For it had seemed to me that the draperies on her bosom had slightly moved, a gentle, almost imperceptible heave as if she breathed. I looked, and there it came again.
God! into what madness was I come that my eyes could so deceive me? It was the draught that stirred the air about the church and blew great shrouds of wax adown the taper’s yellow sides. I manned myself to a more sober mood, and looked again.
And now my doubts were all dispelled. I knew that I had mastered any errant fancy, and that my eyes were grown wise and discriminating, and I knew, too, that she lived. Her bosom slowly rose and fell; the colour of her lips, the hue of her cheeks confirmed the assurance that she breathed. The poison had failed in its work.
I paused a second yet to ponder. That morning her appearance had been such that the physician had been deceived by it, and had pronounced her cold. Yet now there were these signs of life. What could it portend but that the effects of the poison were passing off and that she was recovering?
In the wild madness of joy that sent the blood drumming and beating through my brain, my first impulse was to run for help. Then I bethought me of the closed doors, and I realised that no matter how I shouted none would hear me. I must succour her myself as best I could, and meanwhile she must be protected from the chill air of that December night in that church that was colder than the tomb. I had my cloak, a heavy, serviceable garment; and if more were needed, there was the pall which I had removed, and which lay in a heap about the legs of my bench.
I leaned forward, and passing my hand under her head, I gently raised it. Then slipping it downwards, I thrust my arm after it until I had her round the waist in a firm grip. Thus I raised her from the coffin, and the warmth of her body on my arm, the ready, supple bending of her limbs, were so many added proofs that she was not dead.
Gently and reverently I lifted her in my arms, an intoxication of holy joy pervading me, and the prayers falling faster from my lips than ever they had done since as a lad I had recited them at my mother’s knee. A moment I laid her on the bench, whilst I divested myself of my cloak. Then suddenly I paused, and stood listening, holding my breath.
Steps were advancing towards the door.
My first impulse was to rush forward and call to those who came, shouting my news and imploring their help. Then a sudden, an almost instinctive suspicion caught and chilled me. Who was it came at such an hour? What could any man seek in the Church of San Domenico at dead of night? Was the church indeed their goal, or were they but passers-by?
That last question went not long unanswered. The steps came nearer, whilst I stood appalled, my skin roughening like a dog’s. They halted at the door. Something heavy hurtled against it.
A voice, the voice of Ramiro del’ Orca — I knew it upon the instant — reached my ears which concentration had rendered superacute.
“It is locked, Baldassare. Get out those tools of yours and force it.”
My wits were working now at fever-pace. It may be that I am swift of thought beyond the ordinary man, or it may be that what then came to me was either a flash of inspiration or the conclusion to which I leapt by instinct. But in that moment the whole plot of Madonna’s poisoning was revealed to me. Poisoned she had been — aye, but by some drug that did but produce for a little while the outward appearance of death so truly simulated as to deceive the most experienced of doctors. I had heard of such poisons, and here, in very truth, was one of them at work. His vengeance on her for her indifference to his suit was not so clumsy and primitive as that of simply slaying her. He had, by his infernal artifice, intended, secretly, to bear her off. To-morrow when men found a broken church-door and a violated bier, they would set the sacrilege down to some wizard who had need of the body for his dark practices of magic.
I cursed myself in that hour that I had not earlier been moved to peer into her coffin whilst yet there might have been time to have saved her. Now? The sweat stood out in beads upon my brow. At that door there were, to judge by the sound of footsteps and of voices, some three or four men besides Messer Ramiro. For only weapon I had my dagger. What could I do with that to defend her? Ramiro’s plan would suffer no frustration through my discovery; when to-morrow the sacrilege was discovered the cold body of Lazzaro Biancomonte lying beside the desecrated bier would be but an item in the work of profanation they would find — an item that nowise would modify the conclusion to which I anticipated they would come.
CHAPTER XIV. REQUIESCAT!
A strange and mysterious thing is the working of terror on the human mind. Some it renders incapable of thought or action, paralysing their limbs and stagnating the blood in their veins; such creatures die in anticipating death. Others under the stress of that grim passion have their wits preternaturally sharpened. The instinct of self-preservation assumes command of all their senses, and urges them to swift and feverish action.
I thank God with a full heart that to this latter class do I belong. After one gelid moment, spent with eyes and mouth agape, my hands fallen limp beside me and my hair bristling with affright, I became myself again and never calmer than in that dread moment. I went to work with superhuman swiftness. My cheeks may have been livid, my very lips bloodless; but my hands were steady and my wits under full control.
Concealment — concealment for myself and her — was the thing that now imported; and no sooner was the thought conceived than the means were devised. Slender means were they, yet Heaven knows I was in no case to be exacting, and since they were the best the place afforded I must trust to them without demurring, and pray God that Messer Ramiro might lack the wit to search. And with that fresh hope it came to me that I must find a way so to dispose as to make him believe that to search would be a futile waste of energy.
The odds against me lay in the little time at my disposal. Yet a little time there was. The door was stout, and Messer Ramiro might take no violent means of bursting it, lest the noise should arouse the street — and I well could guess how little he would relish having lights to shine upon this deed of night of his.
With what tools his sbirro was at work I could not say; but surely they must be such as would leave me a few moments. Already the fellow had begun. I could make out a soft crunching sound, as of steel biting into wood. To act, then!
With movements swift as a cat’s, and as silent, I went to work. Like a ghost I glided round the coffin to the other side, where the lid was lying. I took it up, and when for a moment I had deposited Madonna Paola on the ground, I mounted the bench and gently but quickly set back that lid as it had been. Next, I gathered up the cumbrous pall, and mounting the bench once more I spread it across the coffin. This way and that I pulled it, straightening it into the shape that it had worn when first I had entered, and casting its folds into regular lines that would lend it the appearance of having remained undisturbed.
And what time I toiled, the half of my mind intent upon my task, the other half was as intent upon the progress of the worker at the door.
At last it was done. I set the bench where first it had been, at the foot of the catafalque, and gathering up Madonna in my arms, as though her weight had been an infant’s, I bore her swiftly out of the circle of light of those four tapers into the black, impenetrable gloom beyond. On I sped towards the high-altar, flying now as men fly in evil dreams, with the sensation of an enemy upon them and their progress a mere standing-still.
Thus I gained the chancel, hurtling against the railing as I passed, and pausing for an instant, wondering whether those without could have heard the noise which in my clumsiness I had made. But the grinding sound continued uninterrupted, and I breathed more freely. I mounted the altar-steps, the distant light behind me still feebly guiding me; I ran round to the right, and heaved a great sigh of relief to find my hopes verified, and that the altar of San Domenico was as the altar of other churches I had known. It stood a pace or so from the wall, and behind it there was just such narrow hiding-room as I had looked to find.
I paused at the mouth of t
hat black opening, and even as I paused, something hard that gave out a metallic sound fell at the far end of the church. Instinct told me it was the lock which those miscreants had cut from the door. I waited for no more, but like a beast scudding to cover I plunged into that black space.
Madonna, wrapped in my cloak as she was, I set down upon the ground, and then I crept forward on hands and knees and thrust out my head, trusting to the darkness to envelop me.
I waited thus for some seconds, my heart beating now against my ribs as if it would hurl itself out of my bosom, my head and face on fire with the fever of reaction that succeeded my late cold pallor.
From where I watched it was impossible to see the door hidden in the black gloom. Away in the centre of the church, an island of light in that vast sea of blackness, stood the catafalque with its four wax torches. Something creaked, and almost immediately I saw the flames of those tapers bend towards me, beaten over by the gust that smote them from the door. Thus I surmised that Ramiro and his men had entered. The soft fall of their feet; for they were treading lightly now, succeeded, and at last they came into view, shadowy at first, then sharply outlined as they approached the light.
A moment they stood in half-whispered conversation, their voices a mere boom of sound in which no word was to be distinguished. Then I saw Ramiro suddenly step forward — I knew him by his great height — and drag away, even as I had done, the pall that hid the coffin. Next he seized the bench and gave a brisk order to his men in a less cautious voice, so that I caught his words.
“Spread a cloak,” said he, and, in obedience, the four that were with him took a cloak among them, each holding one of its corners. It was thus that he meant to bear her with him.
He mounted now the bench, and I could imagine with what elation of mind he put out his hands to remove the coffin-lid. As well as if his soul had been transformed into a book conceived for my amusement did I surmise the exultant mood that then possessed him. He had tricked Filippo; he had out-witted us all — Madonna herself, included — and he was leaving no trace behind him that should warrant any so much as to dare to think that this vile deed was the work of Messer Ramiro del’ Orca, Governor of Cessna.
But Fate, that arch-humourist, that jester of the gods, delights in mighty contrasts, and has a trick of exalting us by false hopes and hollow lures on the very eve of working our discomfiture. From the soul that but a moment back had been aglow with evil satisfaction there burst a sudden blasphemous cry of rage that disregarded utterly the sanctity of that consecrated place.
“By the Death of Christ! the coffin is empty!”
It was the roar of a beast enraged, and it was succeeded by a heavy crash as he let fall the coffin-lid; a second later a still louder sound awoke the night-echoes of that silent place. In a burst of maniacal frenzy he had caught the coffin itself a buffet of his mighty fist, and hurled it from its trestles.
Then he leapt down from the bench, and flung all caution to the winds in the excitement that possessed him.
“It is a trick of that smooth-faced knave Filippo,” he cried. “They have laid a trap for us, animals, and you never informed yourselves.”
I could imagine the foam about the corners of his mouth, the swelling veins in his brow, and the mad bulging of his hideous eyes, for terror spoke in his words, and the Governor of Cesena, overbearing bully though he was, could on occasion, too, become a coward.
“Out of this!” he growled at them. “See that your swords hang ready. Away!”
One of them murmured something that I could not catch. Mother in Heaven! if it should be a suggestion of what actually had taken place, a suggestion that the church should be searched ere they abandoned it? But Ramiro’s answer speedily relieved my fears.
“I’ll take no risks,” he barked. “Come! Let us go separately. I first, and do you follow me and get clear of Pesaro as best you can.” His voice grew lower, and from what else he said I but caught the words, “Cesena” and “to-morrow night,” from which I gathered that he was appointing that as their next meeting-place.
Ramiro went, and scarce had the echoes of his footsteps died away ere the others followed in a rush, fearful of being caught in some trap that was here laid for them, and but restrained from flying on the instant by their still greater fear of that harsh master, Ramiro.
Thanking Heaven for this miraculous deliverance, and for the wit it had lent me so to prepare a scene that should thoroughly mislead those ravishers, I turned me now to Madonna Paola. Her breathing was grown more heavy and more regular, so that in all respects she was as one sleeping healthily. Soon I hoped that she might awaken, for to seek to bear her thence and to the Palace in my arms would have been a madness. And now it occurred to me that I should have restoratives at hand against the time of her regaining consciousness. Inspiration suggested to me the wine that should be stored in the sacristy for altar purposes. It was unconsecrated, and there could be no sacrilege in using it.
I crept round to the front of the altar. At the angle a candle-branch protruded, standing no higher than my head. It held some three or four tapers, and was so placed to enable the priest to read his missal at early Mass on dark winter mornings. I plucked one of the candles from its socket, and hastening down the church, I lighted it from one of the burning tapers of the bier. Screening it with my hand, I retraced my steps and regained the chancel. Then turning to the left, I made for a door that I knew should give access to the sacristy. It yielded to my touch, and I passed down a short stone-flagged passage, and entered the spacious chamber beyond. An oak settle was placed against one wall, and above it hung an enormous, rudely-carved crucifix. Facing it against the other wall loomed a huge piece of furniture, half-cupboard, half-buffet. On a bench in a corner stood a basin and ewer of metal, whilst a few vestments hanging beside these completed the furniture of this austere and white-washed chamber. Setting my candle on the buffet, I opened one of the drawers. It was full of garments of different kinds, among which I noticed several monks’ habits. I rummaged to the bottom only to find some odd pairs of sandals.
Disappointed, I closed the drawer and tried another, with no better fortune. Here were under-vestments of fine linen, newly washed and fragrant with rosemary. I abandoned the drawer and gave my attention to the cupboard above. It was locked, but the key was there. It opened, and my candle reflected a blaze on gold and silver vessels, consecrated chalices; a dazzling monstra, and several richly-carved ciboria of solid gold, set with precious stones. But in a corner I espied a dark-brown, gourd-shaped object. It was a skin of wine, and, with a half-suppressed cry of joy, I seized it. In that instant a piercing scream rang through the stillness of the church, and startled me so that I stood there for some seconds, frozen in horror, a hundred wild conjectures leaping to my mind.
Had Ramiro remained hidden, and was he returned? Did the scream mean that Madonna Paola had been awakened by his rough hands?
A second time it came, and now it seemed to break the hideous spell that its first utterance had cast over me. Dropping the leather bottle, I sped back, down the stone passage to the door that abutted on the chancel.
There, by the high-altar, I saw a form that seemed at first luminous and ghostly, but in which presently I recognised Madonna Paola, the dim rays of the distant tapers finding out the white robe with which her limbs were hung. She was alone, and I knew then that it was but the very natural fear consequent upon awakening in such a place that had provoked the cry I had heard.
“Madonna,” I called, advancing swiftly towards her. “Madonna Paola!” There was a gasp, a moment’s stillness, then —
“Lazzaro?” She cried, questioningly. “What has happened? Why am I here?”
I was beside her now, and found her trembling like an aspen.
“Something horrible has happened, Madonna,” I answered. “But it is over now, and the evil is averted.”
“But how came I here?”
“That you shall learn.” I stooped to gather up the cloak which had
slipped from her shoulders as she advanced. “Do you wrap this about you,” I urged her, and with my own hands I assisted to enfold her in that mantle. “Are you faint, Madonna?” I asked.
“I scarce know,” she answered in a frightened voice. “There is a black horror upon me. Tell me,” she implored again, “what does it mean?”
I drew her away now, promising to satisfy her in the fullest manner once she were out of these forbidding surroundings. I led her to the sacristy and seating her upon the settle I produced that wine-skin once again.
At first she babbled like a child of not being thirsty; but I was insistent.
“It is no matter of quenching thirst, Madonna,” I told her. “The wine will warm and revive you. Come Madonna mia, drink.”
She obeyed me now, and having got the first gulp down her throat she drank a lusty draught that was not long in bringing a healthier colour to replace the ashen pallor of her cheeks.
“I am so cold, Lazzaro,” she complained.
I turned to the drawer in which I had espied the rough monks’ habits, and pulling one out I held it for her to don. She sat there now, in that garment of coarse black cloth, the cowl flung back upon her shoulder, the fairest postulate that ever entered upon a novitiate.
“You are good to me, Lazzaro,” she murmured plaintively, “and I have used you very ill.” She paused a second, passing her hand across her brow. Then— “What is the hour?” she asked.
It was a question that I left unheeded. I bade her brace herself and have courage for the tale I was to tell. I assured her that the horror of it was all passed and that she had naught to fear. So soon as her natural curiosity should be satisfied it should be hers to return to her brother at the Palace.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 125