The Macabre Megapack. Lafcadio Hearn

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ I must depart—noble kinsman! Tomorrow—today—”

      “Not so!” cried the Baron. “Thy duty, Edgar, is to be a man! Flee not from danger, like a weak, faint-hearted churl! Take the knowledge to thy heart, that she whom thou lovest is happy—her troth being plighted to another; and respect her innocence and truth! She loves thee as a brother: crush down thine ill-fated passion, and be to her a brother, indeed!”

      “What do you ask?” faltered Edgar.

      “Not more than thou canst accomplish, my true-hearted friend!” answered Sir Aubrey. “Will you deny me this one boon?”

      “No!” said the young man; and though the conflict of his soul was evident, so also was the victory he obtained, when, with the dignity of virtuous resolution, he pressed the hand of his benefactor.

      After this, Edgar continued to be the joy of the household, though he spent little time alone with Malvine. In the evening circle, he would entertain them with anecdotes of his foreign travel, and the strange countries he had visited. One night, when a storm raved without, and the quiet circle was formed, as usual, in the antique hall, through the crevices of which rushed the wind, flaring the candles, and chilling those who felt it, Malvine observed that Edgar was less cheerful than usual, and that his looks were bent in abstraction upon the ground.

      “What aileth my good cousin?” she said, playfully, at length. “You were so merry and full of tales erewhile! Why now are you so grave and silent? ’Tis but ill weather for the season, but there are warm hearts and glowing fires within doors.”

      The young man passed his hand across his brow.

      “I pray your pardon,” he replied, “that I thus forget myself in gloomy recollections, but the storm conjured up such. It was on such a night, in Italy, that I met with one of those whose like I pray unto Heaven I may never more see!”

      “Ha!” exclaimed the Baron, “another adventure! Let us have it, boy! Come, we need some wild tale to enliven this dreary evening!” And Malvine joined her entreaty that he would relate the occurrence.

      After a few preliminaries, Edgar proceeded.

      “I left Rome when the sickly season was at its height, for an excursion among the mountains of Albania. One day, while riding through a romantic valley, I chanced to overtake a young cavalier whom, at the first glance, I decided to be a countryman of my own.

      “I was not mistaken; he was a Scot, of noble birth. We soon became acquainted and as generally happens with those of the same country in a foreign land, warm friends.

      “Sir Arthur Dumbrin—that was his name—told me he had lived three years in Italy, and had some weeks before arrived in Rome from Naples. He had lingered there too long; the malaria had planted in his system the seeds of fever, of which he lay for many days ill at Albano. From this illness he had just recovered. This circumstance explained what had at first startled me, producing even a feeling akin to fear—his singular and excessive paleness. His features were fine and well-marked—but his complexion was the hue of death; and there was a look of coldness, or rather of vacancy, in his large black eyes, that sometimes inclined me to believe his mind unsettled by his recent suffering. He invited me to visit him at Albano, where he had just purchased a villa; and called upon me the following day at my lodgings.

      “I resided at that time with an elderly woman, of much excellence of character, who had a daughter—Nazarena—of singular loveliness. In the bloom of fifteen, an unspoiled child of nature, the artless innocence that appeared in her face and manners, and in all her actions, was irresistibly engaging. She looked upon all she met as good and true, because she judged others by her own heart, and she thought evil of none. With this cheerful kindliness of disposition, I was surprised to see her shrink back suddenly, with evident and instinctive aversion and terror, when she saw my friend and countryman for the first time. As was natural, I asked the reason of this involuntary repulsion.

      “‘His eyes!’ she exclaimed; ‘those terrible eyes! I do not like your friend.’

      “Donna Ursula, her mother, also confessed to me that the strange, cold look—the soulless look, as she called it—of the Baron, filled her with a secret dread whenever she saw him.

      “It was not long, however, before they became quite accustomed to the corpse-like paleness of my friend, and he won greatly upon their regard when some time afterwards, at the imminent hazard of his life, he rescued me from robbers, who fell upon me while I was riding over the mountain. I had given myself up for lost, after ineffectual resistance, when Arthur suddenly sprang from behind a rock, and drawing his weapon, soon put the robbers to flight. From this day, both Ursula and her daughter treated him with confidence; and he occasionally bantered me by saying he had turned me out of my place in the heart of the charming Nazarena.

      “I had never cherished any feeling stronger than friendship for the sweet girl; and could readily forgive the preference she now showed to my friend. But I feared for her; the more so as I was not pleased with the Baron’s demeanor towards her or the principles he avowed. The regard I felt for him, however, and gratitude towards the preserver of my life, prevented me from expressing my displeasure openly. I was silent, though I knew his views with regard to women were unbecoming a nobleman and a Scot! Bitterly have I since rued that unworthy silence.

      “To be brief—the fair Nazarena fled from the house of her mother. Vain was the search of the wretched parent the next day for her lost child; and heart-rending was the question—‘Who was the betrayer?’ Alas! I knew but too well—yet dared not name him!

      “After three days, some peasants discovered the corpse of a female in the neighboring wood. It was Nazarena. On the neck of the helpless girl was a small puncture, scarcely visible indeed; but there was otherwise no wound on the body. A fine stiletto lay on the ground near her. I shuddered with horror when her eyes fell on this instrument of death. I knew it instantly: it was the weapon Arthur wore constantly about his person. I communicated my knowledge to the authorities; officers were dispatched to arrest the criminal; but he had disappeared. I have never heard aught of him.”

      “Heaven guard you, young man!” exclaimed the aged nurse of Malvine; “your friend was a Vampyre!”

      “A Vampyre!” repeated Edgar, “and what is that, I pray?”

      “Holy Maria!” cried the nurse, lifting up both her hands; “the man is a Scot, and knows not what a Vampyre is!”

      “P’shaw! Nursery fables!” cried Sir Aubrey, half vexed, half laughing.

      “A Vampyre,” continued the old woman, forgetting respect in her interest, “is a dead person, who, on account of his sins, can find no repose in the grave, but is bound to the service of witches and sorcerers. Every year, on Walpurgis night, he is forced to attend the Witches’ Sabbath, and swear a fearful oath to deliver to them a guiltless victim before the month is at an end. He marks out some tender maiden or tender youth as his victim, whom he kills and sucks the blood. If he fails to fulfill the oath, he falls himself a prey—and the witches deliver him to Satan as his forever and ever!”

      “Strange,” Edgar muttered. “It was in May that the terrible event occurred of which I spoke.”

      “Yes—yes!” cried the nurse eagerly; “I am not so mistaken!” And turning to her young mistress she besought her to sing the legend of the Vampyre which she had once learned of a wandering harper.

      Malvine was ever ready to gratify her favorite attendant, who had been, in truth, a mother to her; and СКАЧАТЬ