Alvira: The Heroine of Vesuvius Part 7

How great, how holy everything connected with that name! Could the man of G.o.d who made it so venerable to his people meet the wretch who had a.s.sumed it to dishonor it? Could even the pious people who flocked to the cathedral know there was amongst them a Charles whose hands were stained with parricidal guilt? Like the wicked man who fleeth when no man pursueth, Charles trembled lest the indignation of the people, of the saint, and of G.o.d should crush her in punishment of her sins.

With thoughts like these she entered the cathedral. Henry was by her side. The Pontifical High Ma.s.s had commenced, and the organ rolled its majestic tones through the aisles of the old church. Immense crowds had already gathered around the tomb, and Charles and Henry repaired to a quiet and obscure portion of the building, where they could observe without being observed.

Some years had now pa.s.sed since Charles had breathed a prayer. There was something in everything around her that softened her heart; she buried her face in her hands and wept. An eloquent panegyric was preached by a Dominican Father. The peroration was an appeal to the a.s.sembled thousands to kneel and implore the blessing of the saint on the city and on themselves. Few sent a more fervent appeal than the poor, sinful girls who shunned the gaze of the crowd. The prayer of Charles was heard, and G.o.d, who works wonders in the least of his works, brought about the conversion of this child of predestination in a manner as strange as it is interesting.

The crowd have left the cathedral. The lights are extinguished. The service is over. Charles and Henry are amongst the last to leave.

On coming into the great square before the church they were surprised to see large groups of men in deep conversation. Their excited and animated manner showed at once something strange had happened. Men of strange dress appeared also in the crowd. Charles enquired what was the matter, and was informed that word had just come that Charles II. of Spain had declared war with Naples, and, as the state of Milan was subsidiary to the kingdom of the latter, he had sent officers to cause an enrolment of troops. Large inducements were offered to all who would join, and numbers of the youth of the city had already given their names.

Charles scarcely hesitated in coming to a conclusion. The reduced state of their circ.u.mstances, the perfection of her disguise, and the still unconquered ambition of her heart made the circ.u.mstance a change of golden hope in the sinking prospects of her career. One thought alone deterred her. Could the delicate frame and soul of her little sister bear the hards.h.i.+ps of a soldier's life? She breathed her thoughts to Henry. The latter cried and trembled. The one and only scene of blood she had witnessed still haunted her soul with horror--'twas in the ravine near Chamounix. But Charles still urged on the necessity of some desperate movement, and persuaded her, if they succeeded in joining this new service as officers, their position would be much the same as that they had pa.s.sed through during the last two years. Poor Henry had but one tie to live for in the world; she preferred death to separation from her sister, and in the bravery of sisterly affection, she told Charles she would swim by her side in the river of blood she might cause to flow.

The next morning found them enrolled as officers in the army of the King of Naples.

Chapter XIX.

Remorse.

They call'd her cold and proud, Because her lip and brow Amid the mirthful crowd No kindred mirth avowed; Alas! nor look nor language e'er reveal How much the sad can love, the lonely feel.

The peopled earth appears A dreary desert wide; Her gloominess and tears The stern and gay deride.

O G.o.d! life's heartless mockeries who can bear When grief is dumb and deep thought brings despair?

During the terrible storm that pa.s.sed over the Church at the commencement of the third century, we have a thrilling incident which shows the terror and remorse of the pagan emperors when they returned to their golden house after witnessing the execution of their martyred victims.

Diocletian, being enraged with Adrian, the governor of Aninoe--who, from being an ardent persecutor of the Church, had become a fervent follower of Christ--caused him to be dragged to Nicomedia, where, seized with implacable rage a the sight of the constancy of the martyr, who had once been his friend and confidant, he ordered him to be thrown chained hand and foot, at the decline of day, into a deep pit, which was filled with earth and stones before the emperor's eyes. When the last cry of the victim had been stifled under the acc.u.mulated earth, the emperor stamped on it with his feet and cried out in a tone of defiance: "Now, Adrian, if thy Christ loves thee, let him show it."

He then quitted the field of punishment, but felt himself so overpowered by such an extraordinary feeling that he knew not whether it was the termination of his pa.s.sion or the commencement of his remorse. His Thessalian courtiers bore him rapidly away from the accursed spot.

Night fell; Diocletian, agitated and restless, prepared to retire to rest, for his head was burning. He entered his chamber, which was hung around with purple, but the walls of which now seemed to distil blood. He advanced a few steps, when, lo! a corpse appeared to rise slowly on his golden couch; his bed was occupied by a spectre, and near the costly lamp, which shed a pale light round the chamber, the chains of the martyr seemed to descend from the ceiling. Diocletian uttered a cry that might have penetrated the grave. His guards ran in, but instantly grew pale, drew back, and, pointing to the object which caused an icy sweat to cover the imperial brow, they said with horror to each other: "It is the Christian."

Thus a guilty conscience summons imaginary terrors around it. Cain fled when no one pursued. Nero heard invisible trumpets ringing his death-knell around the tomb of his mother. How often has the mountain bandit, whose hand trembled not at murder, shuddered with fear, as he hastened through the forest, at the sound of a branch waving in the wind, or felt his hair stand erect with terror on beholding a distant bush fantastically enlightened by the moon! Conscience has made cowards of the most sanguinary freebooters and the most shameless oppressors. The dreadful "worm that dieth not," and banishes every cheerful thought from the guilty soul, is not inaptly compared to the wretch we read of in the annals of Eastern crime, condemned to carry about with him the dead and decomposing body of his murdered victim.

It is not to be expected that Charles escaped the agonies of a guilty conscience. From the moment she left the church in Milan the usual and dreadful struggle between shame and grace, humility and pride, commenced in her heart. Although now and then forgotten in the excitement of the extraordinary disguise she had a.s.sumed, nevertheless the feeling of remorse dampened every pleasure, and added to the disguise of her person another disguise of false joy to her countenance.

This reaction caused an important feature in the life of Alvira during her stay in the beautiful town of Messina, whither we must ask our reader to follow our heroines to commence in their military career the most interesting part of his historical romance.

The Milanese recruits were busily engaged in going through military instruction, when orders were received that the division should sail immediately for Messina. There are few acquainted with the military life who do not know how disagreeable are orders to move.

The bustle, the packing, the breaking up of a.s.sociations, and the inevitable want of comfort in the military march try the courage of the brave man more than the din of battle, and robs the military career of much of its boasted enthusiasm. The stalwart son of Mars, who forgets there are such things as danger and fatigue in the exciting hour of battle, will grumble his discontent at the inconveniences of the hour of peace. We will leave it to the imagination of the reader to conceive the feelings, the regrets and misgivings, of our young heroines as their little vessel set sail from the town of Spezzia for the fortress of Messina. Although their biographers say nothing of their voyage, we cannot but imagine it was an unpleasant one.

Although the blue headlands of the Italian coast, and the snow-capped Apennines in the distance, supplied the place of the compa.s.s, and their calls at the different ports deprived their journey of the painful monotony of a long sea-voyage, yet the a.s.sociations, the cloud that hung over their thoughts, embittered every source of pleasure.

Arrived at Messina, Charles and Henry were quartered in the old fortress. It was an antiquated, quadrangular edifice, perched high up on the side of the hill, looking down on beautiful white houses built one over the other, and descending in terraces to the sea.

Its old walls were dilapidated and discovered by the touch of time, and threatened every minute, as it afterwards did in the earthquake of 1769, to commence the awful avalanche of destruction that swept this fair city into the sea.

The first glimpse of their barracks did not rouse in Henry any e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of gladness. The old Castello, as the people called it, ill-agreed with the n.o.ble edifices she was wont to call castles in her earlier days--no lofty battlements crested with clouds; no drawbridges swung on ponderous chains; no mysterious keeps haunted with traditionary horrors; no myriads of archers in gold and blue to rend the heavens with a mighty shout of welcome. Alvira's dream of military glory was a veritable castle in the air in the presence of the ruinous, ill-kept, and dilapidated fortress they had come to reinforce.

Everything around seemed to increase the gloom that hung over Charles's heart. The ill-clad and poverty-stricken people, squatting in idleness and dirt in the streets; the miserable shops; the doce far niente so conspicuously characteristic of Italian towns, were contrasted with the beautiful and busy capitals Charles and Henry had come from. But nowhere was this contrast so keen as in their domestic arrangements.

The bleak apartments, the campbed, the iron washstand, and the rough cuisine contrasted sadly with the magnificence of their father's splendid mansion in Paris. No wonder our young heroines wept when alone over the memories of the past.

Charles and Henry kept together; they avoided all society; they loved to ramble along the beautiful beach that ran for some miles on the north side of the town, and there, in floods of tears, seek relief for their broken hearts. Oh! how memory will on these occasions wake up the happy past lost and gone, and the wicked past yet to be atoned for. What heart weighted with the agony of remorse will not feel the sting of guilt more keen in the rememberance of the blissful days of innocence and childhood? Many a blue wave has wrapt in its icy shroud the child of misfortune who was unable to bear the shame and reproof of her own conscience. It was in the recollection of virtuous childhood that Charles and Henry felt their greatest sorrows.

Every tender admonition of their dying mother; the instruction of the aged abbe who prepared them for their first confession and communion; and the piety and n.o.ble example of their little brother, Louis Marie, who had fled in his childhood from the world they now hated, were subjects often brought up in their lonely rambles.

At night Charles would often awake with frightful dreams. The cold, bloodstained face of her murdered father would come in awful proximity to her. Her screams would bring her fellow-officers to her a.s.sistance, but they knew not the cause of her terror. The young officers had the sympathy of the whole garrison; even the people who saw them return from their evening walk remarked them to be lonely and sad, and their eyes often red from crying.

Three long and miserable months were thus pa.s.sed by our heroines at Messina. They were now as skilful in their military exercises as they were in their disguise. But wearied of the military life, and longing to return to the society of their s.e.x, they had determined to leave, to declare who they were, and endeavor, by some means, to get back to France. Whilst deliberating on this movement an incident occurred which changed their plans and cast them again into an extraordinary circle of vicissitudes.

Chapter XX.

Naples.

Whilst Charles and Henry were one evening walking along the beautiful beach they saw a s.h.i.+p nearing the land. A strong breeze was blowing at the time, and whilst they paused to admire the n.o.ble bark, all sails set, ploughing the crested billows, and floating over them like an enormous sea-gull, she came nearer and nearer to the young officers.

Another minute the sails were lowered and anchor was cast. A small boat was dispatched from the s.h.i.+p, and made for the beach just where Charles and Henry were standing. They formed a thousand conjectures of the meaning of this movement. When the boat came near the land, a tall young man, dressed in the uniform of the Neapolitan service, leaped on sh.o.r.e and advanced towards the young officers.

A few words of recognition pa.s.sed. He was a lieutenant in the Neopolitan army, sent with despatches for the commandant of the garrison of Messina to send two or three companies of the newly-enrolled troops to the capital.

On the way to the garrison he informed Charles and Henry that the war was nearly at an end, but there was a great deal of disturbance and sedition in the city of Naples, and that the garrison there had to be doubled. The object in anchoring the s.h.i.+p on the coast was for fear the garrison of Messina might have been surprised and taken by the Carlists. Having a.s.sured himself all was safe, he entered the citadel with the young officers, and was presented to the captain, to whom he handed his despatches from headquarters.

The next evening found Henry and Charles, with two hundred men, on board the s.h.i.+p that had anch.o.r.ed on the coast the day before. The The excitement and bustle of departure had silenced for a while all feelings of remorse, and the old pa.s.sions that reigned in the soul of Charles rose again from their dormant state. Her eye flashed with life and her lips quivered with joy; there was still within her grasp the chance of fame. Ambition fanned the dying embers of decaying hope, and every pious resolve was thrown aside until the course of events would realize or blast her new dream of greatness.

A few days brought them in sight of the beautiful capital of the south of Italy. The modern aphorism, "See Naples and then die," was said in other words in old times, when the Caesars and Senators of the empire enriched its beautiful sh.o.r.es with superb villas. There is not in Europe a bluer sky and, true in its refection of the azure firmament, a bluer sea than around Naples. The coast undulates to the sea in verdant slopes, which in autumn have a rich golden hue from the yellow tinge of the vine-leaf. Its cla.s.sic fame casts a halo around its charms; its history in the far past, its terrible mountain and periodical convulsions from the burning womb of the earth, render it an object of attraction to all cla.s.ses.

Charles and Henry were quite alive to the impressions felt by tourists when, whirled along by the panting steam-horse through the luxuriant Campo Flice, they see for the first time the column of murky smoke that rises to the clouds over the terrible Vesuvius. The old mountain was then, as it is now, the terror and the attraction of tourists.

The catastrophes it has caused, the cities it has swallowed up in molten ashes, the thunder of its roar when roused from its sleep, and the unhealthy, sulphurous vapors ever vomited from its cone, render it a veritable giant that the human race loves to see at a distance.

Our heroines were already acquainted with the "Light-house of the Mediterranean," and from afar the lofty and ever-blazing, active Etna; hence Vesuvius was not so attractive as a volcano as in the halo of cla.s.sic lore that hung around it. At a distance the mountain seems to be harmless, the blue outline of the lofty cone terminating in a dense bank of smoke, like stormclouds gathering around the snowy peaks of the distant Apennines; but when the adventurous tourist wishes to approach nearer to its blazing crater, and toils up its torn and blackened sides, he will see in the immense chasms and rents traces of might convulsions. Deep rivers of molten lava that take twenty and thirty years to cool; the quant.i.ty of ashes and cinders that could change the whole face of a country and bury five cities in a few hours, must tell of the enormous furnace raging in the bowels of the earth, of which Vesuvius is but its chimney.

Strange, Charles longed to see Vesuvius when but a tender girl in Paris.

She little thought the extraordinary course of human events would bring her, not only under the shadow of the terrible mountain itself, but send her through a most thrilling scene on its barren slopes.

Let us hasten on to the course of events that rendered the extraordinary life of this girl so romantic.

Chapter XXI.

Engagement with Brigands.

Arrived in Naples, our heroines were quartered in the Molo. This is an old fortress still used as a barrack in Naples. Its ma.s.sive, quadrangular walls were erected in the middle ages, and have withstood many a desperate siege in the civil wars of Italy.

The detachment from the Messina garrison found the city in a state of disturbance and confusion. Armed troops paraded the streets, houses were burning on every side, and bands of revolutionists were running frantically to and fro through the streets, yelling in the most unearthly tones their whoops of political antagonism to the Government; yet it was evident the Government had the upper hand, and the mob was gradually dispersing; they fled from the city, and order was restored. In the meantime word was received in Naples that a large body of these ruffians had settled themselves on the sides of Vesuvius, and supported themselves by the wholesale plunder and pillage of the farms and villages on the slopes of the hill. An order was immediately given that two hundred men should march to the mountain to destroy this band of brigands. The company selected was that belonging to Charles and Henry.

The next day found our young heroines on the road to the field of battle. We can fancy the position and thoughts of those tender, delicate girls, marching side by side with the rough, bearded soldiers of Italy--the one rejoicing in the wild dream of her foolish ambition; the other trembling in her timid heart, and dragged into scenes she loathed by the irresistible chain of affection which bound her to her sister.