Tales from Blackwood Volume I Part 14

"A piece of female Quixotry," returned Owen. "She says she can't think of such selfishness as being comfortably married herself, while Carlota is so unhappy, and her fate so unsettled." Here he made a significant pause; but my grandfather was immovably silent, only glancing nervously at him, and smoking very hard.

"In fact, she protests she won't hear of marrying me, till you have settled when you will marry Carlota."

"Marry Carlota!" gasped the Major in an agonised whisper.

"Why, you don't mean to say you're not going to marry her!" exclaimed the Ensign, throwing a vast quant.i.ty of surprise into his expressive countenance.

"Why--why, what should I marry her for?" stammered the Major.

"Oh, Lord!" said Garry, "here will be pleasant news for her! Curse me if I break it to her."

"But really now, Frank," the Major repeated--"marriage, you know--why, I never thought of such a thing."

"You're the only person that hasn't, then," rejoined Owen. "Why, what can the garrison think, after the way you smuggled her in; what can she herself think, after all your attentions?"

"Attentions, my dear boy;--the merest civility."

"Oh,--ah! 'twas civility, I suppose, to squeeze her hand in the inn at Algeciras, in the way she told Juana of--and heaven knows what else you may have done during the flight. Juana is outrageous against you--actually called you a vile deceiver; but Carlota's feeling is more of sorrow than of anger. She is persuaded that nothing but your ignorance of Spanish has prevented your tongue from confirming what your looks have so faithfully promised. I was really quite affected to-day at the appealing look she cast on me after you left the room; she evidently expected me to communicate her destiny."

My grandfather smoked hard.

"Lots of fellows would give their ears for such a wife," pursued the Ensign. "Lovelace, the Governor's aide-de-camp, bribed the waiter of the hotel to lend him his ap.r.o.n to-day, at dinner, that he might come in and look at her--swears she's a splendid woman, and that he'd run away with such another to-morrow."

Still my grandfather smoked hard, but said nothing, though there was a slight gleam of pride in his countenance.

"Poor thing!" sighed Garry. "All her prospects blighted for ever.

Swears she never can love another."

At this my grandfather's eyes grew moist, and he coughed as if he had swallowed some tobacco-smoke.

"And as for me, to have Juana at my lips, as it were, and yet not mine--for she's as inflexible as if she'd been born a Mede or Persian--to know that you are coming between me and happiness as surely as if you were an inexorable father or a cruel guardian--worse, indeed; for those might be evaded. Major, major, have you no compa.s.sion!--two days of this will drive me crazy."

The Major changed his pipe from his right hand to his left, and, stretching the former across the table, sympathetically pressed that of the Ensign.

"Do, Major," quoth Garry, changing his flank movement for a direct attack--"do consent to make yourself and me happy; do empower me to negotiate for our all going to church to-morrow." (My grandfather gave a little jump in his chair at this, as if he were sitting on a pin.) "I'll manage it all, you shan't have the least trouble in the matter."

My grandfather spoke not.

"Silence gives consent," said the Ensign, rising. "Come, now, if you don't forbid me, I'll depart on my emba.s.sy at once; you needn't speak, I'll spare your blushes. I see this delay has only been from modesty, or perhaps a little ruse on your part. Once, twice, thrice,--I go."

And he vanished.

The Major remained in his chair, in the same posture. His pipe was smoked out, but he continued to suck absently at the empty tube. His bewilderment and perturbation were so great that, though he sat up till two in the morning, during which time he smoked eleven pipes, and increased the two gla.s.ses of grog with which he was accustomed to prepare for his pillow to four, he was still, when he went to bed, as agitated as ever.

In this state of mind he went to the altar, for next day a double ceremony was performed, making Owen happy with Juana, and giving Carlota a husband and me a grandfather. The Major was more like a proxy than a princ.i.p.al in the affair; for Owen, taking the entire management upon himself, left him little more to do than to make the necessary responses.

Carlota made a very good-tempered, quiet, in.o.btrusive helpmate, and continued to be fond of her spouse even after he was a grey-headed colonel. My grandfather, though credulous in most matters, could with difficulty be brought to consider himself married. He would sometimes seem to forget the circ.u.mstance for a whole day together, till it came to be forced on his recollection at bed-time. And when, about a year after his marriage, a new-born female Flinders (now my venerable aunt) was brought one morning by the nurse for his inspection and approval, he gazed at it with a puzzled air, and could not be convinced that he was actually in the presence of his own flesh and blood, till he had touched the cheek of his first-born with the point of his tobacco-pipe, removed from his mouth for that purpose, making on the infant's countenance a small indentation.

The little Governor, Don Pablo, was subsequently induced to forgive his relatives, and frequent visits and attentions were interchanged, till the commencement of the siege put a stop to all intercourse between Gibraltar and Spain.

I have often, on a summer's evening, sat looking across the bay at a gorgeous sunset, and retracing in imagination the incidents I have related. My grandfather's establishment was broken up during the siege by the enemy's sh.e.l.ls, but a similar one now stands on what I think must have been about the site of it. The world has changed since then; but Spain is no land of change; and, looking on the imperishable outline of the Andalucian hills, unaltered, probably, since a time to which the period of my tale is but as yesterday, it is easy for me to "daff aside" the noisy world without, and, dropping quietly behind the age, to picture to myself my old-fas.h.i.+oned grandfather issuing forth from yonder white-walled town of Algeciras with his future bride.

THE IRON SHROUD.

BY WILLIAM MUDFORD.

[_MAGA._ AUGUST 1830.]

The castle of the Prince of Tolfi was built on the summit of the towering and precipitous rock of Scylla, and commanded a magnificent view of Sicily in all its grandeur. Here, during the wars of the middle ages, when the fertile plains of Italy were devastated by hostile factions, those prisoners were confined, for whose ransom a costly price was demanded. Here, too, in a dungeon, excavated deep in the solid rock, the miserable victim was immured, whom revenge pursued,--the dark, fierce, and unpitying revenge of an Italian heart.

VIVENZIO--the n.o.ble and the generous, the fearless in battle, and the pride of Naples in her sunny hours of peace--the young, the brave, the proud Vivenzio, fell beneath this subtle and remorseless spirit. He was the prisoner of Tolfi, and he languished in that rock-encircled dungeon, which stood alone, and whose portals never opened twice upon a living captive.

It had the semblance of a vast cage, for the roof, and floor, and sides, were of iron, solidly wrought, and s.p.a.ciously constructed. High above there ran a range of seven grated windows, guarded with ma.s.sy bars of the same metal, which admitted light and air. Save these, and the tall folding-doors beneath them which occupied the centre, no c.h.i.n.k, or chasm, or projection, broke the smooth black surface of the walls. An iron bedstead, littered with straw, stood in one corner: and beside it, a vessel with water, and a coa.r.s.e dish filled with coa.r.s.er food.

Even the intrepid soul of Vivenzio shrunk with dismay as he entered this abode, and heard the ponderous doors triple-locked by the silent ruffians who conducted him to it. Their silence seemed prophetic of his fate, of the living grave that had been prepared for him. His menaces and his entreaties, his indignant appeals for justice, and his impatient questioning of their intentions, were alike vain. They listened, but spoke not. Fit ministers of a crime that should have no tongue!

How dismal was the sound of their retiring steps! And, as their faint echoes died along the winding pa.s.sages, a fearful presage grew within him, that never more the face, or voice, or tread, of man, would greet his senses. He had seen human beings for the last time! And he had looked his last upon the bright sky, and upon the smiling earth, and upon a beautiful world he loved, and whose minion he had been! Here he was to end his life--a life he had just begun to revel in! And by what means? By secret poison? or by murderous a.s.sault? No--for then it had been needless to bring him thither. Famine perhaps--a thousand deaths in one! It was terrible to think of it; but it was yet more terrible to picture long, long years of captivity, in a solitude so appalling, a loneliness so dreary, that thought, for want of fellows.h.i.+p, would lose itself in madness, or stagnate into idiocy.

He could not hope to escape, unless he had the power, with his bare hands, of rending asunder the solid iron walls of his prison. He could not hope for liberty from the relenting mercies of his enemy. His instant death, under any form of refined cruelty, was not the object of Tolfi, for he might have inflicted it, and he had not. It was too evident, therefore, he was reserved for some premeditated scheme of subtle vengeance; and what vengeance could transcend in fiendish malice, either the slow death of famine, or the still slower one of solitary incarceration, till the last lingering spark of life expired, or till reason fled, and nothing should remain to perish but the brute functions of the body?

It was evening when Vivenzio entered his dungeon, and the approaching shades of night wrapped it in total darkness, as he paced up and down, revolving in his mind these horrible forebodings. No tolling bell from the castle, or from any neighbouring church or convent, struck upon his ear to tell how the hours pa.s.sed. Frequently he would stop and listen for some sound that might betoken the vicinity of man; but the solitude of the desert, the silence of the tomb, are not so still and deep as the oppressive desolation by which he was encompa.s.sed. His heart sank within him, and he threw himself dejectedly down upon his couch of straw. Here sleep gradually obliterated the consciousness of misery, and bland dreams wafted his delighted spirit to scenes which were once glowing realities for him, in whose ravis.h.i.+ng illusions he soon lost the remembrance that he was Tolfi's prisoner.

When he awoke, it was daylight; but how long he had slept he knew not.

It might be early morning, or it might be sultry noon, for he could measure time by no other note of its progress than light and darkness.

He had been so happy in his sleep, amid friends who loved him, and the sweeter endearments of those who loved him as friends could not, that in the first moments of waking, his startled mind seemed to admit the knowledge of his situation, as if it had burst upon it for the first time, fresh in all its appalling horrors. He gazed round with an air of doubt and amazement, and took up a handful of the straw upon which he lay, as though he would ask himself what it meant. But memory, too faithful to her office, soon unveiled the melancholy past, while reason, shuddering at the task, flashed before his eyes the tremendous future. The contrast overpowered him. He remained for some time lamenting, like a truth, the bright visions that had vanished; and recoiling from the present, which clung to him as a poisoned garment.

When he grew more calm, he surveyed his gloomy dungeon. Alas! the stronger light of day only served to confirm what the gloomy indistinctness of the preceding evening had partially disclosed, the utter impossibility of escape. As, however, his eyes wandered round and round, and from place to place, he noticed two circ.u.mstances which excited his surprise and curiosity. The one, he thought, might be fancy; but the other was positive. His pitcher of water, and the dish which contained his food, had been removed from his side while he slept, and now stood near the door. Were he even inclined to doubt this, by supposing he had mistaken the spot where he saw them over-night, he could not, for the pitcher now in his dungeon was neither of the same form nor colour as the other, while the food was changed for some other of better quality. He had been visited, therefore, during the night. But how had the person obtained entrance?

Could he have slept so soundly, that the unlocking and opening of those ponderous portals were effected without waking him? He would have said this was not possible, but that in doing so, he must admit a greater difficulty, an entrance by other means, of which he was convinced there existed none. It was not intended, then, that he should be left to perish from hunger. But the secret and mysterious mode of supplying him with food, seemed to indicate he was to have no opportunity of communicating with a human being.

The other circ.u.mstance which had attracted his notice, was the disappearance, as he believed, of one of the seven grated windows that ran along the top of his prison. He felt confident that he had observed and counted them; for he was rather surprised at their number, and there was something peculiar in their form, as well as in the manner of their arrangement, at unequal distances. It was so much easier, however, to suppose he was mistaken, than that a portion of the solid iron, which formed the walls, could have escaped from its position, that he soon dismissed the thought from his mind.

Vivenzio partook of the food that was before him, without apprehension. It might be poisoned; but if it were he knew he could not escape death, should such be the design of Tolfi, and the quickest death would be the speediest release.

The day pa.s.sed wearily and gloomily; though not without a faint hope that, by keeping watch at night, he might observe when the person came again to bring him food, which he supposed he would do in the same way as before. The mere thought of being approached by a living creature, and the opportunity it might present of learning the doom prepared, or preparing, for him, imparted some comfort. Besides, if he came alone, might he not in a furious onset overpower him? Or he might be accessible to pity, or the influence of such munificent rewards as he could bestow, if once more at liberty and master of himself. Say he were armed. The worst that could befall, if nor bribe, nor prayers, nor force prevailed, was a friendly blow, which, though dealt in a d.a.m.ned cause, might work a desired end. There was no chance so desperate, but it looked lovely in Vivenzio's eyes, compared with the idea of being totally abandoned.

The night came, and Vivenzio watched. Morning came, and Vivenzio was confounded! He must have slumbered without knowing it. Sleep must have stolen over him when exhausted by fatigue, and in that interval of feverish repose, he had been baffled: for there stood his replenished pitcher of water, and there his day's meal! Nor was this all. Casting his looks towards the windows of his dungeon, he counted but FIVE!

_Here_ was no deception; and he was now convinced there had been none the day before. But what did all this portend? Into what strange and mysterious den had he been cast? He gazed till his eyes ached; he could discover nothing to explain the mystery. That it was so, he knew. Why it was so, he racked his imagination in vain to conjecture.

He examined the doors. A simple circ.u.mstance convinced him they had not been opened.

A wisp of straw, which he had carelessly thrown against them the preceding day, as he paced to and fro, remained where he had cast it, though it must have been displaced by the slightest motion of either of the doors. This was evidence that could not be disputed; and it followed there must be some secret machinery in the walls by which a person could enter. He inspected them closely. They appeared to him one solid and compact ma.s.s of iron; or joined, if joined they were, with such nice art, that no mark of division was perceptible. Again and again he surveyed them--and the floor--and the roof--and that range of visionary windows, as he was now almost tempted to consider them: he could discover nothing, absolutely nothing, to relieve his doubts or satisfy his curiosity. Sometimes he fancied that altogether the dungeon had a more contracted appearance--that it looked smaller; but this he ascribed to fancy, and the impression naturally produced upon his mind by the undeniable disappearance of two of the windows.

With intense anxiety, Vivenzio looked forward to the return of night; and as it approached, he resolved that no treacherous sleep should again betray him. Instead of seeking his bed of straw, he continued to walk up and down his dungeon till daylight, straining his eyes in every direction through the darkness, to watch for any appearances that might explain these mysteries. While thus engaged, and as nearly as he could judge (by the time that afterwards elapsed before the morning came in), about two o'clock, there was a slight tremulous motion of the floors. He stooped. The motion lasted nearly a minute; but it was so extremely gentle, that he almost doubted whether it was real, or only imaginary. He listened. Not a sound could be heard.

Presently, however, he felt a rush of cold air blow upon him; and das.h.i.+ng towards the quarter whence it seemed to proceed, he stumbled over something which he judged to be the water ewer. The rush of cold air was no longer perceptible; and as Vivenzio stretched out his hands, he found himself close to the walls. He remained motionless for a considerable time; but nothing occurred during the remainder of the night to excite his attention, though he continued to watch with unabated vigilance.

The first approaches of the morning were visible through the grated windows, breaking, with faint divisions of light, the darkness that still pervaded every other part, long before Vivenzio was enabled to distinguish any object in his dungeon. Instinctively and fearfully he turned his eyes, hot and inflamed with watching, towards them. There were FOUR! He could _see_ only four: but it might be that some intervening object prevented the fifth from becoming perceptible; and he waited impatiently to ascertain if it were so. As the light strengthened, however, and penetrated every corner of the cell, other objects of amazement struck his sight. On the ground lay the broken fragments of the pitcher he had used the day before, and at a small distance from them, nearer to the wall, stood the one he had noticed the first night. It was filled with water, and beside it was his food.

He was now certain that, by some mechanical contrivance, an opening was obtained through the iron wall, and that through this opening the current of air had found entrance. But how noiseless! For had a feather almost waved at the time, he must have heard it. Again he examined that part of the wall; but both to sight and touch it appeared one even and uniform surface, while to repeated and violent blows there was no reverberating sound indicative of hollowness.