The Pilgrims of the Rhine
Page 40
CHAPTER XIII. THE TOMB OF A FATHER OF MANY CHILDREN.
THE feast being now ended, as well as the story, the fairies wound theirway homeward by a different path, till at length a red steady lightglowed through the long basaltic arches upon them, like the DemonHunters' fires in the Forest of Pines.
The prince sobered in his pace. "You approach," said he, in a gravetone, "the greatest of our temples; you will witness the tomb of amighty founder of our race!" An awe crept over the queen, in spite ofherself. Tracking the fires in silence, they came to a vast space, inthe midst of which was a long gray block of stone, such as the travellerfinds amidst the dread silence of Egyptian Thebes.
And on this stone lay the gigantic figure of a man,--dead, but notdeath-like, for invisible spells had preserved the flesh and the longhair for untold ages; and beside him lay a rude instrument of music, andat his feet was a sword and a hunter's spear; and above, the rock wound,hollowed and roofless, to the upper air, and daylight came through,sickened and pale, beneath red fires that burned everlastingly aroundhim, on such simple altars as belong to a savage race. But the place wasnot solitary, for many motionless but not lifeless shapes sat on largeblocks of stone beside the tomb. There was the wizard, wrapped in hislong black mantle, and his face covered with his hands; there wasthe uncouth and deformed dwarf, gibbering to himself; there sat thehousehold elf; there glowered from a gloomy rent in the wall, withglittering eyes and shining scale, the enormous dragon of the North. Anaged crone in rags, leaning on a staff, and gazing malignantly on thevisitors, with bleared but fiery eyes, stood opposite the tomb of thegigantic dead. And now the fairies themselves completed the group! Butall was dumb and unutterably silent,--the silence that floats oversome antique city of the desert, when, for the first time for a hundredcenturies, a living foot enters its desolate remains; the silence thatbelongs to the dust of eld,--deep, solemn, palpable, and sinking intothe heart with a leaden and death-like weight. Even the English fairyspoke not; she held her breath, and gazing on the tomb, she saw, in rudevast characters,--
THE TEUTON.
"_We_ are all that remain of his religion!" said the prince, as theyturned from the dread temple.