CHAPTER XXIX.
A PEEP THROUGH AN IRON GRATING.--THE LONELY PRISONER IN HISDUNGEON.--THE MYSTERY.
Without forestalling the interest of our story, or recording a fact inits wrong place, we now call our readers' attention to a circumstancewhich may, at all events, afford some food for conjecture.
Some distance from the Hall, which, from time immemorial, had been thehome and the property of the Bannerworth family, was an ancient ruinknown by the name of the Monks' Hall.
It was conjectured that this ruin was the remains of some one of thosehalf monastic, half military buildings which, during the middle ages,were so common in almost every commanding situation in every county ofEngland.
At a period of history when the church arrogated to itself an amount ofpolitical power which the intelligence of the spirit of the age nowdenies to it, and when its members were quite ready to assert at anytime the truth of their doctrines by the strong arm of power, suchbuildings as the one, the old grey ruins of which were situated near toBannerworth Hall, were erected.
Ostensibly for religious purposes, but really as a stronghold fordefence, as well as for aggression, this Monks' Hall, as it was called,partook quite as much of the character of a fortress, as of anecclesiastical building.
The ruins covered a considerable extent, of ground, but the only partwhich seemed successfully to have resisted the encroaches of time, atleast to a considerable extent, was a long, hall in which the jollymonks no doubt feasted and caroused.
Adjoining to this hall, were the walls of other parts of the building,and at several places there were small, low, mysterious-looking doorsthat led, heaven knows where, into some intricacies and labyrinthsbeneath the building, which no one had, within the memory of man, beencontent to run the risk of losing himself in.
It was related that among these subterranean passages and arches therewere pitfalls and pools of water; and whether such a statement was trueor not, it certainly acted as a considerable damper upon the vigour ofcuriosity.
This ruin was so well known in the neighbourhood, and had become fromearliest childhood so familiar to the inhabitants of Bannerworth Hall,that one would as soon expect an old inhabitant of Ludgate-hill to makesome remark about St. Paul's, as any of them to allude to the ruins ofMonks' Hall.
They never now thought of going near to it, for in infancy they hadspoiled among its ruins, and it had become one of those familiar objectswhich, almost, from that very familiarity, cease to hold a place in thememories of those who know it so well.
It is, however, to this ruin we would now conduct our readers, premisingthat what we have to say concerning it now, is not precisely in the formof a connected portion of our narrative.
* * * * *
It is evening--the evening of that first day of heart loneliness to poorFlora Bannerworth. The lingering rays of the setting sun are gilding theold ruins with a wondrous beauty. The edges of the decayed stones seemnow to be tipped with gold, and as the rich golden refulgence of lightgleams upon the painted glass which still adorned a large window of thehall, a flood of many-coloured beautiful light was cast within, makingthe old flag-stones, with which the interior was paved, look more likesome rich tapestry, laid down to do honour to a monarch.
So picturesque and so beautiful an aspect did the ancient ruin wear,that to one with a soul to appreciate the romantic and the beautiful, itwould have amply repaid the fatigue of a long journey now to see it.
And as the sun sank to rest, the gorgeous colours that it cast upon themouldering wall, deepened from an appearance of burnished gold to acrimson hue, and from that again the colour changed to a shiftingpurple, mingling with the shadows of the evening, and so graduallyfading away into absolute darkness.
The place is as silent as the tomb--a silence far more solemn than couldhave existed, had there been no remains of a human habitation; becauseeven these time-worn walls were suggestive of what once had been; andthe wrapt stillness which now pervaded them brought with them amelancholy feeling for the past.
There was not even the low hum of insect life to break the stillness ofthese ancient ruins.
And now the last rays of the sun are gradually fading away. In a shorttime all will be darkness. A low gentle wind is getting up, andbeginning slightly to stir the tall blades of grass that have shot upbetween some of the old stones. The silence is broken, awfully broken,by a sudden cry of despair; such a cry as might come from someimprisoned spirit, doomed to waste an age of horror in a tomb.
And yet it was scarcely to be called a scream, and not all a groan. Itmight have come from some one on the moment of some dreadful sacrifice,when the judgment had not sufficient time to call courage to its aid,but involuntarily had induced that sound which might not be repeated.
A few startled birds flew from odd holes and corners about the ruins, toseek some other place of rest. The owl hooted from a corner of what hadonce been a belfry, and a dreamy-looking bat flew out from a cranny andstruck itself headlong against a projection.
Then all was still again. Silence resumed its reign, and if there hadbeen a mortal ear to drink in that sudden sound, the mind might wellhave doubted if fancy had not more to do with the matter than reality.
From out a portion of the ruins that was enveloped in the deepest gloom,there now glides a figure. It is of gigantic height, and it moves alongwith a slow and measured tread. An ample mantle envelopes the form,which might well have been taken for the spirit of one of the monks who,centuries since, had made that place their home.
It walked the whole length of the ample hall we have alluded to, andthen, at the window from which had streamed the long flood of manycoloured light, it paused.
For more than ten minutes this mysterious looking figure there stood.
At length there passed something on the outside of the window, thatlooked like the shadow of a human form.
Then the tall, mysterious, apparition-looking man turned, and sought aside entrance to the hall.
Then he paused, and, in about a minute, he was joined by another whomust have been he who had so recently passed the stained glass window onthe outer side.
There was a friendly salutation between these two beings, and theywalked to the centre of the hall, where they remained for some time inanimated conversation.
From the gestures they used, it was evident that the subject of theirdiscourse was one of deep and absorbing interest to both. It was one,too, upon which, after a time, they seemed a little to differ, and morethan once they each assumed attitudes of mutual defiance.
This continued until the sun had so completely sunk, that twilight wasbeginning sensibly to wane, and then gradually the two men appeared tohave come to a better understanding, and whatever might be the subjectof their discourse, there was some positive result evidently arrived atnow.
They spoke in lower tones. They used less animated gestures than before;and, after a time, they both walked slowly down the hull towards thedark spot from whence the first tall figure had so mysteriously emerged.
* * * * *
There it a dungeon--damp and full of the most unwholesomeexhalations--deep under ground it seems, and, in its excavations, itwould appear as if some small land springs had been liberated, for theearthen floor was one continued extent of moisture.
From the roof, too, came perpetually the dripping of water, which fellwith sullen, startling splashes in the pool below.
At one end, and near to the roof,--so near that to reach it, without themost efficient means from the inside, was a matter of positiveimpossibility--is a small iron grating, and not much larger than mightbe entirely obscured by any human face that might be close to it fromthe outside of the dungeon.
That dreadful abode is tenanted. In one corner, on a heap of straw,which appears freshly to have been cast into the place, lies a hopelessprisoner.
It is no great stretch of fancy to suppose, that it is from his lipscame the sound of terror and of woe t
hat had disturbed the repose ofthat lonely spot.
The prisoner is lying on his back; a rude bandage round his head, onwhich were numerous spots of blood, would seem to indicate that he hadsuffered personal injury in some recent struggle. His eyes were open.They were fixed desparingly, perhaps unconsciously, upon that smallgrating which looked into the upper world.
That grating slants upwards, and looks to the west, so that any oneconfined in that dreary dungeon might be tantalized, on a sweet summer'sday, by seeing the sweet blue sky, and occasionally the white cloudsflitting by in that freedom which he cannot hope for.
The carol of a bird, too, might reach him there. Alas! sad remembranceof life, and joy, and liberty.
But now all is deepening gloom. The prisoner sees nothing--hearsnothing; and the sky is not quite dark. That small grating looks like astrange light-patch in the dungeon wall.
Hark! some footstep sounds upon his ear. The creaking of a doorfollows--a gleam of light shines into the dungeon, and the tallmysterious-looking figure in the cloak stands before the occupant ofthat wretched place.
Then comes in the other man, and he carries in his hand writingmaterials. He stoops to the stone couch on which the prisoner lies, andoffers him a pen, as he raises him partially from the miserable damppallet.
But there is no speculation in the eyes of that oppressed man. In vainthe pen is repeatedly placed in his grasp, and a document of somelength, written on parchment, spread out before him to sign. In vain ishe held up now by both the men, who have thus mysteriously sought him inhis dungeon; he has not power to do as they would wish him. The penfalls from his nerveless grasp, and, with a deep sigh, when they ceaseto hold him up, he falls heavily back upon the stone couch.
Then the two men looked at each other for about a minute silently; afterwhich he who was the shorter of the two raised one hand, and, in a voiceof such concentrated hatred and passion as was horrible to hear, hesaid,--
"D--n!"
The reply of the other was a laugh; and then he took the light from thefloor, and motioned the one who seemed so little able to control hisfeelings of bitterness and disappointment to leave the place with him.
With a haste and vehemence, then, which showed how much angered he was,the shorter man of the two now rolled up the parchment, and placed it ina breast-pocket of his coat.
He cast a withering look of intense hatred on the form of thenearly-unconscious prisoner, and then prepared to follow the other.
But when they reached the door of the dungeon, the taller man of the twopaused, and appeared for a moment or two to be in deep thought; afterwhich he handed the lamp he carried to his companion, and approached thepallet of the prisoner.
He took from his pocket a small bottle, and, raising the head of thefeeble and wounded man, he poured some portion of the contents into hismouth, and watched him swallow it.
The other looked on in silence, and then they both slowly left thedreary dungeon.
* * *
The wind rose, and the night had deepened into the utmost darkness. Theblackness of a night, unillumined by the moon, which would not now risefor some hours, was upon the ancient ruins. All was calm and still, andno one would have supposed that aught human was within those ancient,dreary looking walls.
Time will show who it was who lay in that unwholesome dungeon, as wellas who were they who visited him so mysteriously, and retired again withfeelings of such evident disappointment with the document it seemed ofsuch importance, at least to one of them, to get that unconscious man tosign.
Varney the Vampire; Or, the Feast of Blood Page 31