Tales from Blackwood Volume I Part 10

He requested only a straight two-edged sword, of well-tried temper; and a woodman's axe, the purpose of which he did not explain. He then left me, to plunge into the lake, and to find in its pure and bracing waters that refreshment which, he said, it would be a vain attempt to obtain in sleep, while I proceeded to my father's armoury, and selected from the numerous weapons which adorned it, a long and powerful two-edged blade, which he had brought from the Levant. This sword was black from hilt to point, and dest.i.tute of ornament, except some golden hieroglyphics near the guard; but I knew that it had stood the brunt of several stirring campaigns, without material injury to its admirable edge and temper.

After a short and unrefres.h.i.+ng slumber, I arose with the sun, and hastened, with the sword and woodman's axe, to the saloon of Colonna.

His garb was usually plain, almost to homeliness, and chosen probably with a view to the better concealment of his rank; but for this day of vengeance he had donned the princely costume of the Tuscan n.o.bles. A rich vest of embroidered scarlet, and pantaloons of woven silk, were closely fitted to his n.o.ble person, which, I have said before, was fas.h.i.+oned in the choicest mould of manly beauty, and now, so worthily adorned, displayed in all its high perfection that faultless union of symmetry and strength, so rarely seen in life; equalling, indeed, the Vatican Antinous in cla.s.sic elegance of form, but far surpa.s.sing that fine statue in stature and heroic character of look and bearing. A mantle of the richest velvet hung from his well-formed shoulders, while a nodding plume adorned his Spanish hat and shaded his dark eyes, which lighted up as they beheld me with bright and eager flashes of impatience.

"Thou art indeed the 'pearl and pride of Florence,' my Colonna!" I exclaimed, in irrepressible admiration, applying, as I approached him, the poetical simile of his Laura.

Regardless of the compliment, he grasped the unpretending weapon I held out to him, and plucked it from the scabbard. Tracing at a glance its Oriental pedigree, he doubled the strong blade with ease, until the point touched and rebounded from the guard, and then severed with its unyielding edge an iron nail projecting from the wall. "This plain old weapon," said he, with an exulting smile, "is worth a dukedom.

'Twill pierce a panoply of Milan steel, and I pledge myself to make it search the vitals of this ruffian governor. But these are words, Pisani; and words, the Roman proverb says, are feminine, while deeds alone are masculine. Farewell, then, till we meet in the defile. It is essential to my purpose that I reach the ground some hours before Barozzo."

He then embraced me cordially, concealed the axe beneath his mantle, and departed for the mountains, intending to cross the lake to a point not distant from the scene of action. At an early hour I mounted my horse, and rode towards the Villa Foscari. In the vicinity of Peschiera I descried the governor proceeding on his daily morning excursion to the mountains. I had hitherto rarely seen him with more than one attendant, but he was now closely followed by two well-mounted Greeks of lofty stature, attired in the gorgeous costume of the Levant, and armed with scimitar and dagger. The square and athletic person of their chief was arrayed in the splendid garb of a military commander of distinguished rank. His ample chest was covered with a corselet of light scale-armour, which yielded to every motion of his frame, and was partially concealed by a broad sash, and a capacious velvet mantle. A sword of unusual length hung from his belt, whence also projected the handle of a poniard, which blazed with jewels of great l.u.s.tre and value. At the age of forty-two, Barozzo was still in the full vigour of manhood; and the martial ease and energy of his movements indicated that he would find full occupation for the quick eye and unrivalled skill of the comparatively unarmed Colonna.

The governor saluted me as usual, and after some remarks upon the beauty of the surrounding scenery, he carelessly inquired where my friend the painter was. I replied, that he was gone up the lake in his bark, and described him as an itinerant personage, who delighted in ranging over the Brescian mountains, where he pa.s.sed a considerable portion of his time in sketching, and was but an occasional inmate of my father's villa. The governor made no comment, and resumed his observations on the wild mountain scenery to which we were approaching. I inquired if he had yet discovered in his rides a defile of singular and romantic beauty, the avenue to which, from the main-road, was concealed by a grove of beech. He replied in the negative, and a.s.sented to my proposal that we should explore it. A ride of two hours brought us to the secluded entrance of this picturesque ravine, and we descended into its deep and silent recesses. The road was stony, rugged, and unfrequented; and, except at intervals, admitted only two hors.e.m.e.n abreast. The mountains on each side rose with bold abruptness, and their mossy surfaces were dotted with perennial oaks and lofty beeches, which threw their arched and interwoven branches across the chasm, and intercepted agreeably the glare and heat of the morning sun. We had proceeded about a league along this still and dusky hollow, when we distinguished the sound of a woodman's axe, and the sharp report of its echo from the opposite cliffs. We soon reached the spot above which the labourer was employed; but the profusion of foliage and underwood entirely screened the person of the woodman, whose axe continued to descend with unabated energy. We had advanced about a hundred paces beyond this point, when our course was arrested by a groaning and mighty crash, succeeded by a stunning shock, which shook the ravine like an earthquake, and was re-echoed in deep, long mutterings by the adjacent rocks. Tranquillising our startled coursers, we looked around and beheld a colossal beech, lying in the narrow pathway, which it filled up like a rampart. The Greeks, who had loitered to discern, if possible, the person of the vigorous woodman, were intercepted by the fallen giant of the mountain, but had escaped injury, as we could perceive them in their saddles through the foliage.

Startled by the ominous appearance of this incident, the governor immediately rode back, and bade his attendants dismount and lead their horses over a sheep-path which rose on the mountain slope, above the level of the fallen tree, while he would ride on slowly until they rejoined him. Execrating the peasant who had thus annoyed him, he turned his courser's head, and we proceeded at a slow pace to the now contiguous spot which I had described to Colonna as best suited to his purpose. Here the base of an enormous cliff projected like a rampart into the defile, and sloped abruptly into two right angles, connected by a level line of nearly perpendicular rock, which rose in castellated grandeur to a towering height. The numerous crevices and hollows were fringed with dazzling heath-flowers and luxuriant creepers, between which the bare black surface of the rock frowned on the pa.s.sing gazer like the ruined stronghold of some mountain robber.

We now turned the first angle of the cliff, looking upward as we rode at the majestic front of this singular work of nature. Still gazing, we had proceeded about fifty paces, and the governor was remarking, that the level and lofty summit would make a commanding military station, when suddenly our coursers halted, and looking down we saw before us the tall and kingly figure of Colonna, standing like an apparition in the pathway. His right hand rested on his unsheathed sword, and his att.i.tude was that of careless and a.s.sured composure; but in his gathered brow, and in the boding glitter of his eye, I could discern the deadly purpose of the forest lion, about to spring upon his prey, and fully confident in his own powers and resources. At this sudden encounter of Montalto's son, who seemed to start with spectral abruptness from the ground beneath us, Barozzo shook in his saddle as if he had seen an accusing spirit. For a moment the blood left his face, his breath shortened, and his chest heaved with strong internal emotion, but his iron features soon regained their wonted character of intrepidity. He then darted upon me a keen look of inquiry and suspicion; before, however, he had time to speak, Colonna was upon him. Rapidly advancing, he seized the bridle of his horse, and thus addressed him:--"Barozzo! the measure of thy crimes is full, and retribution is at hand! Colonna the painter is no more, but the son of Montalto has escaped thy dagger, and demands atonement for his father's blood. Dismount, a.s.sa.s.sin! and defend thy worthless life!"

The deep and startling grandeur of Colonna's voice, and the implacable hostility which flashed from his fierce eyeb.a.l.l.s, shook the firm sinews of the guilty governor, and again his swarthy lineaments were blanched with terror. By a sudden and powerful effort, however, he regained self-mastery, and gathering into his grim features all the pride and insolence of his soul, he darted upon his youthful enemy a sneer of contempt. "Presuming vagrant!" he shouted, in accents hoa.r.s.e with wrath, "dare to impede my progress, and my retinue, which is at hand, shall scatter thy limbs on the highway!"

Still firmly grasping the bridle, Colonna eyed him for a moment with quiet scorn, and then he smiled--briefly indeed, but with a stinging mockery, a hot and withering scorn of eye and lip, that seared the haughty chieftain to the brain. Writhing with sudden frenzy, he spurred his mettled charger, and endeavoured to ride down his opponent; but the generous animal, true to the instincts of a nature n.o.bler than his master's, refused to advance, and plunged and demi-volted with a violence which would have unseated a less experienced rider. At this moment, the heavy trampling of approaching horses rolled in doubling echoes through the ravine. Encouraged by the welcome sound, Barozzo attempted to draw his sword, but before the plunging of his horse would allow him to reach the hilt, the vigilant Colonna smote him on the cheek with his sheathed weapon. Then relinquis.h.i.+ng the bridle, and stepping lightly sideways, he struck the horse's flank, and the startled animal, straining every sinew, bounded away like a ball, and quickly disappeared round the second angle of the cliff, followed by the loud laugh of the exulting Colonna, whose fierce ha! ha! re-echoed through the rocky hollow like a trumpet-call.

Meanwhile the Greeks, who had turned the first angle in time to behold the termination of the struggle, drew their sabres, and pus.h.i.+ng their horses into a gallop, rushed down upon us like infuriated tigers.

Antic.i.p.ating their attack, I was not unprepared to aid my gallant friend in this emergency; but all a.s.sistance was superfluous to one so fertile in resources. He turned with graceful prompt.i.tude upon the savage Cretans, and before their powerful steeds could measure the short intervening distance, his sword was firmly set between his teeth, and two pistols appeared with magical abruptness in his grasp.

Levelled by an eye which never failed, these weapons lodged a bullet in the breast of each approaching Greek. The colossal riders reeled in their saddles; their sabres quivered in their weakened grasp, and reclining for support upon the necks of their startled horses, they successively pa.s.sed us, and turned the angle beyond which their chief had disappeared. Colonna now threw down his pistols, and exclaimed exultingly, "Now is the crowning hour, my Angelo! follow me, and you shall find the scaly monster of my dream caught in a trap from which no human power can free him."

I rode by his side in wondering antic.i.p.ation, and when we had pa.s.sed the angle, I beheld a scene which still remains engraven on my memory.

The defile here expanded into an irregular oval, the extremity of which was blocked up by a dense and impervious ma.s.s of young beech and poplar, rising above thrice the height of a tall man, and levelled that morning by the ponderous axe of the indefatigable Colonna. The courser of Barozzo had plunged deep into the leafy labyrinth, and the unhorsed governor, entangled by his velvet drapery, was endeavouring to extricate himself from the forked and intersecting branches, while the horses of the Greeks stood panting in the shade, near the bleeding bodies of their fallen masters, and the n.o.ble brutes snorted with horror, and shook in every joint, as with lowered necks and flaming eyes, they snuffed the blood of the expiring wretches.

As we approached the governor, he succeeded in releasing himself by cutting his rich mantle into shreds with his dagger. Stepping out of his leafy toils, he stood before us like a wild beast caught in a hunter's trap, foaming, furious, and breathless, but evidently dismayed by the sudden and irremediable loss of his armed followers.

Divested of the drapery which had served the double purpose of concealment and display, we observed that he was accoutred in back and breast proof armour, of the light steel scales I have before described. He looked the very serpent of Colonna's dream, and the malignant scowl of his small and snaky eyes gave singular force to the resemblance. His generous enemy allowed him time to recover from the fatigue of disentangling himself, and then approached him. "Barozzo!"

said he, "last night I shot thy cowardly a.s.sa.s.sin. In dying penitence he called himself _thy_ agent in the murder of my n.o.ble parent, and bade me shun the daggers of thy savage Cretans. But Montalto's son would risk a thousand lives to gain his just revenge, and again he warns thee to defend thy life. Pisani shall be umpire of the combat, and his time-honoured name is pledge enough that no foul play is meant thee."

The governor, who had now recovered breath and self-possession, folded his arms, and met the stern defiance of his youthful foe with a look of contemptuous indifference. Not deigning a reply, he addressed himself to me in tones of angry expostulation, and expressed his indignant surprise that a son of the Senator Pisani should thus lend himself to the designs of a young vagrant, who was destined to grace the benches of a galley. My reply was antic.i.p.ated by the fiery Colonna, whose sword flashed with lightning quickness from the scabbard, while his haughty lip curled up with unutterable scorn.

"Remorseless villain!" he shouted, in a voice of appalling wrath, "I know a venom yet shall sting thy recreant spirit into action. Know, Ercole Barozzo! that Foscari's daughter was wooed and won by _me_--plighted her troth to _me_--long ere she saw thy truculent and yellow visage. Nay, more, she would ere this have fled with me from Lombardy, had not higher duties staid our mutual purpose."

The governor, although a renowned and fearless soldier in earlier life, had betrayed a terror on the first view of Colonna, and a reluctance to engage with him in single-handed conflict, which I had referred to the depressing action of a diseased conscience, or to the increased love of life generated by his prosperous condition; but a taunt like this was beyond all human endurance; it stung him to the very soul, and roused his lazy valour into life and fury. His sinews stiffened with rage, and his widely-opened eyes glared upon Colonna like those of a tigress at bay, while his teeth remained firmly clenched, and inaudible maledictions quivered on his working lips.

Tearing his formidable sword from its sheath, he rushed like one delirious upon his adversary, and their blades met with a clash which told the deadly rancour of the combatants.

I now witnessed a conflict unparalleled for intense and eager thirst of blood. It was truly the death-grapple of the lion and the serpent. The n.o.ble and generous Colonna, pursuing his just revenge, and trusting, like the kingly animal, to native strength and courage, sought no unfair advantage; while the crafty Barozzo, huge in body, tortuous in mind, and scaled with impenetrable steel, well personified the reptile of Colonna's vision. Although a practised and wary swordsman, he did not wield his weapon like Colonna, who, with equal skill in stratagem and feint, was unrivalled in that lightning-quickness and ready sympathy of eye and hand, for which the Italians are pre-eminent amongst the swordsmen of Europe; but the courage and self-possession of the governor had been exercised in frequent conflicts with the Moslem; his sinews were strung with martial toil and daily exercise; and his well-mailed person presented so little vulnerable surface as greatly to protract and facilitate his defence. He soon learned, however, to respect the formidable skill and untiring arm of his young opponent, whose weapon played with a motion so rapid and incessant, that he seemed to parry and thrust at the same instant; and had not the large and powerful hand of Barozzo retained a firm grasp of his hilt, he would have been disarmed at the first onset. After a few pa.s.ses, Colonna's point struck the centre of the governor's corselet with a force which made the scales sink deep beneath the pressure, but the tempered steel resisted this and many other well-directed hits. The conflict proceeded with unabated fierceness, and for a period which would have utterly exhausted men of ordinary lungs and sinews, when Barozzo, finding all his lunges ineffective, and fearing premature exhaustion, endeavoured to sustain and collect his powers by remaining on the defensive; but it was now too late. His sword was irrecoverably entangled in the whirlwind involutions of Colonna's weapon--his hold began to relax--and he saw the moment rapidly approaching when he should be disarmed, and at the mercy of an unappeasable foe.[A] Despairing of success, thirsting for revenge, and regardless of the laws of fair and open combat, he suddenly drew his long dagger, dropped on one knee, and made a thrust which would have proved fatal to a less vigilant adversary. But Colonna had antic.i.p.ated the possibility of this base attempt from one so dest.i.tute of all chivalrous feeling, and his quick eye observed and met the movement. Stepping lightly back, he whirled his keen-edged blade with a force which cut deep into Barozzo's wrist. The dagger dropped from his palsied grasp, and, at the same instant, his sword flew above his head. Colonna, having disarmed his treacherous enemy while still kneeling, disdained to follow up his advantage, and coolly said to him, "That trick was worthy of you, governor! but your murderous game is nearly up. Resume your sword, and clutch the guard more firmly, or in three pa.s.ses more you will be food for vultures!"

[Footnote A: When a student in Germany, the writer had twelve months'

drill in fencing from a French emigrant, and saw a fencing-match _a l'outrance_ between that equivocal personage the Chevalier d'Eon--then an elderly man or woman--with a young and vigorous fencing-master, an emigrant n.o.bleman, who, like Colonna, by rapid involutions, so entangled the foil of the Chevalier, that he was at length quite exhausted, and unable to ward off the incessant attacks of his adversary. He recollects, too, a curious fact, that the Chevalier, when fencing, emitted, whenever he lunged out, a succession of sounds from the throat, which he can only compare with the short grunts of a frightened pig.--_April 1858._]

Barozzo, who had started from the ground, and now stood foaming at the mouth like a chafed panther, said nothing in reply, but seized his sword, and rushed upon his generous adversary with desperate but unavailing ferocity. I could now perceive that Colonna pressed him more hotly than before, and that his point no longer sought the corselet, but the throat of Barozzo, where indeed alone he was mortally vulnerable, and where, ere long, the death-stroke reached him. A few pa.s.ses had been exchanged without a hit, when suddenly Barozzo's sword again flew from his grasp, and long before it reached the ground, Colonna's point was buried in his throat. The thrust was mortal. The steel had severed the duct of life; the hot blood bubbled out in streams; and the huge Barozzo staggered, reeled, and fell upon his back. A b.l.o.o.d.y froth now gathered round his lips, which worked with agony and rage; the life-blood ebbed apace, and soon the trunk and limbs of the colossal chieftain were stiffened in death. But even in death the dominant pa.s.sions of his soul were strongly written in his livid features. His glazed and sunken eyes still glared with fiend-like malice on his conqueror, and every lineament was inwrought with reckless and insatiable ferocity.

Colonna gazed a while in solemn and impressive silence upon the foe he had destroyed. His broad forehead darkened with deep thought, and his eyes saddened with painful recollections of the beloved parent whose untimely death he had so well avenged. Soon, however, his n.o.ble features brightened with a fervent look of blended filial piety and exultation. He wiped his reeking blade upon the remnants of Barozzo's mantle, and we retraced our steps. Colonna ascended a sheep-path, and crossed the mountain to regain his boat, while I returned by a circuitous road to the villa, leaving the governor of Candia and his retinue to the vultures of the Apennine, which, with unerring ken, had espied the dead Greeks, and were already sailing in wide eddies high above the scene of blood.

Here my friend, who had with difficulty pursued his way through the mouldy pages of the decayed ma.n.u.script, was compelled to make a final pause. The long action of time and damp had nearly obliterated the remainder of the narrative, and glimpses only of romantic perils by sea and land were occasionally discernible. We were obliged to suspend all farther gratification of our curiosity until our return to Venice, where we hoped by a chemical process to succeed in restoring to a more legible tint the pale characters of this interesting ma.n.u.script.

NAPOLEON.

BY J. G. LOCKHART.

[_MAGA._ JULY 1821.]

The mighty sun had just gone down Into the chambers of the deep; The ocean birds had upward flown, Each in his cave to sleep.

And silent was the island sh.o.r.e, And breathless all the broad red sea, And motionless beside the door Our solitary tree.

Our only tree, our ancient palm, Whose shadow sleeps our door beside.

Partook the universal calm, When Buonaparte died.

An ancient man, a stately man, Came forth beneath the spreading tree, His silent thoughts I could not scan, His tears I needs must see.

A trembling hand had partly cover'd The old man's weeping countenance, Yet something o'er his sorrow hover'd That spake of War and France;

Something that spake of other days, When trumpets pierced the kindling air, And the keen eye could firmly gaze Through battle's crimson glare.

Said I, Perchance this faded hand, When Life beat high, and Hope was young, By Lodi's wave--on Syria's sand-- The bolt of death hath flung.

Young Buonaparte's battle-cry Perchance hath kindled this old cheek; It is no shame that he should sigh,-- His heart is like to break.

He hath been with him, young and old; He climb'd with him the Alpine snow; He heard the cannon when they roll'd Along the silver Po.

His soul was as a sword, to leap At his accustom'd leader's word; I love to see the old man weep,-- He knew no other lord.

As if it were but yesternight, This man remembers dark Eylau,-- His dreams are of the Eagle's flight, Victorious long ago.

The memories of worser time Are all as shadows unto him; Fresh stands the picture of his prime,-- The later trace is dim.

I enter'd, and I saw him lie Within the chamber, all alone, I drew near very solemnly To dead Napoleon.

He was not shrouded in a shroud, He lay not like the vulgar dead, Yet all of haughty, stern, and proud From his pale brow was fled.

He had put harness on to die, The eagle-star shone on his breast, His sword lay bare his pillow nigh,-- The sword he liked the best.

But calm--most calm was all his face, A solemn smile was on his lips, His eyes were closed in pensive grace-- A most serene eclipse!

You would have said some sainted sprite Had left its pa.s.sionless abode,-- Some man, whose prayer at morn and night Had duly risen to G.o.d.

What thoughts had calm'd his dying breast (For calm he died) cannot be known; Nor would I wound a warrior's rest-- Farewell, Napoleon!

No sculptured pile our hands shall rear; Thy simple sod the stream shall lave.

The native Holly's leaf severe Shall grace and guard thy grave.