The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano Part 14

"Can I sleep anywhere?" the weary youth at length askt.

"There is another room above," said Crescentia sobbing; and he now first observed that she had been crying bitterly all the time. She trimmed the lamp, to make it burn brighter, and walkt silently before him. He followed her up a narrow staircase, and after they were above in the low dark loft, the damsel set the light on a little table and was on the point of retiring. But when already at the door she turned back again, stared at the young man as with a look of death, stood tottering before him, and then fell sobbing aloud and with violent unintelligible lamentations as in a convulsion down at his feet.

"What is the matter with thee, my sweet girl?" he exclaimed, and tried to lift her up: "hush thee; tell me thy sorrow."

"No, let me lie here!" cried the weeper. "O that I might die here at your feet, might die this very instant. No, it is too horrible. And that I can do nothing, can hinder nothing, that I must behold the crime in silence and helplessly! But you must hear it."

"Compose thyself then," said Antonio comforting her, "that thou mayst recover thy voice and thy words."

"I look," she continued pa.s.sionately and interrupted by her tears, "so like your lost love, and it is I who am to lead you by the hand into the house of murder. My mother may easily foretell that a near misfortune is hanging over you: she well knows the gang that a.s.semble here nightly. No one has ever yet escaped alive from this h.e.l.l. Every moment is bringing him nearer and nearer, the fierce Ildefonso, or the detestable Andrea, with their followers and comrades. Alas! and I can only be the herald of your death, can offer you no help, no safety."

Antonio was horrour-struck. Pale and trembling he graspt after his sword, tried his dagger, and summoned courage and resolution again.

Much as he had but now wisht for death, it was yet too frightful to be thus forced to end his life in a robber's den.

"And thou," he began, "thou with this face, with this form, canst bring thyself to be a companion, a helpmate to the accursed?"

"I cannot run away," she sighed despondingly: "how joyfully would I fly from this house! Alas! and this night, tomorrow, I am to be taken from hence, and dragged over the sea; I am to be made the wife of Andrea or Ildefonso. Is it not better to die now?"

"Come," cried Antonio, "the door is open; escape with me; the night, the forest will lend us their shelter."

"Only look around you," said the girl; "only see how both here and in the room below all the windows are secured with strong iron bars; the door of the house is fastened with a large key which my mother never parts with. Did you not perceive, sir, how she threw the door into the lock when you entered?"

"Then let the old hag fall first," cried Antonio: "we'll tear the keys from her...."

"What, kill my mother!" shriekt the pale maiden, and clambered forcibly round him, to hold him fast.

Antonio quieted her. He proposed to her that, as the old woman was drunk and sleeping soundly, they should take the large house-key gently from her side, then open the door, and escape. From this plan Crescentia seemed to catch some hope: they both went silently down into the room below, and found the old woman still fast asleep.

Crescentia crept trembling up to her, sought for the key, found it, and succeeded after a time in loosening it from the string at her girdle. She beckoned to the youth; they stept on tiptoe to the door; they cautiously fixt the iron key in the lock; Antonio was now straining his hand to draw back the bolt without noise; when he felt that some one else was working at the lock on the outside in the same noiseless manner. The door opened softly and in came face to face to Antonio a large wild-looking man.

"Ildefonso!" screamed the damsel, and the youth at the first glance recognized the murderer Roberto.

"What is this?" said he with a hollow voice. "Where got you that key?

whither are you going?"

"Roberto!" cried Antonio, and furiously seized the gigantic man by the throat. They wrestled violently; but the nimbler strength of the youth got the better and threw the villain upon the floor; he then knelt upon his breast and plunged his dagger into his heart.

The old woman meanwhile had awaked with loud screams, had started up on seeing the battle, and howling and cursing had torn her daughter away; she dragged her up to the room overhead, and bolted the door from within.

Antonio was now mounting to break into the loft, when several dark forms stalkt in, and were no little astounded at finding their leader dead on the ground.

"I am your captain now!" cried a broad bearded figure, fiercely drawing his sword.

"Provided Crescentia is mine!" answered a younger robber in a tone of defiance.

Each persisting in having his own way, they began a murderous combat.

The lamp was thrown over, and amid yells and imprecations the battle rolled in the darkness from corner to corner.

"Have you lost your senses?" shouted another voice athwart them: "you are letting the stranger get off; knock him down first, and then fight your quarrel out."

But blind with fury they heard him not. Already the first grey uncertain gleam of early morning was dawning. Antonio now felt a murderer's fist at his breast; but quickly and strongly he struck the a.s.sailer down.

"I am slain!" cried he, falling upon the floor: "Madmen, blockade the doors; don't let him run away."

Meanwhile Antonio had found the way out; he sprang through the little garden and over the fence; the robbers, who by this time had come to their senses, hurried after him. He was only a few paces before them, and they tried to cut him off. One of them threw stones after him; but they missed their mark. Amid hollowing and threatening they had reacht the wood.

Here the path split into sundry directions, and Antonio was at a loss which to choose. He lookt back, and saw the robbers separated; he attackt the nearest, and wounded him so that he let his sword drop.

But at the same moment he heard shouts, and saw new forms along a by-path hastening thither; his road would soon be blockt up.

In this extremity of need he met with his horse again on a little plot of gra.s.s in the wood. It seemed to have recovered from yesterday's over-fatigue. He leapt upon it, after rapidly seizing and righting the bridle; and with its utmost speed, as if the animal had felt his danger, it bore him along a foot-track out of the forest.

By degrees the cries of his pursuers sounded more and more distant; the wood grew lighter; and when he had reason to trust that there was nothing more to be afraid of, he saw the city lying before him in the glory of the rising sun.

People met him; countrymen were going the same road toward the city; travellers joined company with him; and in this way he came back to Padua, making little answer to the manifold questions and inquiries, why his dress was in such disorder, and why he had no hat. The citizens stared in wonder at him as he dismounted before the great house of the Podesta.

In the city on that same night strange things had been going on, which as yet were a secret to everybody. Scarcely had the darkness spread thickly abroad, when Pietro, whom people commonly called by the name of his birthplace, Apone or Abano, retiring into his secret study at the back of his house, set all his apparatus, all the instruments of his art, in due order, for some mysterious and extraordinary undertaking. He himself was clad in a long robe charactered with strange hieroglyphs; he had described the magical circles in the hall, and he arranged everything with his utmost skill, to be certain of the result. He had searcht diligently into the configuration of the stars, and was now awaiting the auspicious moment.

His companion, the hideous Beresynth, was also drest in magical garments. He fetcht everything at his master's bidding, and set it down just as Pietro thought needful. Painted hangings were unrolled over the walls; the floor of the room was covered over; the great magical mirror was placed upright; and nearer and nearer came the moment which the magician deemed the most fortunate.

"Hast thou put the crystals within the circles?" demanded Pietro.

"Yes;" returned his busy mate, whose ugliness kept bustling to and fro merrily and unweariably amid the vials, mirrors, human skeletons, and all the other strange implements. The incense was now brought; a flame blazed upon the altar; and the magician cautiously, almost with trembling, took the great volume out of his most secret cabinet.

"Do we start now?" cried Beresynth.

"Silence!" answered the old man solemnly: "interrupt not these holy proceedings by any profane or any useless words."

He read, at first in a low voice, then louder and more earnestly as he paced with measured steps to and fro, and then again round in a circle. After a while he paused and said: "Look out, how the heavens are shaping themselves."

"Thick darkness," replied the servant on his return, "has enwrapt the sky; the clouds are driving along; rain is beginning to drip."

"They favour me!" exclaimed the old man: "it must succeed."

He now knelt down, and murmuring his incantations often toucht the ground with his forehead. His face was heated; his eyes sparkled. He was heard to p.r.o.nounce the holy names which it is forbidden to utter; and after a long time he sent his servant out again to look at the firmament. Meanwhile the onrush of the storm was heard; lightning and thunder chased each other; and the house seemed to tremble to its lowest foundations.

"Hearken to the tempest!" shouted Beresynth coming back hastily: "h.e.l.l has risen up from below, and is raging with fire and fierce cracking crashes of thunder; a whirlwind is raving through the midst of it; and the earth is quaking with fear. Hold with your conjuring, lest the spokes of the world splinter, and the rim that holds it together burst."

"Fool! simpleton!" cried the magician: "have done with thy useless prating! Tear back all the doors; throw the house door wide open."

The dwarf withdrew to perform his master's orders. Meanwhile Pietro lighted the consecrated tapers; with a shudder he walkt up to the great torch that stood upon the high candlestick; this too at last was burning; then he threw himself on the ground and conjured louder and louder. His eyes flasht; all his limbs shook and shrunk as in convulsions; and a cold sweat of agony trickled from his brow.

With wild gestures, as if scared out of his senses, the dwarf rusht in again, and leapt for safety within the circles. "The world is at the last gasp," he shriekt, pale and with chattering teeth: "the storms are rolling onward; but all beneath the voiceless night is dismay and horrour; every living thing has fled into its closet, or crept beneath the pillows of its bed to skulk away from its fears."

The old man lifted up a face of ghastly paleness from the floor, and with wrencht and indistinguishable features screamed in sounds not his own: "Be silent, wretch, and disturb not the work. Give heed, and keep a fast hold on thy senses. The greatest things are still behind."

With a voice as if he would split his breast, he read and conjured again: his breath seemed often to fail him; it was as though the gigantic effort must kill him.