The duke now conveyed the nuns in safety to the dwellings of their respective friends. The rescued prisoner was still insensible, and gave no signs of life, except by occasional groans. She was borne upon a sort of litter. Virginia, who was constantly by the side of it, was apprehensive that, exhausted by long abstinence, and shaken by the sudden change from bonds and darkness to liberty and light, her frame would never get the better of the shock. Lorenzo and Don Ramirez still remained in the sepulchre. After deliberating upon their proceedings, it was resolved that, to prevent losing time, the archers should be divided into two bodies: that with Don Ramirez should examine the cavern, while Lorenzo, with the other, might penetrate into the further vaults. This being arranged, and his followers being provided with torches, Don Ramirez advanced to the cavern. He had already descended some steps, when he heard people approaching hastily from the interior part of the sepulchre. This surprised him, and he quitted the cave precipitately.
“Do you hear foot-steps?” said Lorenzo. “Let us bend our course towards them. ’Tis from this side that they seem to proceed.”
At that moment a loud and piercing shriek induced him to quicken his steps.
“Help! help, for God’s sake!” cried a voice, whose melodious tone penetrated Lorenzo’s heart with terror.
He flew towards the cry with the rapidity of lightning, and was followed by Don Ramirez with equal swiftness.
CHAP. XI.
Great Heaven! How frail thy creature man is made!
How by himself insensibly betrayed!
In our own strength unhappily secure,
Too little cautious of the adverse power,
On pleasure’s flowery brink we idly stray,
Masters as yet of our returning way:
Till the strong gusts of raging passion rise,
Till the dire tempest mingles earth and skies,
And, swift into the boundless ocean borne,
Our foolish confidence too late we mourn:
Round our devoted heads the billows beat,
And from our troubled view the lessening lands retreat.
PRIOR.
All this while Ambrosio was unconscious of the dreadful scenes which were passing so near. The execution of his designs upon Antonia employed his every thought. Hitherto he was satisfied with the success of his plans. Antonia had drunk the opiate, was buried in the vaults of St. Clare, and absolutely in his disposal. Matilda, who was well acquainted with the nature and effects of the soporific medicine, had computed that it would not cease to operate till one in the morning. For that hour he waited with impatience. The festival of St. Clare presented him with a favourable opportunity of consummating his crime. He was certain that the friars and nuns would be engaged in the procession, and that he had no cause to dread an interruption: from appearing himself at the head of his monks, he had desired to be excused. He doubted not, that being beyond the reach of help, cut off from all the world, and totally in his power, Antonia would comply with his desires. The affection which she had ever expressed for him, warranted this persuasion: but he resolved, that should she prove obstinate, no consideration whatever should prevent him from enjoying her. Secure from a discovery, he shuddered not at the idea of employing force; or, if he felt any repugnance, it arose not from a principle of shame or compassion, but from his feeling for Antonia the most sincere and ardent affection, and wishing to owe her favours to no one but herself.
The monks quitted the abbey at midnight. Matilda was among the choristers, and led the chaunt. Ambrosio was left by himself, and at liberty to pursue his own inclinations. Convinced that no one remained behind to watch his motions, or disturb his pleasures, he now hastened to the western aisles. His heart beating with hope not unmingled with anxiety, he crossed the garden, unlocked the door which admitted him into the cemetery, and in a few minutes he stood before the vaults. Here he paused: he looked round him with suspicion, conscious that his business was unfit for any other eye. As he stood in hesitation, he heard the melancholy shriek of the screech-owl: the wind rattled loudly against the windows of the adjacent convent, and, as the current swept by him, bore with it the faint notes of the chaunt of choristers. He opened the door cautiously, as if fearing to be overheard; he entered, and closed it again after him. Guided by his lamp, he threaded the long passages, in whose windings Matilda had instructed him, and reached the private vault which contained his sleeping mistress.
Its entrance was by no means easy to discover; but this was no obstacle to Ambrosio, who at the time of Antonia’s funeral had observed it too carefully to be deceived. He found the door, which was unfastened, pushed it open, and descended into the dungeon. He approached the humble tomb in which Antonia reposed. He had provided himself with an iron crow and a pick-axe: but this precaution was unnecessary. The grate was slightly fastened on the outside: he raised it, and, placing the lamp upon its ridge, bent silently over the tomb. By the side of three putrid half-corrupted bodies lay the sleeping beauty. A lively red, the forerunner of returning animation, had already spread itself over her cheeks; and as wrapped in her shroud she reclined upon her funeral bier, she seemed to smile at the images of death around her. While he gazed upon their rotting bones and disgusting figures, who perhaps were once as sweet and lovely, Ambrosio thought upon Elvira, by him reduced to the same state. As the memory of that horrid act glanced upon his mind, it was clouded with a gloomy horror; yet it served but to strengthen his resolution to destroy Antonia’s honour.
“For your sake, fatal beauty!” murmured the monk, while gazing on his devoted prey, “for your sake have I committed this murder, and sold myself to eternal tortures. Now you are in my power: the produce of my guilt will at least be mine. Hope not that your prayers breathed in tones of unequalled melody, your bright eyes filled with tears, and your hands lifted in supplication, as when seeking in penitence the Virgin’s pardon: hope not, that your moving innocence, your beauteous grief, or all your suppliant arts, shall ransom you from my embraces. Before the break of day, mine you must, and mine you shall be!”
He lifted her, still motionless, from the tomb: he seated himself upon a bank of stone, and, supporting her in his arms, watched impatiently for the symptoms of returning animation. Scarcely could he command his passions sufficiently, to restrain himself from enjoying her while yet insensible. His natural lust was increased in ardour by the difficulties which had opposed his satisfying it; as also by his long abstinence from woman, since, from the moment of resigning her claim to his love, Matilda had exiled him from her arms for ever.
“I am no prostitute, Ambrosio,” had she told him, when, in the fullness of his lust, he demanded her favours with more than usual earnestness; “I am now no more than your friend, and will not be your mistress. Cease then to solicit my complying with desires which insult me. While your heart was mine, I gloried in your embraces. Those happy times are past; my person is become indifferent to you, and ’Tis necessity, not love, which makes you seek my enjoyment. I cannot yield to a request so humiliating to my pride.”
Suddenly deprived of pleasures, the use of which had made them an absolute want, the monk felt this restraint severely. Naturally addicted to the gratification of the senses, in the full vigour of manhood and heat of blood, he had suffered his temperament to acquire such ascendency, that his lust was become madness. Of his fondness for Antonia, none but the grosser particles remained; he longed for the possession of her person; and even the gloom of the vault, the surrounding silence, and the resistance which he expected from her, seemed to give a fresh edge to his fierce and unbridled desires.
Gradually he felt the bosom which rested against his glow with returning warmth. Her heart throbbed again, her blood flowed swifter, and her lips moved. At length she opened her eyes; but, still oppressed and bewildered by the effects of the strong opiate, she closed them again immediately. Ambrosio watched her narrowly, nor permitted a movement to escape him. Perceiving that she was fully restored to existence, he caught her in raptur
e to his bosom, and closely pressed his lips to hers. The suddenness of his action sufficed to dissipate the fumes which obscured Antonia’s reason. She hastily raised herself, and cast a wild look round her. The strange images which presented themselves on every side contributed to confuse her. She put her hand to her head, as if to settle her disordered imagination. At length she took it away, and threw her eyes through the dungeon a second time. They fixed on the abbot’s face.
“Where am I?” she said abruptly. “How came I here?—Where is my mother? Methought I saw her! Oh! a dream, a dreadful dreadful dream told me…… But where am I? Let me go! I cannot stay here!”
She attempted to rise, but the monk prevented her.
“Be calm, lovely Antonia!” he replied; “no danger is near you: confide in my protection. Why do you gaze on me so earnestly? Do you not know me? Not know your friend, Ambrosio?”
“Ambrosio? my friend?—Oh! yes, yes; I remember…… But why am I here? Who has brought me? Why are you with me?—Oh! Flora bade me beware……!—Here are nothing but graves, and tombs, and skeletons! This place frightens me! Good Ambrosio, take me away from it, for it recalls my fearful dream!—Methought I was dead, and laid in my grave!—Good Ambrosio, take me from hence!—Will you not? Oh! will you not?—Do not look on me thus!—Your flaming eyes terrify me!—Spare me, father! Oh! spare me for God’s sake!”
“Why these terrors, Antonia?” rejoined the abbot, folding her in his arms, and covering her bosom with kisses which she in vain struggled to avoid. “What fear you from me, from one who adores you? What matters it where you are? This sepulchre seems to me Love’s bower. This gloom is the friendly night of Mystery, which he spreads over our delights! Such do I think it, and such must my Antonia. Yes, my sweet girl! yes! Your veins shall glow with the fire which circles in mine, and my transports shall be doubled by your sharing them!”
While he spoke thus, he repeated his embraces, and permitted himself the most indecent liberties. Even Antonia’s ignorance was not proof against the freedom of his behaviour. She was sensible of her danger, forced herself from his arms, and her shroud being her only garment, she wrapped it closely round her.
“Unhand me, father!” she cried, her honest indignation tempered by alarm at her unprotected position: “Why have you brought me to this place? Its appearance freezes me with horror! Convey me from hence, if you have the least sense of pity and humanity! Let me return to the house, which I have quitted I know not how; but stay here one moment longer, I neither will nor ought.”
Though the monk was somewhat startled by the resolute tone in which this speech was delivered, it produced upon him no other effect than surprise. He caught her hand, forced her upon his knee, and, gazing upon her with gloting eyes, he thus replied to her:
“Compose yourself, Antonia. Resistance is unavailing, and I need disavow my passion for you no longer. You are imagined dead; society is for ever lost to you. I possess you here alone; you are absolutely in my power, and I burn with desires which I must either gratify or die: but I would owe my happiness to yourself. My lovely girl! my adorable Antonia! let me instruct you in joys to which you are still a stranger, and teach you to feel those pleasures in my arms, which I must soon enjoy in yours. Nay, this struggling is childish,” he continued, seeing her repel his caresses, and endeavour to escape from his grasp; “no aid is near; neither heaven nor earth shall save you from my embraces. Yet why reject pleasures so sweet, so rapturous? No one observes us; our loves will be a secret to all the world. Love and opportunity invite your giving loose to your passions. Yield to them, my Antonia! yield to them, my lovely girl! Throw your arms thus fondly round me; join your lips thus closely to mine! Amidst all her gifts, has Nature denied her most precious, the sensibility of pleasure? Oh! impossible! Every feature, look, and motion declares you formed to bless, and to be blessed yourself! Turn not on me those supplicating eyes: consult your own charms; they will tell you that I am proof against entreaty. Can I relinquish these limbs so white, so soft, so delicate! these swelling breasts, round, full, and elastic! these lips fraught with such inexhaustible sweetness? Can I relinquish these treasures, and leave them to another’s enjoyment? No, Antonia; never, never! I swear it by this kiss! and this! and this!”
With every moment the friar’s passion became more ardent, and Antonia’s terror more intense. She struggled to disengage herself from his arms. Her exertions were unsuccessful; and, finding that Ambrosio’s conduct became still freer, she shrieked for assistance with all her strength. The aspect of the vault, the pale glimmering of the lamp, the surrounding obscurity, the sight of the tomb, and the objects of mortality which met her eyes on either side, were ill calculated to inspire her with those emotions by which the friar was agitated. Even his caresses terrified her from their fury, and created no other sentiment than fear. On the contrary, her alarm, her evident disgust, and incessant opposition, seemed only to inflame the monk’s desires, and supply his brutality with additional strength. Antonia’s shrieks were unheard; yet she continued them, nor abandoned her endeavours to escape, till exhausted and out of breath she sank from his arms upon her knees, and once more had recourse to prayers and supplications. This attempt had no better success than the former. On the contrary, taking advantage of her situation, the ravisher threw himself by her side. He clasped her to his bosom almost lifeless with terror, and faint with struggling. He stifled her cries with kisses, treated her with the rudeness of an unprincipled barbarian, proceeded from freedom to freedom, and, in the violence of his lustful delirium, wounded and bruised her tender limbs. Heedless of her tears, cries and entreaties, he gradually made himself master of her person, and desisted not from his prey, till he had accomplished his crime and the dishonour of Antonia.
Scarcely had he succeeded in his design, than he shuddered at himself, and the means by which it was effected. The very excess of his former eagerness to possess Antonia now contributed to inspire him with disgust; and a secret impulse made him feel how base and unmanly was the crime which he had just committed. He started hastily from her arms. She, who so lately had been the object of his adoration, now raised no other sentiment in his heart than aversion and rage. He turned away from her; or, if his eyes rested upon her figure involuntarily, it was only to dart upon her looks of hate. The unfortunate had fainted ere the completion of her disgrace: she only recovered life to be sensible of her misfortune. She remained stretched upon the earth in silent despair; the tears chased each other slowly down her cheeks, and her bosom heaved with frequent sobs. Oppressed with grief, she continued for some time in this state of torpidity. At length she rose with difficulty, and, dragging her feeble steps towards the door, prepared to quit the dungeon.
The sound of her foot-steps roused the monk from his sullen apathy. Starting from the tomb against which he reclined, while his eyes wandered over the images of corruption contained in it, he pursued the victim of his brutality, and soon overtook her. He seized her by the arm, and violently forced her back into the dungeon.
“Whither go you?” he cried in a stern voice; “return this instant!”
Antonia trembled at the fury of his countenance.
“What would you more?” she said with timidity: “Is not my ruin completed? Am I not undone, undone for ever? Is not your cruelty contented, or have I yet more to suffer? Let me depart: let me return to my home, and weep unrestrained my shame and my affliction!”
“Return to your home?” repeated the monk, with bitter and contemptuous mockery; then suddenly his eyes flaming with passion, “What? That you may denounce me to the world? that you may proclaim me a hypocrite, a ravisher, a betrayer, a monster of cruelty, lust, and ingratitude? No, no, no! I know well the whole weight of my offences; well, that your complaints would be too just, and my crimes too notorious! You shall not from hence to tell Madrid that I am a villain; that my conscience is loaded with sins, which make me despair of Heaven’s pardon. Wretched girl, you must stay here with me! Here amidst these lonely tombs, these
images of death, these rotting, loathsome, corrupted bodies! here shall you stay, and witness my sufferings; witness what it is to be in the horrors of despondency, and breathe the last groan in blasphemy and curses!—And whom am I to thank for this? What seduced me into crimes, whose bare remembrance makes me shudder? Fatal witch! was it not thy beauty? Have you not plunged my soul into infamy? Have you not made me a perjured hypocrite, a ravisher, an assassin? Nay, at this moment, does not that angel look bid me despair of God’s forgiveness? Oh! when I stand before his judgment-throne, that look will suffice to damn me! You will tell my judge, that you were happy, till I saw you; that you were innocent, till I polluted you! You will come with those tearful eyes, those cheeks pale and ghastly, those hands lifted in supplication, as when you sought from me that mercy which I gave not! Then will my perdition be certain! Then will come your mother’s ghost, and hurl me down into the dwellings of fiends, and flames, and furies, and everlasting torments! And ’Tis you who will accuse me! ’Tis you who will cause my eternal anguish!—you, wretched girl! you! you!”
As he thundered out these words, he violently grasped Antonia’s arm, and spurned the earth with delirious fury.
Supposing his brain to be turned, Antonia sank in terror upon her knees; she lifted up her hands, and her voice almost died away ere she could give it utterance.
“Spare me! spare me!” she murmured with difficulty.
“Silence!” cried the friar madly, and dashed her upon the ground——
He quitted her, and paced the dungeon with a wild and disordered air. His eyes rolled fearfully; Antonia trembled whenever she met their gaze. He seemed to meditate on something horrible, and she gave up all hopes of escaping from the sepulchre with life. Yet in harbouring this idea she did him injustice. Amidst the horror and disgust to which his soul was a prey, pity for his victim still held a place in it. The storm of passion once over, he would have given worlds, had he possessed them, to have restored to her that innocence of which his unbridled lust had deprived her. Of the desires which had urged him to the crime, no trace was left in his bosom. The wealth of India would not have tempted him to a second enjoyment of her person. His nature seemed to revolt at the very idea, and fain would he have wiped from his memory the scene which had just passed. As his gloomy rage abated, in proportion did his compassion augment for Antonia. He stopped, and would have spoken to her words of comfort; but he knew not from whence to draw them, and remained gazing upon her with mournful wildness. Her situation seemed so hopeless, so woe-begone, as to baffle mortal power to relieve her. What could he do for her? Her peace of mind was lost, her honour irreparably ruined. She was cut off for ever from society, nor dared he give her back to it. He was conscious that, were she to appear in the world again, his guilt would be revealed, and his punishment inevitable. To one so laden with crimes, death came armed with double terrors. Yet, should he restore Antonia to light, and stand the chance of her betraying him, how miserable a prospect would present itself before her! She could never hope to be creditably established; she would be marked with infamy, and condemned to sorrow and solitude for the remainder of her existence. What was the alternative? A resolution far more terrible for Antonia, but which at least would insure the abbot’s safety. He determined to leave the world persuaded of her death, and to retain her a captive in this gloomy prison. There he proposed to visit her every night, to bring her food, to profess his penitence, and mingle his tears with hers. The monk felt that this resolution was unjust and cruel; but it was his only means to prevent Antonia from publishing his guilt and her own infamy. Should he release her, he could not depend upon her silence. His offence was too flagrant to permit his hoping for her forgiveness. Besides, her re-appearing would excite universal curiosity, and the violence of her affliction would prevent her from concealing its cause. He determined, therefore, that Antonia should remain a prisoner in the dungeon.
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