice, while the solemn High Priest of the Invisible, by a parchment scroll affixed to a pillar of the grand cathedral, pronounced his blessing on the fortune of Adrian, Count of Albarone and Duke of Florence—”

“Thus far all was well. Then ye learned the mysterious disappearance of Lord Adrian? Speak I the truth, Guiseppo? The dark scenes which three nights agone gave new legends of horror to the walls of this convent of darkness? The death-bowl administered by the hands of Albertine—the watch of the Ladye Annabel beside the corse—the disappearance of the body, and what troubles me but little, the disappearance of the tyrant-duke? A thousand such dukes might disappear, and we could tell, without a doubt, what became of them all, ‘the devil takes care of his own’ saith the adage—”

“Hast thou no word of the Lord Adrian?”

“Ask the tombs in the aisles of the convent chapel, which yesternoon we ransacked in search of his body, and let their yawning mouths tell the story of our fruitless labor. St. Withold! scarce a foot of earth in the convent garden that we did not turn to the sun in our search—not a cell in the earth-hidden recesses of this foul den, that we failed to illumine with the glare of our torches, not a wizard nook or a blood-stained corner in this devil’s hall, but was laid open to the light, in our strange chase after the body of the dead! And it was all in vain, Guiseppo, all in vain!”

“The Ladye Annabel—hast thou no word of her, Rough Robin?”

“St. Withold, I see her now! Traversed we the dark walls in search of the corse? She went with us, though her feet sunk ankle-deep in the dust of the dead, at every step. She led us on to the fatal room, where the corse had been stolen from her grasp, while bewitched by the drugged potion; she pointed the way to the dark cavern beneath the convent, and when every heart failed, awed with supernatural fear, she, even the fair and gentle Ladye Annabel, still cried on, and on! An’ the saints shower not their blessings on her head, I’ll turn Paynim-hound, and kiss the crescent!”

“Dwelleth the Ladye still within the Convent walls?”

“Since the hour of our search yesternight, she hath shrouded herself within the recesses of the apartments furnished for her use by the vassals of Albarone, when they hastened hither, two days agone. Hast thou a message for the Ladye?”

“I bear a message for the Ladye, and a parchment scroll for the Invisible! Robin come hither—a word in thy ear!”

With the mystic sign of a Neophyte of the Holy Steel, he asked the way to the solemn place, where the order assembled holding their secret yet mighty councils.

“Even now they hold their solemn council, within these convent walls,” answered Robin the Rough.—“In a moment I’ll lead thee to the secret chamber. Yet stay a single moment, Guiseppo. Thou knowest I left the castle on that fearful day, when, when, od’s death I cannot name the deed—”

“That blow, Saints of Heaven! will the memory never pass from my brain! Thou wouldst speak of—of my father?”

“Does the old man live?”

“When thou didst leave the castle, I stood watching silently beside the door of the chamber where lay my father, my own father, stricken down by the hand—the hand of his own son.”

“You watched beside the door, while the leech who had been hurried from the City of Florence disrobed your father, and probed the dagger wound?”

“And I—I, stood trembling beside the door waiting the appearance of the leech, every moment expecting to hear the words—‘Thy father is dead! Dead—murdered by his son!’ I stood beside the chamber door, all alive with horror, my fancy picturing the dagger, which but a few hours agone, I had drawn from his heart, the point crimsoned with one fearful stain of blood, there I stood, fire in my brain, and hell in my heart, when—”

“Ha, ha, ha—Ho, ho, ho! I have the brand, the flaming brand,” a wild and maddened voice awoke the echoes of the corridor leading to the cell, with its tones of maniac yell. “Ho, ho, ho! I have the brand, the flaming brand! Look ye how it flashes on high, ’tis a serpent, a merry serpent with tongue of fire! Ha, ha, for the brand, the flaming brand!”

The small door of the cell grated on its hinges, and in the very centre of the pavement, brandishing a fire-brand over his head, there stood, a weak and trembling old man, his thin face, with the vacant eye and hanging lip, flushed with madness, while his voice half shriek and half yell, rang echoing round the room.

The brand, ha, ha, the flaming brand! Ha, ha, ye brought the old man no food! Ho, ho, ho, Old Glow-worm and his comrades starve, yet there is a merry blaze in the vault below, I trow! Rafters are all aflame, massy bolts are red with fire, and my comrades go shouting merrily through the long vaults, waving their brands on high, and singing a joyous song as they go—

CHAPTER THE TENTH. THE MYSTERIES OF THE CHRONICLE.

TO BE READ BY ALL WHO WOULD LOOK BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF FATE, AND GAZE UPON THE SECRET SPRINGS THAT MOVE MEN TO DEEDS OF WOE AND WAR AND DEATH.

“Florence is free!”

“Florence is free!” echoed the Monks of the Holy Steel, and the shout resounded through the circular room of the tower, repeated by the Neophytes of the Order, with one wild acclaim, “Florence the fair and beautiful is free!”

Slowly the High Priest of the Order arose.

From the dome of the tower the light fell dimly over the scene.

The Monks of the Holy Steel were seated around the square table, their faces veiled, their forms muffled in sable robes.

The figures of the Neophytes, (or Initiates) were grouped around the Superiors of the Order. They stood shoulder to shoulder, along the walls of the Tower-Room, every one with a dagger in his right hand, a torch in his left.

The torches were extinguished, for the work of the Order was accomplished.

Stately and erect, in the midst of this scene, towered the tall figure of the High Priest, veiled and muffled like the others, his hands extended over the heads of the brethren in a gesture of benediction.

And at the other end of the table sate the veiled Doomsman, his rough hand appearing from the folds of the black robe, laid upon the handle of the axe, whose steel was crusted with the rust of blood.

“Three years ago,” thus spoke the High Priest, “the cry of blood, day and night, unceasingly and forever, went up to the throne of God calling for vengeance.

“From the walls of the fair city it shrieked, from the plain it echoed, from the mountain side that low moaning voice rose up to the blue sky, pleading for the doom of the assassin, the death of the tyrant.

“Then it was in times of blood-shed and slaughter, in the day of foul misrule and galling wrong, when the grim bravo whetted his knife on the stones of the altar, and the corses of the murdered crowded the sanctuary of God, then it was, that a few brave and determined men, evoked from the shadows of the past, a Power, mighty yet secret, blasting as the thunder-stroke, yet invisible as the grave!

“The Power of the Steel—winged by the hands of those twin-sisters of vengeance, Secrecy and Mystery.

“Three years past, and on the lips of men, there grew a mighty word—the Steel, the Holy Steel!

“The bravo still smote his victim in the silence of the night, but ere the morrow’s sun, the corse of the assassin lay prostrate beside the murdered.

“The wronger still pursued his work of violence, but it was by stealth and in secrecy; the tyrant still filled the air with shrieks of death and cries of despair, but the trembling tones of his own guilty voice mingled with the last words of the slain.

“The secret band were abroad—the invisible struck their keen dagger suddenly and without mercy, from the cloud that enclosed their existence, and more terrible on the lips of men grew that sound of fear—The vengeance of the Holy Steel.

“Not many days agone, the work which the Order had sworn to fulfill, was hastened by a new crime of the tyrant. The last baron of the race of Albarone, whom the brethren of the steel had resolved to raise to the Ducal throne, awaited within the walls of a dungeon the coming of the morrow, which was to bring to his head the woe and the doom, the axe, the wheel, the scaffold, and the stake. Doomed on a false accusation, doomed on the testimony of forsworn tools of power, Adrian of Albarone had laid him down to die, when the Messenger of the Steel appeared, the rescue was planned, and the morrow morn beheld the prisoner free.

“The march of fate strode swiftly on. All men named our brother—may God receive his soul—as the tool and minion of the Duke, while—it gives me joy to say it—he walked abroad the messenger of the steel.”

“All hail the spirit of Albertine!” arose the solemn exclamation of the brethren—“all hail the incarnate spirit of our order!”

The last scene came hastening on. And the hand of fate pointed to this lonely Convent of the Mountain Lake, as the place where the wrongs of years should be avenged, where the Tyrant should meet his secret and fearful doom.

“For long years these halls had been peopled by a monkish band, who wore their sacred robes as a cloak for blasphemies too horrible to name; while the Dukes, the Tyrant-Dukes of Florence, startled these ancient walls with the noonday debauch, and midnight orgie, the sunshine murder, or the torch-light massacre!

“Here not many days agone, came Albertine the Monk. Still in the confidence of the Duke—for a specious tale blinded the eyes of the Tyrant with regard to the part our brother bore in the escape of the Doomed—still in the confidence of the Duke, the convent doors flew open at his word. Lord Adrian found a home within these walls, and day by day, secretly and surely, Albertine made converts of the Abbott and the Brethren of this Monastery of crime.