The Rise of Iskander Part 9

Three or four days pa.s.sed away at the castle of Justinian, in which Nicaeus used his utmost exertions to divert the anxiety of Iduna. One day was spent in examining the castle, on another he amused her with a hawking party, on a third he carried her to the neighbouring ruins of a temple, and read his favourite aeschylus to her amid its lone and elegant columns. It was impossible for any one to be more amiable and entertaining, and Iduna could not resist recognising his many virtues and accomplishments. The courier had not yet returned from Croia, which Nicaeus accounted for by many satisfactory reasons. The suspense, however, at length became so painful to Iduna, that she proposed to the Prince of Athens that they should, without further delay, proceed to that city. As usual, Nicaeus was not wanting in many plausible arguments in favour of their remaining at the castle, but Iduna was resolute.

"Indeed, dear Nicaeus," she said, "my anxiety to see my father, or hear from him, is so great, that there is scarcely any danger which I would not encounter to gratify my wish. I feel that I have already taxed your endurance too much. But we are no longer in a hostile land, and guards and guides are to be engaged. Let me then depart alone!"

"Iduna!" exclaimed Nicaeus, reproachfully. "Alas! Iduna, you are cruel, but I did not expect this!"

"Dear Nicaeus!" she answered, "you always misinterpret me! It would infinitely delight me to be restored to Hunniades by yourself, but these are no common times, and you are no common person. You forget that there is one that has greater claims upon you even than a forlorn maiden, your country. And whether Iskander be at Croia or not, Greece requires the presence and exertions of the Prince of Athens."

"I have no country," replied Nicaeus, mournfully, "and no object for which to exert myself."

"Nicaeus! Is this the poetic patriot who was yesterday envying Themistocles?"

"Alas! Iduna, yesterday you were my muse. I do not wonder you are wearied of this castle!" continued the prince in a melancholy tone.

"This spot contains nothing to interest you; but for me, it holds all that is dear, and, O! gentle maiden, one smile from you, one smile of inspiration, and I would not envy Themistocles, and might perhaps rival him."

They were walking together in the hall of the castle; Iduna stepped aside and affected to examine a curious buckler, Nicaeus followed her, and placing his arm gently in hers, led her away.

"Dearest Iduna," he said, "pardon me, but men struggle for their fate.

Mine is in your power. It is a contest between misery and happiness, glory and perhaps infamy. Do not then wonder that I will not yield my chance of the brighter fortune without an effort. Once more I appeal to your pity, if not to your love. Were Iduna mine, were she to hold out but the possibility of her being mine, there is no career, solemnly I avow what solemnly I feel, there is no career of which I could not be capable, and no condition to which I would not willingly subscribe. But this certainty, or this contingency, I must have: I cannot exist without the alternative. And now upon my knees, I implore her to grant it to me!"

"Nicaeus," said Iduna, "this continued recurrence to a forbidden subject is most ungenerous."

"Alas! Iduna, my life depends upon a word, which you will not speak, and you talk of generosity. No! Iduna, it is not I that I am ungenerous."

"Let me say then unreasonable, Prince Nicaeus."

"Say what you like, Iduna, provided you say that you are mine."

"Pardon me, sir, I am free."

"Free! You have ever underrated me, Iduna. To whom do you owe this boasted freedom?"

"This is not the first time," remarked Iduna, "that you have reminded me of an obligation, the memory of which is indelibly impressed upon my heart, and for which even the present conversation cannot make me feel less grateful. I can never forget that I owe all that is dear to yourself and your companion."

"My companion!" replied the Prince of Athens, pale and pa.s.sionate. "My companion! Am I ever to be reminded of my companion?"

"Nicaeus!" said Iduna; "if you forget what is due to me, at least endeavour to remember what is due to yourself?"

"Beautiful being!" said the prince, advancing and pa.s.sionately seizing her hand; "pardon me! pardon me! I am not master of my reason; I am nothing, I am nothing while Iduna hesitates!"

"She does not hesitate, Nicaeus. I desire, I require, that this conversation shall cease; shall never, never be renewed."

"And I tell thee, haughty woman," said the Prince of Athens, grinding his teeth, and speaking with violent action, "that I will no longer be despised with impunity. Iduna is mine, or is no one else's."

"Is it possible?" exclaimed the daughter of Hunniades. "Is it, indeed, come to this? But why am I surprised! I have long known Nicaeus. I quit this castle instantly."

"You are a prisoner," replied the prince very calmly, and leaning with folded arms against the wall.

"A prisoner!" exclaimed Iduna, a little alarmed. "A prisoner! I defy you, sir. You are only a guest like myself. I will appeal to the Seneschal in the absence of his lord. He will never permit the honour of his master's flag to be violated by the irrational caprice of a pa.s.sionate boy."

"What lord?" inquired Nicaeus.

"Your friend, the Lord Justinian," answered Iduna. "He could little antic.i.p.ate such an abuse of his hospitality."

"My friend, the Lord Justinian!" replied Nicaeus, with a malignant smile.

"I am surprised that a personage of the Lady Iduna's deep discrimination should so easily be deceived by 'a pa.s.sionate boy!' Is it possible that you could have supposed for a moment that there was any other lord of this castle, save your devoted slave?"

"What!" exclaimed Iduna, really frightened.

"I have, indeed, the honour of finding the Lady Iduna my guest,"

continued Nicaeus, in a tone of bitter raillery. "This castle of Kallista, the fairest in all Epirus, I inherit from my mother. Of late I have seldom visited it; but, indeed, it will become a favourite residence of mine, if it be, as I antic.i.p.ate, the scene of my nuptial ceremony."

Iduna looked around her with astonishment, then threw herself upon a couch, and burst into tears. The Prince of Athens walked up and down the hall with an air of determined coolness.

"Perfidious!" exclaimed Iduna between her sobs.

"Lady Iduna," said the prince; and he seated himself by her side. "I will not attempt to palliate a deception which your charms could alone inspire and can alone justify. Hear me, Lady Iduna, hear me with calmness. I love you; I love you with a pa.s.sion which has been as constant as it is strong. My birth, my rank, my fortunes, do not disqualify me for an union with the daughter of the great Hunniades.

If my personal claims may sink in comparison with her surpa.s.sing excellence, I am yet to learn that any other prince in Christendom can urge a more effective plea. I am young; the ladies of the court have called me handsome; by your great father's side I have broken some lances in your honour; and even Iduna once confessed she thought me clever. Come, come, be merciful! Let my beautiful Athens receive a fitting mistress! A holy father is in readiness dear maiden. Come now, one smile! In a few days we shall reach your father's camp, and then we will kneel, as I do now, and beg a blessing on our happy union." As he spoke, he dropped upon his knee, and stealing her hand, looked into her face. It was sorrowful and gloomy.

"It is in vain, Nicaeus," said Iduna, "to appeal to your generosity; it is useless to talk of the past; it is idle to reproach you for the present. I am a woman, alone and persecuted, where I could least antic.i.p.ate persecution. Nicaeus, I never can be yours; and now I deliver myself to the mercy of Almighty G.o.d."

"'Tis well," said Nicaeus. "From the tower of the castle you may behold the waves of the Ionian Sea. You will remain here a close prisoner, until one of my galleys arrive from Piraeus to bear us to Italy. Mine you must be, Iduna. It remains for you to decide under what circ.u.mstances.

Continue in your obstinacy, and you may bid farewell for ever to your country and to your father. Be reasonable, and a destiny awaits you, which offers everything that has. .h.i.therto been considered the source or cause of happiness." Thus speaking, the prince retired, leaving the Lady Iduna to her own unhappy thoughts.

CHAPTER 19

The Lady Iduna was at first inclined to view the conduct of the Prince of Athens as one of those pa.s.sionate and pa.s.sing ebullitions in which her long acquaintance with him had taught her he was accustomed to indulge. But when on retiring soon after to her apartments, she was informed by her attendant matron that she must in future consider herself a prisoner, and not venture again to quit them without permission, she began to tremble at the possible violence of an ill-regulated mind. She endeavoured to interest her attendant in her behalf; but the matron was too well schooled to evince any feeling or express any opinion on the subject; and indeed, at length, fairly informed Iduna that she was commanded to confine her conversation to the duties of her office.

The Lady Iduna was very unhappy. She thought of her father, she thought of Iskander. The past seemed a dream; she was often tempted to believe that she was still, and had ever been, a prisoner in the Serail of Adrianople; and that all the late wonderful incidents of her life were but the shifting scenes of some wild slumber. And then some slight incident, the sound of a bell or the sign of some holy emblem, a.s.sured her she was in a Christian land, and convinced her of the strange truth that she was indeed in captivity, and a prisoner, above all others, to the fond companion of her youth. Her indignation at the conduct of Nicaeus roused her courage; she resolved to make an effort to escape.

Her rooms were only lighted from above; she determined to steal forth at night into the gallery; the door was secured. She hastened back to her chamber in fear and sorrow, and wept.

Twice in the course of the day the stern and silent matron visited Iduna with her food; and as she retired, secured the door. This was the only individual that the imprisoned lady ever beheld. And thus heavily rolled on upwards of a week. On the eve of the ninth day, Iduna was surprised by the matron presenting her a letter as she quitted the chamber for the night. Iduna seized it with a feeling of curiosity not unmixed with pleasure. It was the only incident that had occurred during her captivity. She recognised the hand-writing of Nicaeus, and threw it down with; vexation at her silliness in supposing, for a moment, that the matron could have been the emissary of any other person.

Yet the letter must be read, and at length she opened it. It informed her that a ship had arrived from Athens at the coast, and that to-morrow she must depart for Italy. It told her also, that the Turks, under Mahomed, had invaded Albania; and that the Hungarians, under the command of her father, had come to support the Cross. It said nothing of Iskander. But it reminded her that little more than the same time that would carry her to the coast to embark for a foreign land, would, were she wise, alike enable Nicaeus to place her in her father's arms, and allow him to join in the great struggle for his country and his creed.

The letter was written with firmness, but tenderly. It left, however, on the mind of Iduna an impression of the desperate resolution of the writer.

Now it so happened, that as this unhappy lady jumped from her couch, and paced the room in the perturbation of her mind, the wind of her drapery extinguished her lamp. As her attendant, or visitor, had paid her last visit for the day, there seemed little chance of its being again illumined. The miserable are always more unhappy in the dark. Light is the greatest of comforters. And so this little misfortune seemed to the forlorn Iduna almost overwhelming. And as she attempted to look around, and wrung her hands in very woe, her attention was attracted by a brilliant streak of light upon the wall, which greatly surprised her.

She groped her way in its direction, and slowly stretching forth her hand, observed that it made its way through a c.h.i.n.k in the frame of one of the great mirrors which were inlaid in the wall. And as she pressed the frame, she felt to her surprise that it sprang forward. Had she not been very cautious the advancing mirror would have struck her with great force, but she had presence of mind to withdraw her hand very gradually, repressing the swiftness of the spring. The aperture occasioned by the opening of the mirror consisted of a recess, formed by a closed-up window. An old wooden shutter, or blind, in so ruinous a state, that the light freely made its way, was the only barrier against the elements.

Iduna, seizing the handle which remained, at once drew it open with little difficulty.

The captive gazed with gladdened feelings upon the free and beautiful scene. Beneath her rose the rich and aromatic shrubs tinged with the soft and silver light of eve: before her extended wide and fertile champaign, skirted by the dark and undulating mountains: in the clear sky, glittering and sharp, sparkled the first crescent of the new moon, an auspicious omen to the Moslemin invaders.

Iduna gazed with, joy upon the landscape, and then hastily descending from the recess, she placed her hands to her eyes, so long unaccustomed to the light. Perhaps, too, she indulged in momentary meditation. For suddenly seizing a number of shawls; which were lying on one of the couches, she knotted them together, and then striving with all her force, she placed the heaviest, coach on one end of the costly cord, and then throwing the other out of the window, and entrusting herself to the merciful care of the holy Virgin, the brave daughter of Hunniades successfully dropped down into the garden below.

She stopped to breathe, and to revel in her emanc.i.p.ated existence. It was a bold enterprise gallantly achieved. But the danger had now only commenced. She found that she had alighted at the back of the castle.

She stole along upon tip-toe, timid as a fawn. She remembered a small wicket-gate that led into the open country. She arrived at the gate. It was of course guarded. The single sentinel was kneeling before an image of St. George, beside him was an empty drinking-cup and an exhausted wineskin.