Mary of Burgundy; or, The Revolt of Ghent. G. P. R. James

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СКАЧАТЬ dungeon was all in darkness; for, either from carelessness or design, no light had been left with him. But could his face have been seen, notwithstanding the agonizing thoughts that thrilled through his bosom, none of those wild contortions would there have been traced, which affect weaker beings under the like pangs. His hand was pressed sometimes firmly upon his brow, as if to hold the throbbing veins from bursting outright; and sometimes he bit his under lip unconsciously, or shut his teeth hard, striving to prevent the despair which mastered his heart from announcing its dominion by a groan. His eye might have been seen full of keen anguish, and the bright red flushing of his cheek might have told how strongly the body sympathized with the pangs of the mind; but all that the clearest light could have displayed would have been an effort to repress what was passing within, not the weakness of yielding to it. He lay quite still, without one voluntary movement--he suffered not his limbs to writhe--he tossed not to and fro, in the restlessness of agony--but remained quiet, if not tranquil, though full of deep, bitter, burning, voiceless thoughts.

      Thus hour passed after hour--for the wings of time, as they fly through the night of despair, are as rapid as when they cut the mid-day sky of joy. Thus hour passed after hour, from the time that the brutal Prevot closed the door of the dungeon; and the prisoner could scarcely believe that the castle clock was right, when eleven--midnight--one o'clock, chimed rapidly one after another, each leaving, between itself and the last, an interval that seemed but of a few minutes.

      The single stroke upon the bell--that, echoing through the long, solitary, and now silent passages and courts of the castle, passed unheeded by the sleeping guests, and only told to the watchful warder, or the sentry, that the first hour of a new day was gone--had scarcely sounded upon the ear of Albert Maurice when a new noise called his attention. It was a harsh, heavy, grating sound, as of some weighty body pushed slowly over a rough surface; and it appeared so near that his eye was immediately turned towards the door of the dungeon, expecting to see it open. It moved not, however: the sound still went on; and he now perceived that it did not come from that side of the cell.

      The apartment itself was a low-roofed, massive chamber, just below the surface of the earth; and seemed to be partly excavated from the rock on which the castle stood, partly formed by the solid foundations of the building. A single window, or spiracle, of about twelve inches in diameter, passed upwards through the thick masonry, to the external air beyond: and one of those short, massive pillars, which we sometimes see in the crypts of very ancient churches, standing in the centre, supported the roof of the dungeon, and apparently the basement of the castle itself; under the tremendous weight of which, a fanciful mind might have conceived the column to be crushed down; so broad and clumsy were its proportions, in comparison with those of the rudest Tuscan shaft that ever upheld a portico.

      From behind this pillar, the sounds that the prisoner heard appeared to proceed; and he might have imagined that some human being, confined in a neighbouring chamber, sought to communicate with him through the walls, had it not happened that he had caught the words of the Lord of Hannut in the morning; when, in speaking with Maillotin du Bac, that nobleman had declared that all the dungeons of the castle were untenanted. Still the noise continued, becoming more and more distinct every moment; and as, leaning on his arm upon his couch of straw, he gazed earnestly towards the other side of the vault, a single bright ray of light burst suddenly forth upon the darkness, and, streaming across the open space, painted a long perpendicular pencil of yellow brightness upon the wall close beside him.

      Albert Maurice started upon his feet; and perceived, to his surprise, the ray he beheld issued, beyond all doubt, from the body of the pillar itself. The reputed commune of the Lord of Hannut with the beings of another world, his dark and mysterious studies, and the extraordinary fulfilment which many of his astrological predictions were reported to have met with, had often reached the ear of Albert Maurice; but his mind was too enlightened to be credulous, at least, to that extent to which credulity was generally carried in that age. All the fearful circumstances, too, of his new situation had hitherto blotted out from his memory the rumours he had heard; and when he had entered the castle of Hannut, he looked upon it merely as a place of temporary confinement, from which he was to be led to ignominy and death. Now, however, when he beheld with his own eyes a beam of light, doubly bright from the darkness around, breaking forth from the face of the solid masonry, without any obvious cause or means, all that he had heard rose to remembrance, and without absolutely giving credit to the different tales which he thus recalled, he was certainly startled and surprised; and held his breath, with a feeling of awe and expectation, as he gazed on the spot whence that mysterious ray seemed to proceed.

      At the same time, the sound continued, and gradually, as it went on, the light expanded and grew more and more diffused. At length, it became evident, that a part of the massy column, about two feet from the ground, was opening in a perpendicular direction, slowly but steadily; and that the light issued from the aperture left by the rolling back, on either side, of two of the large stones which appeared to form a principal part of the shaft. For the first few minutes, the vacancy did not extend to a hand's breadth in wideness, though to about three feet in height, and nothing could be seen beyond, but the light pouring forth from within. A minute more, however, so much increased the aperture, that Albert Maurice could perceive a gauntleted hand, and an arm clothed in steel, turning slowly round in the inside what seemed to be the winch of a wheel. The form, to which this hand and arm belonged, was for some time concealed behind the stone; but, as the opening became larger, the blocks appeared to move with greater facility, and, at length, rolling back entirely, displayed to the eyes of the prisoner a narrow staircase in the heart of the pillar, with the head, arms, and chest of a powerful man, covered with armour. Beside him stood a complicated piece of machinery; by the agency of which, two of the large stones, forming the shaft of the column, were made to revolve upon the pivots of iron, that connected them with the rest of the masonry; and in a bracket, on the stairs, was fixed the burning torch, which afforded the light that now poured into the dungeon.

      Albert Maurice stood gazing in no small surprise. The feeling of awe--which, however near akin to fear, was not fear--that he had felt on first perceiving the light, was now succeeded by other sensations; and, had there been the slightest resemblance between the personal appearance of the man who stood before him, and that of Maillotin du Bac, or any of his band, he would have supposed that the purpose of the Prevot was to despatch him in prison; an event which not unfrequently took place, in the case of prisoners whose public execution might be dangerous to the tranquillity of the state.

      Totally different, however, in every respect, was the person whom he now beheld; for, though his form could not well be distinguished under the armour by which he was covered, yet that armour itself was a sufficient proof, at least to Albert Maurice, that the stranger was in no way connected with the band of the Prevot. Every plate of his mail was painted of a deep, leafy green; and even his helmet, which was without crest or plume, and the visor of which was down, was of the same forest colour. In other respects he seemed a tall, powerful man, formed equally for feats of activity and strength.

      Little time was allowed the prisoner for making further observations; for as soon as the stones had been rolled back as far as their construction permitted, the unexpected visitor at once sprang into the dungeon; though the young burgher remarked at the same time, that a leap which would have made any other arms clang, with a noise sufficient to awaken the whole castle, produced no sound from those of his new visitor.

      The mechanical means which he had used to procure an entrance had, at once, banished all superstitious fancies from the mind of Albert Maurice, nor did even his noiseless tread recall them. The young burgher, however, still looked upon the man-at-arms with some feelings of doubt and astonishment; though his own presence in the dungeon was far from seeming to surprise this nocturnal visitor, who, advancing directly towards him, clasped his arm, saying, in a low voice, "Follow me!"

      Albert Maurice paused, and gazed upon the stranger--over whose green armour the flashing red light of the torch cast a fitful and unpleasant glare--with a glance of suspicion and hesitation; but his irresolution СКАЧАТЬ