Читать книгу Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 - Various - Страница 17

Paulett now exerted himself to collect all the diamonds that remained without owners in the neighbourhood. First he visited his own forsaken home, and took thence the jewels, which he had neglected in his retreat from it, but which were now as precious as water. He found no great store even after ransacking all the houses within reach, and determined to undertake a longer journey in search of more. The basin in the cavern continued to yield a scanty supply of water; and Paulett extracted a small quantity from his stones. He made what provision he could for his family before setting out; and for his own necessities took the smallest possible portion, in a silver vessel, which was most preciously secured, and concealed about his person. It was a strange parting between his wife and him, both of them feeling and saying, that alive they should probably not meet again: yet death was so near them constantly, and was so far better than life, that his presence had grown familiar; and it was only the mode in which he would come that made them anxious. Paulett perishing alone of thirst was the fearful image to Ellen, and Ellen and her children waiting for him in vain, and dying one after the other for want of his help, was the dread of Paulett. They stood in the cavern, and embraced each other silently, and blessed their children with the same prayer for the last time. The little ones received and returned his caress, and Paulett quitted the cavern and set out on his uncertain expedition.

The face of the country was so much changed that he had some difficulty in making his way. The vivid colours of the earth were all gone, and in place of them was the painful greyness of the dead trees, and the yellow of the parched soil. Nothing was overthrown in ruin, but all stood dead in its place. The shapes of men and animals only lay strewn upon the earth. The human beings were comparatively rare; they were the last survivors of the destroying drought whom there had been none to bury; but these at length had died by hundreds, and in places their bones were seen whiter than any other object; or if any where over the surface there hung a vapour, it came from some collection of dead bodies which had not yet been resolved into the elements. Those whom he found there were mostly in heaps—the beasts had died singly; near what had been water-courses he saw more than once signs of struggle, and the last battles of earth had been fought for possession of its waters. He traced out many a pathetic story among the dry bones and faded garments. Women’s dresses were there; and fallen into a shapeless heap on what had been their bosom, were little forms, and the raiment of children. Where the dry air and the sun had preserved the face, he beheld the fallen estate of those who had been men in the uncovered shame of death; the wide open lips, the sunken eyes, over which the eyelid was undrawn, the swollen tongue, the frame writhed into an expression of anguish, revealed all the pain and shame of death. But here and there, the hand of some one who had been a survivor, was visible in the attempt to conceal all this. In one place there was a shallow grave, into which a body had been rolled, and lay on its side; and close by, on a heap of clothes, out of which bones appeared, there was a spade with which the unfinished work had been attempted. In another, a female body was covered from sun and moon by a man   ’s cloak; and a few paces off lay a man, whom nothing shielded. There was an infant’s skeleton wrapped in a woman’s shawl, under what had been a hawthorn hedge; the mother had either perished attempting to find water, or had laid her child down, and gone away, like Hagar in the desert, not to see it die. The poor innocent’s skull was turned on its shoulder; its cheek must have rested there while the face remained. It was too young to have struggled much. Paulett thought of his little Alice; of her unconsciousness to the fate around her; of what would be her and Charles’s and poor Ellen’s fate, if he failed in his search, or perished by the way. He roused himself from looking on all these sorrowful objects, and went on his dreary way. The second day after he left the cavern, he came to a stately pile of building, which he determined to explore for the life-giving stones he was in search of. It stood upon its terraces, surrounded by its colonnades and garden-steps, in all its old pride and beauty. Its forests were withered indeed, its gardens burned, its fountains dry; but the palace glanced back the sunlight, and was as steadfast and perfect as in the days of the living. Paulett drew near, and found, as he came close, signs of the last days of life in it. The doors were opened to the air; and a few marks of objects removed, remained in the outer rooms. There was scoring and dragging on the marble floor; and Paulett doubted for a moment what had left these marks, till he saw on one side of a gilded table, a barrel, lying there empty, from which the top, as it seemed, had been accidentally knocked, and the liquor had flowed out. The marble bore the stain of wine, and where it had flowed, the slabs were broken in two places, perhaps from the violence of the struggle of those who saw the liquid flow, to wet each one his own parched lips. Paulett thought the lord of the castle had probably deserted it before the worst crisis arrived, and had tried to remove what was most valuable in his possession. He went on through long galleries and magnificent rooms, all silent as death, statues, which represented man in his glory and his strength; books, which were the work of that high spirit, now extinguished under the pressure of bodily wants; luxurious superfluities, which were for better days of the world—all was valueless, all open; he might go where he would, till at length one door resisted his efforts, and seemed to have been barred with a certain care from within. Paulett’s heart beat high. Was there some one still living like himself; another human creature struggling for existence in this great world, and guarding, as he had done in his cavern, his treasure of water? Should he have another companion to speak with; another, with whom, perhaps, to get over the evil days; to whom to communicate his secret of producing water from diamonds? For the first time since he left the cavern, he spoke aloud—he called—he called in the great silence of the earth, but nothing answered him. If any one were still alive, he might be afraid of another living creature—had not he himself left pistols loaded for his poor Ellen, to defend her life and her children, if any human being should come near her? He gently shook the door; then proceeded to more violence, and forced it open. It was the door of a great dining-room, on whose lofty ceiling, as he entered it, wreaths of smoke rolled, which the air had put in motion, and a heavy smell, as of burned charcoal, struck him as he entered. There were no living creatures—the inhabitants were all dead in the last posture of life. The table was covered with silver and gold vessels, and among them were dead flowers and fruits, dried by the close chamber. It should seem they had drunk deeply before they died here—perhaps they had collected the last liquids, and resolved to perish when they had once more feasted: for there was wine still in some of the vessels, nay, in one there was water; and the ghostly shapes were adorned and fantastically covered with jewels and velvet, and all sort of rare and exquisite ornaments. Some were still on chairs, some fallen forward on the table, some prostrate, as if they had lain down to sleep. There were fragments of shivered glass on the floor; there was a statue broken to pieces on the table, on the pedestal of which was written “Patience;” there were pieces of torn   paper in the hands of one, which seemed a letter; all these faint shadowings of long stories, and of a scene of which there remained no witness, struck Paulett’s eye. One had sunk down by the silver tripod in which the charcoal had burned, and the match that fired it was amongst his garments. One face was there, resting on a sofa, still perfect enough to show it had been a beautiful woman; and roses, artfully made close to nature, crowned the long hair which fell upon arms from which the flesh had withered. On the neck were diamonds, on the hands diamonds—diamonds had confined the ringlets—diamonds sparkled on the feet. Paulett shuddered as he took them away. The spirit, indeed, was gone; but here was the last act of the spirit before it plunged into an unknown region, it knew not where. Paulett asked himself where. “A little longer,” said he, “and they must have died; could not they wait their time, and take patience with death? Must they die in drunkenness, in madness; worse than beasts?” Then his own thirsty eyes fixed on the table, where, in the light of the sun, the water sparkled, and gave rainbow rays. He forgot all beside, in the impulse which urged him to seize and drink—to drink the first draught—to satiate his throat with water. He drank and revived; and then blamed himself for yielding so passionately to the impulse which was now passed away; and as it passed, the horror of the scene around him acquired greater force, and he longed to be out of its influence. He made haste to collect all the jewels around him, and when he had done, found that his burden was as much as he could safely carry. He went hastily out of the room, as if any of these figures could rise and follow him, and fastened the door again, where the crime had been wrought. He hastily crossed the marble halls and gilded rooms, and came out in the sunlight—the splendid, solemn sunlight that looked upon a burnt-up world!