The Brighton Road Part 18

"'Can you see nothing?'

"'Nothing,' replied Alan.

"'You knew Sir Piers Rookwood?'

"'Is it he?' asked Alan, drawing near her.

"'It is,' replied Lady Rookwood; 'I have followed him hither, and I will follow him whithersoever he leads me, were it to----'

"'What doth he now?' asked Alan; 'do you see him still?'

"'The figure points to that sarcophagus,' returned Lady Rookwood--'can you raise up the lid?'

"'No,' replied Alan; 'my strength will not avail to lift it.'

"'Yet let the trial be made,' said Lady Rookwood; 'the figure points there still--my own arm shall aid you.'

"Alan watched her in dumb wonder. She advanced towards the marble monument, and beckoned him to follow. He reluctantly complied. Without any expectation of being able to move the ponderous lid of the sarcophagus, at Lady Rookwood's renewed request he applied himself to the task. What was his surprise when, beneath their united efforts, he found the ponderous slab slowly revolve upon its vast hinges, and, with little further difficulty, it was completely elevated, though it still required the exertion of all Alan's strength to prop it open and prevent its falling back.

"'What does it contain?' asked Lady Rookwood.

"'A warrior's ashes,' returned Alan.

"'There is a rusty dagger upon a fold of faded linen,' cried Lady Rookwood, holding down the light.

"'It is the weapon with which the first dame of the house of Rookwood was stabbed,' said Alan, with a grim smile:

'Which whoso findeth in the tomb Shall clutch until the hour of doom; And when 'tis grasped by hand of clay The curse of blood shall pa.s.s away.

So saith the rhyme. Have you seen enough?'

"'No,' said Lady Rookwood, precipitating herself into the marble coffin.

'That weapon shall be mine.'

"'Come forth--come forth,' cried Alan. 'My arm trembles--I cannot support the lid.'

"'I will have it, though I grasp it to eternity,' shrieked Lady Rookwood, vainly endeavouring to wrest away the dagger, which was fastened, together with the linen upon which it lay, by some adhesive substance to the bottom of the sh.e.l.l.

"At this moment Alan Rookwood happened to cast his eye upward, and he then beheld what filled him with new terror. The axe of the sable statue was poised above its head, as in the act to strike him. Some secret machinery, it was evident, existed between the sarcophagus lid and this mysterious image. But in the first impulse of his alarm Alan abandoned his hold of the slab, and it sunk slowly downwards. He uttered a loud cry as it moved. Lady Rookwood heard this cry. She raised herself at the same moment--the dagger was in her hand--she pressed it against the lid, but its downward force was too great to be withstood. The light was within the sarcophagus and Alan could discern her features. The expression was terrible. She uttered one shriek, and the lid closed for ever.

"Alan was in total darkness. The light had been enclosed with Lady Rookwood. There was something so horrible in her probable fate that even _he_ shuddered as he thought upon it. Exerting all his remaining strength, he essayed to raise the lid; but now it was more firmly closed than ever.

It defied all his power. Once, for an instant, he fancied that it yielded to his straining sinews, but it was only his hand that slided upon the surface of the marble. It was fixed--immovable. The sides and lid rang with the strokes which the unfortunate lady bestowed upon them with the dagger's point; but these sounds were not long heard. Presently all was still; the marble ceased to vibrate with her blows. Alan struck the lid with his knuckles, but no response was returned. All was silent.

[Sidenote: FRENZY]

"He now turned his attention to his own situation, which had become sufficiently alarming. An hour must have elapsed, yet Luke had not arrived. The door of the vault was closed--the key was in the lock, and on the outside. He was himself a prisoner within the tomb. What if Luke should _not_ return? What if he were slain, as it might chance, in the enterprise? That thought flashed across his brain like an electric shock.

None knew of his retreat but his grandson. He might perish of famine within this desolate vault.

"He checked this notion as soon as it was formed--it was too dreadful to be indulged in. A thousand circ.u.mstances might conspire to detain Luke. He was sure to come. Yet the solitude, the darkness, was awful, almost intolerable. The dying and the dead were around him. He dared not stir.

"Another hour--an age it seemed to him--had pa.s.sed. Still Luke came not.

Horrible forebodings crossed him; but he would not surrender himself to them. He rose, and crawled in the direction, as he supposed, of the door--fearful even of the stealthy sound of his own footsteps. He reached it, and his heart once more throbbed with hope. He bent his ear to the key; he drew in his breath; he listened for some sound, but nothing was to be heard. A groan would have been almost music in his ears.

"Another hour was gone! He was now a prey to the most frightful apprehensions, agitated in turns by the wildest emotions of rage and terror. He at one moment imagined that Luke had abandoned him, and heaped curses upon his head; at the next, convinced that he had fallen, he bewailed with equal bitterness his grandson's fate and his own. He paced the tomb like one distracted; he stamped upon the iron plate; he smote with his hands upon the door; he shouted, and the vault hollowly echoed his lamentations. But Time's sand ran on, and Luke arrived not.

"Alan now abandoned himself wholly to despair. He could no longer antic.i.p.ate his grandson's coming--no longer hope for deliverance. His fate was sealed. Death awaited him. He must antic.i.p.ate his slow but inevitable stroke, enduring all the grinding horrors of starvation. The contemplation of such an end was madness, but he was forced to contemplate it now; and so appalling did it appear to his imagination, that he half resolved to dash out his brains against the walls of the sepulchre, and put an end at once to his tortures; and nothing, except a doubt whether he might not, by imperfectly accomplishing his purpose, increase his own suffering, prevented him from putting this dreadful idea into execution. His dagger was gone, and he had no other weapon. Terrors of a new kind now a.s.sailed him. The dead, he fancied, were bursting from their coffins, and he peopled the darkness with grisly phantoms. They were round about him on each side, whirling and rustling, gibbering, groaning, shrieking, laughing, and lamenting. He was stunned, stifled. The air seemed to grow suffocating, pestilential; the wild laughter was redoubled; the horrible troop a.s.sailed him; they dragged him along the tomb, and amid their howls he fell, and became insensible.

[Sidenote: TORMENT]

"When he returned to himself, it was some time before he could collect his scattered faculties; and when the agonising consciousness of his terrible situation forced itself upon his mind, he had nigh relapsed into oblivion.

He arose. He rushed towards the door: he knocked against it with his knuckles till the blood streamed from them; he scratched against it with his nails till they were torn off by the roots. With insane fury he hurled himself against the iron frame: it was in vain. Again he had recourse to the trap-door. He searched for it; he found it. He laid himself upon the ground. There was no interval of s.p.a.ce in which he could insert a finger's point. He beat it with his clenched hand; he tore it with his teeth; he jumped upon it; he smote it with his heel. The iron returned a sullen sound.

"He again essayed the lid of the sarcophagus. Despair nerved his strength.

He raised the slab a few inches. He shouted, screamed, but no answer was returned; and again the lid fell.

"'She is dead!' cried Alan. 'Why have I not shared her fate? But mine is to come. And such a death!--oh, oh!' And, frenzied at the thought, he again hurried to the door, and renewed his fruitless attempts to escape, till nature gave way, and he sank upon the floor, groaning and exhausted.

"Physical suffering now began to take the place of his mental tortures.

Parched and consumed with a fierce internal fever, he was tormented by unappeasable thirst--of all human ills the most unendurable. His tongue was dry and dusty, his throat inflamed; his lips had lost all moisture. He licked the humid floor; he sought to imbibe the nitrous drops from the walls; but, instead of allaying his thirst, they increased it. He would have given the world, had he possessed it, for a draught of cold spring-water. Oh, to have died with his lips upon some bubbling fountain's marge! But to perish thus!

"Nor were the pangs of hunger wanting. He had to endure all the horrors of famine as well as the agonies of quenchless thirst.

"In this dreadful state three days and nights pa.s.sed over Alan's fated head. Nor night nor day had he. Time, with him, was only measured by its duration, and that seemed interminable. Each hour added to his suffering, and brought with it no relief. During this period of prolonged misery reason often tottered on her throne. Sometimes he was under the influence of the wildest pa.s.sions. He dragged coffins from their recesses, hurled them upon the ground, striving to break them open and drag forth their loathsome contents. Upon other occasions he would weep bitterly and wildly; and once--once only--did he attempt to pray; but he started from his knees with an echo of infernal laughter, as he deemed, ringing in his ears. Then, again, would he call down imprecations upon himself and his whole line, trampling upon the pile of coffins he had reared; and, lastly, more subdued, would creep to the boards that contained the body of his child, kissing them with a frantic outbreak of affection.

"At length he became sensible of his approaching dissolution. To him the thought of death might well be terrible; but he quailed not before it, or rather seemed, in his latest moments, to resume all his wonted firmness of character. Gathering together his remaining strength, he dragged himself towards the niche wherein his brother, Sir Reginald Rookwood, was deposited, and, placing his hand upon the coffin, solemnly exclaimed, 'My curse--my dying curse--be upon thee evermore!'

"Falling with his face upon the coffin, Alan instantly expired. In this att.i.tude his remains were discovered."

How to repress a smile at the picture conjured up of Lady Rookwood "precipitating herself into the marble coffin"! How not to refrain from laughing at the fantastic description of Alan piling up coffins in the vault and jumping upon them!

XXVIII

Half a mile below Cuckfield stands Ansty Cross, (the "Handstay" of old road-books, and said to derive from the Anglo-Saxon, _Heanstige_, meaning highway), a cl.u.s.ter of a few cottages and the "Green Cross" inn, once old and picturesque, now rebuilt in the Ready-made Picturesque order of architecture. Here stood one of the numerous turnpike-gates.

Close by is Riddens Farm, a picturesque little homestead, with tile-hung front and cl.u.s.tered chimneys. It still contains one of those old Suss.e.x cast-iron firebacks mentioned in an earlier page, dated 1622.

Below Ansty, two miles or thereby down the road, the little river Adur is pa.s.sed at Bridge Farm, and the twin towns of St. John's Common and Burgess Hill are reached.

Before 1820 their sites were fields and common land, wild and gorse-covered, free and open. Few houses were then in sight; the "Anchor"

inn, by Burgess Hill, the reputed haunt of smugglers, who stored their contraband in the woods and heaths close by; and the "King's Head," at St.

John's Common, with two or three cottages--these were all.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD SUSs.e.x FIREBACK, RIDDENS FARM.]

[Sidenote: BURGESS HILL]