Traditions of Lancashire Volume II Part 66

The night was dark and stormy. Torches, distributed about the streets, rocked and swung to and fro in their sockets, the flames, with a strange and flickering glare, giving an unnatural distorted appearance to objects within reach; and to some solitary individual, at this late hour hurrying alone, the grim aspect of a demon or a spectre to the disturbed imagination of the lover. His courage, at times on the point of deserting him, revived when he remembered that another's life, dearer than his own, depended on his exertions. The streets, almost deserted, swam with continually acc.u.mulating torrents; but he felt not that terrible tempest; the turmoil, the conflict within, was louder than the roar and tumult of outward elements.

Almost ere he was aware he found himself opposite the entrance of the painter's habitation; a shudder, like a death-chill, shot through his frame. He applied his key. A distant gleam, a dim lurid light, seemed to quiver before him. He heard the quick jar, the withdrawing bolt, that gave him admittance, as though it were a spectral voice warning him to desist.

The unknown dangers he antic.i.p.ated, rendered more terrific by their vague indefinite character, were enough to appal a stouter bosom. De Vessey would have faced and defied earthly perils, but these were almost beyond his fort.i.tude to endure. Love, however, gave excitement, if not courage, and he resolved either to succeed or perish in the attempt. The stairs were partially illumined by an uncertain glimmer from a narrow window into the street. He felt his way, and every step sent the life-blood curdling to his heart. He reached the topmost stair; laid one hand on the latch. He listened; all was still save the hollow gusts that rumbled round the dwelling.

With a feeling somewhat akin to desperation he entered. A lamp, yet burning, emitted a feeble glare, but was well-nigh spent, giving a more dismal aspect to this lonely chamber. It was apparently unoccupied. The chair, the black funeral pall left by the officers of justice over the pallet, the mysterious cabinet, the desk where the painter usually sat, all remained undisturbed. De Vessey's attention was more particularly directed towards the cabinet; there alone, according to his instructions, were the means of deliverance. A cold, clammy perspiration, a freezing shiver, came upon him as he approached. He laid one hand on the latch; it resisted as before. He tried force, a loud groan was heard in the chamber. Every fibre of his frame seemed to grow rigid; every limb stiffened with horror; and he drew back.

This was a sorry beginning to the adventure, and he inwardly repented of his rashness. Looking round in extreme agony, his eyes rested on the black pall. Could it be, or was it from the expiring glimmer of the lamp? The drapery appeared to move. Another and a deeper groan! De Vessey for a s.p.a.ce was unable to move; but his courage came apace, inasmuch as it was some relief, and a diversion from the awful mysteries of that grim cabinet. He approached the pallet hastily, throwing off the heavy coverlet. The rec.u.mbent body was yet beneath, but convulsed, as though struggling to free itself from an oppressive burden. De Vessey watched, while his blood froze with terror.

Gradually these convulsive movements extended to the features. The lips quivered as though essaying to speak; the eye-b.a.l.l.s rolling rapidly under their lids. A slight flush dawned upon the cheek; the hands were tightly closed, and another groan preceded one desperate attempt to throw off the load which prevented returning animation. At length the eyes opened with a ghastly stare; but evidently conveying no outward impression to the inward sense. With a loud shriek the body started up; then, uttering a wild and piercing cry, rolled on the floor, foaming and struggling for life as though with some powerful adversary.

"Save me!--save me!" was uttered in a tone so harrowing and dreadful, more than mortal agony, that De Vessey would have fled, but his limbs refused their office.

"He strangles me! Fiend--have--have mercy! Wilt thou not? Oh, mercy, mercy, Heaven!" His senses, though evidently bewildered, resumed their functions. With a glare of intense anguish he appeared as though supplicating help and deliverance.

"Who art thou?" was the first inquiry and symptom of returning reason.

"I know thee, De Vessey. But why art thou here? Another victim. Yes, to torture me. Where am I? In my own chamber! Oh--that horrid cabinet!

Yet--yet these cruel torments. Will they never end?"

De Vessey immediately perceived there was no delusion; the mortal form of the artist was really before him. Terrible though it were, yet it was a relief to have companionship with his kind, a being of flesh and blood beside him. He might now peradventure accomplish his task.

Providence, maybe, had opened a way for his deliverance, and hope once more dawned on his spirit. He helped the miserable artist to regain his couch, and sought to soothe him, beseeching the helpless victim not to give way to frenzy, doubtless resulting from his strange and emaciated condition. A miracle or a spell had been wrought for his resuscitation; but the events of the last few hours were alike enigmas, beyond the common operations of nature to explain.

"Yesterday I attempted suicide," said the artist, "taking poison to escape a life insupportable to me. Fain would I have broken the chain which binds me to this miserable existence. But yon tyrant hath given me a charmed life. I cannot even die!"

"Thy body was dragged from the Seine."

"How?" inquired the artist, with an incredulous look.

"And exposed this morning in the Morgue," continued De Vessey.

"When will my sufferings cease? How have I prayed for deliverance from this infernal thraldom!"

"Yon deceiver hath doubtless thrown thee into the river, and supposing thou wert dead, he designs me to supply thy place; to carry on the dark mystery of iniquity, a glimpse of which hath already been revealed."

"Would that I had been left to perish--that my doom were ended.

Avarice--ambition--how enslaved are your victims! How have I longed for my miserable cottage, my poverty, my obscurity--cold and pinching want, but a quiet conscience to season my scanty meal! I bartered all for gold, for fame and--misery! A cruel bondage! compared to which I could envy the meanest thing that crawls on this abject earth. In my trance I dreamed of green fields and babbling streams; of my brethren, my playmates, my days of innocence and sport, when all was freshness and antic.i.p.ation--life one bright vista beyond, opening to sunny regions of rapture and delight. And now, what am I?--a wretch, degraded, undone--a spectacle of misery beyond what human thought can conceive. Doomed to years, ages it may be, of woe--to scenes of horror such as tongue ne'er told, and even imagination might scarce endure, and my miseries but a foretaste of that hereafter!"

Here the guilty victim writhed in a paroxysm of agony; his veins swollen almost to bursting. Whether real or imaginary, whether a victim to insanity or of some supernatural agent, its influence was not the less terrible in its effects. Starting suddenly from his grovelling posture, he cried, fixing his eyes on De Vessey with a searching glance--

"What brings thee hither?"

"Leonora is in jeopardy by your spells. I seek her deliverance."

"She is beyond rescue. Leonora da Rimini is THE SKELETON'S BRIDE."

Here the painter threw such a repulsive glance towards the cabinet that the cavalier shrank back as though expecting some grisly spectre from its portals; yet, himself the subject of an extraordinary fascination, he could not withdraw his gaze.

"Fly, fly, or thou art lost! My tormentor will be here anon--I would have saved her, and he fixed his burning gripe here, I feel it still; not a night pa.s.ses that he comes not hither. Away! shouldest thou meet him thy doom is fixed, and for ever. I would not that another fell into his toils. Couldest thou know, ay, but as a whisper, the secrets of this prison-house, thy spirit would melt, thy flesh would shrink as though the hot wind of the desert had pa.s.sed over it. What I have endured, and what I must endure, are alike unutterable."

"Thy keeper comes not to-night. He hath sent me to this chamber of death instead. He knows not thou art alive."

"Thee!--to--but I must not reveal; my tongue cleaves to my mouth. Nay, nay, it cannot be; none but a fiend could do his behest. Away! for thy life, away!"

De Vessey related the events of the last few hours. The artist ruminated awhile, then abruptly exclaimed--

"He hath some diabolical design thereupon which I am not yet able to fathom. That it is for thine undoing, Sir Knight, for thy misery here and hereafter, doubt not. Thou hast promised, but not yet offered him a victim. Thus far thou art safe; but he will pursue thee; and think not to escape his vengeance. How to proceed is beyond my counsel.

Should midnight come, thou wouldest see horrors in this chamber that might quail the stoutest heart. Thou art bereft of life or reason if thou tarry."

"I leave not without an attempt, even should I fail, to wrench her, who is dearer to me than either, from that demon's grasp. I will not hence alone."

"Alas! I fear there is little hope; yet shall he not escape yonder prison before to-morrow. Even his arts cannot convey him through its walls; the magician's body, if such he be, is subject to like impediments with our own. This night, for good or ill, is thine."

"To work, then, to work," said De Vessey, as though inspired with new energy, "to the rescue, and by this good cross," kissing the handle of his sword, "I defy ye!"

By main force he attempted, and in the end tore open the door of the cabinet. The grinning skeleton was before him, the miniature in its grasp. A moment's pause. The cavalier carefully surveyed his prize.

Suspended by an iron chain, the links entwined round its bony arm, rendered the picture difficult, if not impossible, to detach without touching the limbs. Gathering fresh courage from the countenance and smile of his beloved, he s.n.a.t.c.hed the portrait, but the wearer was too tenacious of the charmed treasure, and resisted his utmost efforts. He thought a savage, a malicious grin crept upon his features. A smile more than usually hideous mocked him. From those hollow sockets too, or his imagination played strange antics, a faint glare shot forth. A dizzy terror crept over him. His brain reeled. His energies were becoming prostrate; and unless one desperate attempt could be made, all hopes of rescue were past. He sought the ebony wand, but forgetful or incautious, laid hold of the chain which encircled the skeleton's wrist. A bell answered to the pressure,--a deep hollow reverberation, like a death-knell, in his ear.

"Hark! that iron tongue--lost--lost! Oh! mercy, mercy!" shrieked the death-painter, covering his eyes.

At this moment De Vessey heard a noise like the jarring of bolts and hinges. Ere he was aware the skeleton's arms were fastened round him; the doors closed; the floor gave way under his feet. He felt the pressure relaxing; he fell; the hissing wind rushed in his ears.

Stunned with his fall, he lay for a while in the dark, scarcely able to move. It was not long ere he was able to grope about. Rotting carcases and bones met his touch--a noisome charnel-house gorged with human bodies in all the various stages of decay. His heart sickened with a fearful apprehension that he was left to perish by a lingering death, like those around him. Despair for the first time benumbed his faculties. His courage gave way at the dreadful antic.i.p.ation, and he grasped the very carcase on which he trod for succour.

Suddenly, a loud yell burst above him. A blaze of burning timbers flashed forth--crackling, they hissed, and fell into the vault.

Through an opening overhead he saw the skeleton seized by devouring flames. They twined, they clung round it. Their forky tongues licked the bones that appeared to writhe and crawl in living agony.

Soon the chain which held the portrait gave way, and it dropped at his feet unhurt. A shriek issued from the flaming cabinet, and he saw the painter with a burning torch above. A maniac joy lighted up his features; he shouted to De Vessey, and with frantic gestures beckoned that he should escape.

"If thou canst climb yonder stair," he cried, "before the flames cut off thy retreat, thou art safe. See, Leonora is already free.

Haste--this way--there--there--now leap--mind thy footing--'tis too frail--creep round--those rafters are unbroken; another spring, and thou mayest reach them in safety."

The flames were close upon him. He was nigh suffocated. A perilous attempt; but at length he gained the upper floor, and his deliverer exclaimed--

"Thanks, thanks, he is safe! By this good hand, too, that wrought your misery. Oh! that a life of penitence and prayer might atone for my guilt. It was a thought inspired by Heaven, prompted me to set on fire that insatiate demon, to whom my taskmaster offered those wretched victims, and every month a bride, on pain of his own destruction. What might be the nature of that skeleton form, or their compact, thou canst neither know nor understand. Even I, though nightly witnessing horrors which have given to youth the aspect and decrepitude of age, cannot explain. A connection, if not inseparable, yet intimate as body and soul, existed between those demon-haunted bones and yon monster who sought and accomplished my ruin. What I have seen must not, cannot be told. My lips are for ever sealed. But the flames are fast gaining on us. Let us hasten ere they prevent our retreat. The whole fabric will shortly be enveloped, and every record of this diabolical confederacy consumed. Go to thy lady-love. She is recovered, and as one newly-awakened from some terrific dream. With the earliest dawn hie thee to the prison lest _he_ escape. Let him be instantly secured.

When summoned, I will not fail to confront, to denounce the wretch. He cannot penetrate yonder walls save by fraud or stratagem. How I have escaped death is one of the mysteries which time perchance may never develop. One might fancy the cunning leech who supplied the drug did play me false. Instead of poison, mayhap, one of those potions of which we have heard, that so benumb and stupify the faculties that for a s.p.a.ce they mimic death, nor can anything rouse or recover from its influence until the appointed time be past."

They hurried away as he spoke. De Vessey could scarcely wait until daylight. His first care was to secure the old sorcerer. He sought aid from the police, and, as far as might be, revealed the dreadful secret.

An immediate visit was made to the cell. On entering, its inmate was in bed--a scorched, a blackened corpse!

It may be supposed the lover was not long in attending on his mistress. She was free from disorder, and happily unconscious of what had pa.s.sed during the interval, save that an ugly dream had troubled her. Nor was she aware that more than one night had elapsed. In a few days afterwards De Vessey led her to the altar.

The mystery was never fully penetrated. That imposture and partial insanity might be involved, and have the greatest share in its development, is beyond doubt; but they cannot explain the whole of these diabolical proceedings. That the powers of darkness may have power over the bodies of wicked and abandoned men cannot be denied.

Whether this narration discloses another instance of such mysterious agency our readers must determine.

What the painter knew was buried in eternal silence. The monks of La Trappe received a brother whose vows were never broken!