Читать книгу The Mysteries of Florence - George Lippard - Страница 12

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“He dies at daybreak—ha, ha, ha—he dies by the wheel.”

And as he laughed, the man-at-arms, Hugo, let fall the end of his pike upon the dark pavement, and the sound echoed along the gloom of the gallery, like thunder, every arch repeating the echo, and every nook and corner of the obscure passage taking up the sound, until, an indistinct murmur swelled from all sides, and the voices of the Invisible seemed whispering from the old and blood-stained walls.

“He dies at daybreak! Right, Hugo—the Goblet and the Ring, sent him to the doomsman!”

“And I—I—the Doomsman will have his blood! How looked he, good Balvardo, when the sentence of the Duke rang thro’ the hall—“Death, Death to the Parricide?” Quailed he or begged for mercy!”

“Quail? ‘Slife I’ve seen the eye of the dying war-horse, when the poisoned arrow was in his heart, and the death-cry of his master in his ears, but the mad glare of his eye never thrilled me, like the deep glance of this—murderer! Blood of the Turk, his eye burned like a coal!”

“Tell me, tell me, how was the murder fixed upon him? Who laid it to his hands?”

“Blood o’ th’ Turk! Must thou know everything. Then go ask the gossips, at the corners of the streets, and hear them tell in frightened murmurs, how the Poisoned Bowl was found on the beaufet, how the Signet-Ring was found in the bowl, how the Robe was thrown over the secret threshold, and—ha, ha, how one Balvardo swore to certain words uttered by the—Parricide, wishes for the old lord’s death, hopes of hot-brained youth, and mysterious whispers about that Ring, and—”

“How one Hugo—ha, ha,—swore to his guilt in like manner. Faith did I—how I met the young Lord, in the southern corridor about high noon, how he turned pale when I told him, with every mark of respect, be sure, that he had forgotten his crimson robe, and—”

“So ye gave him to the Doomsman?” shrieked the executioner, as his thick-set hump-backed figure was disclosed in the solitary light, hanging from the ceiling of the gallery—“So ye gave him—Lord Adrian—to me, to the pincers and the knife, to the hot lead, and the wheel of torture! You are brave fellows—ha, ha, he dies at daybreak—and the Doomsman thanks ye!”

The two sentinels watching in the Gaol of Florence, besides the gloomy door of the Doomed Cell, started with a sudden thrill of fear, as they looked upon the distorted form, and hideous face, of the wretch who stood laughing and chattering before their eyes.

Balvardo drew his stout form to its full height, and bent the darkness of his beetle-brows, upon the deformed Doomsman, and Hugo, clad in armor of shining steel, like his comrade, started nervously aside, as his squinting eyes were fixed upon the distorted face, the wide mouth, opening with a hideous grin, the retreating brow and the large, vacant, yet flashing eyes, that marked the visage of the Executioner of Florence. A dress made of coarsest serge, hung rather than fitted around his deformed figure, while a long-bladed knife, with handle of unshapen bone, glittered in the belt of dark leather that girdled his body.

“Sir Doomsman, thou art merry—” growled Balvardo—“Choose other scenes for thy merry humor—this dark corridor, with shadows of gloom in the distance, and the flickering light of yon smoking cresset, making the old walls yet more gloomy, around us, is no place for thy magpie laugh. No more such sounds of grave-yard merriment or—we quarrel, mark ye.”

“We quarrel, mark ye!” echoed the sinister-eyed Hugo, gravely dropping the end of his pike on the pavement.

“St. Judas! My brave men of mettle are wondrous fiery, this quiet night! Ha—ha—pardon Sir Balvardo, I meant not to anger ye! Yet dost thou know that it makes my veins fill with new blood! and my heart warm with a strange fire.”

“Thy veins fill with new blood! Ha—ha—ha!—Did’st ever hear of a withered vine, blackened by flame, bearing ripe grapes, or was ever a dead toad perfumed by the south wind? Hugo, his heart warms with a strange fire? Odor o’ pitch and brimstone, what a fancy! Ha—ha—”

“Nay, nay, Balvardo. There is some life in the Doomsman’s veins. Don’t doubt it? Just fancy those talons, which he calls fingers, clutched round thy throat—W-h-e-w!”

“I say it makes my veins fill with new blood, my heart warm with a strange fire—this matchless picture! A gallant Lord, with the warm flush of youth on his cheek, strength in his limbs and fire in his heart, stretched out upon the wheel—here a hand is corded to the wheel, and there another, here a foot is bound to the spokes and there another. He looks like the cross of Saint Andrew—by St. Judas. A merry fancy—eh! Balvardo? Stretched out upon the wheel, he looks with his bloodshot eyes to the heavens. See’s he any hope there? Laid on his back, he casts his last long glance aside over the multitude—the vile mob. See’s he a face of pity there! Hears he a voice of mercy? None—none! Earth curses, heaven forsakes, hell yawns! And he is of noble blood, and on his brow there sits the frown of a lofty line. While the mob hoot, the victim holds his breath, and I—I the Doomsman approach!”

“God’s death—he makes my blood chill!” muttered Hugo, glancing askance at his comrade, who stood silent biting his compressed lip.

“He writhes, for the hissing of the cauldron of hot lead falls on his ear, he feels his flesh creep, for the red hot glare of the blazing iron with its jagged point blinds his eyes as he gazes! He utters no moan—but he hears the beating of his own heart.

“He hears a step—a low and cat-like step—’tis mine, the Doomsman’s step. The red-hot iron in one hand, the ladle filled with melted lead, hot and seething lead in the other, nay, start not, nor wince, good Balvardo—’tis no fancy picture.”

“The Fiend take thy words—they burn my heart! Hold or by thy master, the devil, I’ll strike ye to the floor!

“Hark—hear you that hissing sound? His muscular chest is bared to the light, these talon-hands guide the red-hot iron over the warm flesh, with the blood blackening as it oozes from the veins. He writhes—but utters no groan. Now lay down the iron and the lead; seize the knotted club, aloft it whirls, it descends! D’ye see the broken arm bone, protruding from the flesh? Hurl it aloft again, nor heed the sudden struggle and the quick convulsive agony, never heed them—all writhe and struggle so. It grows exciting, Balvardo, it warms me, Hugo.”

Hugo muttered a half-forced syllable, but his parted lips and absent manner, attested his unwilling interest in the words of the Doomsman, while Balvardo, clutching his pike, strode hurriedly to and fro along the floor of stone.

“Again the Doomsman sweeps the club aloft! Crash—crash—crash, and then a sound, not a groan, not a groan, but a howl, a howl of agony!

“Look, Balvardo, look Hugo, you can count the bones as they stick out from each leg, from each arm, from the wrist and from the shoulder, from the ancle and the thigh, never mind the blood—it streams in a torrent from each limb, be sure, but the hot iron dries it up. Your melted lead is good for cautery—it heals—ha, ha, ha, let me laugh—it heals the wound, each blow the club had made. The picture grows—it deepens.”

“Now, by the Heaven above, I see it all—” muttered Balvardo with a dilating eye, as his manner suddenly changed, and he leaned forward with unwilling yet absorbing interest. “This is no man, but a devil’s body with a devil’s soul!”

“His face is yet unscarred—unmoved save by the wrinkling contortions of pain. The mob hoot, and hiss, and yell—the play must deepen. Hand me the iron—red-hot—and hissing—give me the bowl of melted lead, dipped from the boiling cauldron. The Doomsman’s step again!

“The victim’s body creeps, and writhes in every sinew, his veins seem crawling thro’ his carcass, his nerves, turned to things of incarnate pain, are drawn and stretched to the utmost.”

“Look well upon the blue heavens, Parricide, for the red-hot iron is pointed, and—ha, ha, how he howls—it nears your eyes, it glares before them in their last glance. It must be done, why howl you so? Does it burn your eyes, tho’ it touches them not? Ha, ha—I meant it thus.”

“Balvardo, strike him down. He is not human—see his flashing eyes, his arms thrown wildly aside, with the talon-fingers, grasping the air!”

“H-i-s-s—it touches the eyeball, the eye is dark forever! H-i-s-s it licks up the blood, it turns round and round in the socket. Now fill the hollow socket with the lead, the hissing lead—and, ha, ha, now bring me another iron pointed like this, and heated to a white heat. Quick, quick, the victim groans, howls, writhes, and yells! Quick! Ah, ha, let the iron touch the skin of the eyeball, it shrivels like a burnt leaf, deeper sink the hissing point, turn it round and round, let it lap up the gushing blood. Now the lead, the thick and boiling lead, pour it from the ladle, fill the socket, it hardens, it grows cold—ha, ha, ha, behold the eyes of lead.”

“I see them!” faltered Hugo, trembling in his iron armor.

“And I,” echoed Balvardo—“I see them, oh, horrible, and ghastly, I—I—see the eyes of lead!”

“Quick, quick—why lag ye, man? Quick—quick, I say! The knife, the glittering knife. The Parricide howls not nor groans, but his soul is trampling on the fragments of clay. Quick, while his carcass is all palpitation, all alive with torture, all throe, all agony and pulsation, hand me the knife. I would cut his beating heart from the body.”

“There, there—the flesh, severed to the bone, parts on either side—the ribs are bared—a blow with the jagged club, and they are broken. This hand is thrust within the aperture, I feel the hot blood, I feel his heart. It beats, it throbs, it writhes in my grasp, like a dying bird beneath the hunter’s hand.”

“Quick—the knife again—I hold the heart, cut it from the carcass, sever each nerve, snap each artery. A deep, low, trembling heave of the chest; a rattle in the throat.

“I raise the heart,—still quivering on high, it gleams in the light of day, and its warm blood-drops fall pattering on the face of the felon.”

“The mob shout their curses and hoot their oaths of scorn.”

“Quick, the pincers, the red-hot pincers—but hold—that shaking of the chest, that last heave of the trunk, that quivering in every splintered limb, with that quick tremor of the lip, ha, ha, that blanching of the cheek, with the blood oozing from every pore, that thick gurgling sound in the throat, he dies, the Felon dies, the Doomsman laughs, and from the shattered clod, creeps the Spirit of the Parricide!”

Hugo turned his face to the wall, and covered his eyes with his upraised hands. Balvardo stood still as death, gazing on the vacant air with a wild glance, as though he saw the Spirit of the dead. Neither moved nor said a word. The maniac wildness of the Doomsman awed and chilled them to the heart.

“This is the fate, to which ye have given him; this proud Lord now sleeping in the Chamber of the Doomed—to me, the Doomsman, to the wheel, to the knotted club, to the knife, the hot iron, and the melted lead, to the dishonor ye have given him! Ha—ha—ha—these hands itch for his blood. To-morrow’s rising sun will gleam on the scene, this merry scene—The Doom of the Poisoner.”

The Sentinels heard a hurried footstep, followed by a closing door, the Doomsman had disappeared. They turned with looks of horror, of remorse, mingled with all the fear and torture that the human soul can feel, stamped in their faces, while from one to the other broke the whisper—

“He sleeps within yon cell—the Doomsman’s cell, till the first glimpse of the morrow morn shall rouse him to this work—this work of horror and of—Doom.”[1]