The World's Greatest Books - Volume 6 Part 9

_IV.--A Living Death_

"Do not despair," counselled Matilda, when the monk revealed his failure. "Your crime is unsuspected. Antonia may still be yours. The prioress of St. Clare has a mysterious liquor, the effect of which is to give those who drink it the appearance of death for three days. Procure some of this liquor, visit Antonia, and cause her to drink it; have her body conveyed to a sepulchre in the vaults of St. Clare."

Ambrosio hastened to secure a phial of the mysterious potion. He went to comfort Antonia in her distress, and contrived to pour a few drops from the phial into a draught that she was taking. In a few hours he heard that she was dead, and her body was conveyed to the vaults.

Meanwhile, Lorenzo had learned, not indeed that his sister was alive, but that she had been the victim of terrible cruelty. A nun, who had been Agnes's friend, hinted at atrocious vengeance taken by the prioress for Agnes's attempt to escape. She suggested that Lorenzo should bring the officers of the Inquisition with him and arrest the prioress during a public procession of the nuns in honour of St Clare.

Accordingly, as the prioress pa.s.sed along the street among her nuns with a devout and sanctified air, the officers advanced and arrested her.

"Ah!" she cried frantically, "I am betrayed!"

"Betrayed!" replied the nun who had revealed the secret to Lorenzo. "I charge the prioress with murder!"

She told how Agnes had been secretly poisoned by the prioress. The mob, mad with indignation, rushed to the convent determined to destroy it.

Lorenzo and the officers hastened to endeavour to do what they could to save the convent and the terrified nuns who had taken refuge there.

Antonia's heart throbbed, her eyes opened; she raised herself and cast a wild look around her. Her clothing was a shroud; she lay in a coffin among other coffins in a damp and hideous vault. Confronting her with a lantern in his hand, and eyeing her greedily, stood Ambrosio.

"Where am I?" she said abruptly. "How came I here? Let me go!"

"Why these terrors, Antonia?" replied the abbot. "What fear you from me--from one who adores you? You are imagined dead; society is for ever lost to you. You are absolutely in my power!"

She screamed, and strove to escape; he clutched at her and struggled to detain her. Suddenly Matilda entered in haste.

"The mob has set fire to the convent," she said to Ambrosio, "and the abbey is in danger. Don Lorenzo and the officers are searching the vaults. You cannot escape; you must remain here. They may not, perhaps, enter this vault."

Antonia heard that rescue was at hand.

"Help! help!" she screamed, and ran out of the vault. The abbot pursued her in desperation; he caught her; he could not stifle her cries.

Frantic in his desire to escape, he grasped Matilda's dagger, plunged it twice in the bosom of Antonia, and fled back to the vault. It was too late he had been seen, the glare of torches filled the vault, and Ambrosio and Matilda were seized and bound by the officers of the Inquisition.

Meanwhile, Lorenzo, running to and fro, had flashed his lantern upon a creature so wretched, so emaciated, that he doubted to think her woman.

He stopped petrified with horror.

"Two days, and yet no food!" she moaned. "No hope, no comfort!" Suddenly she looked up and addressed him.

"Do you bring me food, or do you bring me death?"

"I come," he replied, "to relieve your sorrows."

"G.o.d, is it possible? Oh, yes! Yes, it is!"--she fainted. Lorenzo carried her in his arms to the nuns above.

Loud shrieks summoned him below again. Hastening after the officers, he saw a woman bleeding on the ground. He went to her; it was his beloved Antonia. She was dying; with a few sweet words of farewell, her spirit pa.s.sed away.

Broken-hearted, he returned. He had lost Antonia, but he was to learn that Agnes was restored to him. The woman he had rescued was indeed his sister, saved from a living death and brought back to life and love.

_V.--Lucifer_

Ambrosio was tortured into confession, and condemned to be burned at the stake. Matilda, terrified at the sight of her fellow-criminal's torments, confessed without torture, and was sentenced to be burned at his side.

They were to perish at midnight, and as the monk, in panic-stricken despair, awaited the awful hour, suddenly Matilda stood before him, beautifully attired, with a look of wild pleasure in her eyes.

"Matilda!" he cried, "how have you gained entrance?"

"Ambrosio," she replied, "I am free. For life and liberty I have sold my soul to Lucifer. Dare you do the same?"

The monk shuddered.

"I cannot renounce my G.o.d," he said.

"Fool! What hope have you of G.o.d's mercy?" She handed him a book. "If you repent of your folly, read the first four lines in the seventh page backwards." She vanished.

A fearful struggle raged in the monk's spirit. What hope had he in any case of escaping eternal torment? And yet--was not the Almighty's mercy infinite? Then the thought of the stake and the flames entered his mind and appalled him.

At last the fatal hour came. The steps of his gaolers were heard in the pa.s.sage. In uttermost terror he opened the book and ran over the lines, and straightway the fiend appeared--not seraph-like as when he appeared formerly, but dark, hideous, and gigantic, with hissing snakes coiling around his brows.

He placed a parchment before Ambrosio.

"Bear me hence!" cried the monk.

"Will you be mine, body and soul?" said the demon. "Resolve while there is time!"

"I must!"

"Sign, then!" Lucifer thrust a pen into the flesh of Ambrosio's arm, and the monk signed. A moment later he was carried through the roof of the dungeon into mid-air.

The demon bore him with arrow-like speed to the brink of a precipice in the Sierra Morena.

"Carry me to Matilda!" gasped the monk.

"Wretch!" answered Lucifer. "For what did you stipulate but rescue from the Inquisition? Learn that when you signed, the steps in the corridor were the steps of those who were bringing you a pardon. But now you are mine beyond reprieve, to all eternity, and alive you quit not these mountains."

Darting his talons into the monk's shaven crown, he sprang with him from the rock. From a dreadful height he flung him headlong, and the torrent bore away with it the shattered corpse of Ambrosio.

ELIZA LYNN LINTON

Joshua Davidson