Part 14 (1/2)

”Can I sleep anywhere?” the weary youth at length askt.

”There is another room above,” said Crescentia sobbing; and he now first observed that she had been crying bitterly all the time. She trimmed the lamp, to make it burn brighter, and walkt silently before him. He followed her up a narrow staircase, and after they were above in the low dark loft, the damsel set the light on a little table and was on the point of retiring. But when already at the door she turned back again, stared at the young man as with a look of death, stood tottering before him, and then fell sobbing aloud and with violent unintelligible lamentations as in a convulsion down at his feet.

”What is the matter with thee, my sweet girl?” he exclaimed, and tried to lift her up: ”hush thee; tell me thy sorrow.”

”No, let me lie here!” cried the weeper. ”O that I might die here at your feet, might die this very instant. No, it is too horrible. And that I can do nothing, can hinder nothing, that I must behold the crime in silence and helplessly! But you must hear it.”

”Compose thyself then,” said Antonio comforting her, ”that thou mayst recover thy voice and thy words.”

”I look,” she continued pa.s.sionately and interrupted by her tears, ”so like your lost love, and it is I who am to lead you by the hand into the house of murder. My mother may easily foretell that a near misfortune is hanging over you: she well knows the gang that a.s.semble here nightly. No one has ever yet escaped alive from this h.e.l.l. Every moment is bringing him nearer and nearer, the fierce Ildefonso, or the detestable Andrea, with their followers and comrades. Alas! and I can only be the herald of your death, can offer you no help, no safety.”

Antonio was horrour-struck. Pale and trembling he graspt after his sword, tried his dagger, and summoned courage and resolution again.

Much as he had but now wisht for death, it was yet too frightful to be thus forced to end his life in a robber's den.

”And thou,” he began, ”thou with this face, with this form, canst bring thyself to be a companion, a helpmate to the accursed?”

”I cannot run away,” she sighed despondingly: ”how joyfully would I fly from this house! Alas! and this night, tomorrow, I am to be taken from hence, and dragged over the sea; I am to be made the wife of Andrea or Ildefonso. Is it not better to die now?”

”Come,” cried Antonio, ”the door is open; escape with me; the night, the forest will lend us their shelter.”

”Only look around you,” said the girl; ”only see how both here and in the room below all the windows are secured with strong iron bars; the door of the house is fastened with a large key which my mother never parts with. Did you not perceive, sir, how she threw the door into the lock when you entered?”

”Then let the old hag fall first,” cried Antonio: ”we'll tear the keys from her....”

”What, kill my mother!” shriekt the pale maiden, and clambered forcibly round him, to hold him fast.

Antonio quieted her. He proposed to her that, as the old woman was drunk and sleeping soundly, they should take the large house-key gently from her side, then open the door, and escape. From this plan Crescentia seemed to catch some hope: they both went silently down into the room below, and found the old woman still fast asleep.

Crescentia crept trembling up to her, sought for the key, found it, and succeeded after a time in loosening it from the string at her girdle. She beckoned to the youth; they stept on tiptoe to the door; they cautiously fixt the iron key in the lock; Antonio was now straining his hand to draw back the bolt without noise; when he felt that some one else was working at the lock on the outside in the same noiseless manner. The door opened softly and in came face to face to Antonio a large wild-looking man.

”Ildefonso!” screamed the damsel, and the youth at the first glance recognized the murderer Roberto.

”What is this?” said he with a hollow voice. ”Where got you that key?

whither are you going?”

”Roberto!” cried Antonio, and furiously seized the gigantic man by the throat. They wrestled violently; but the nimbler strength of the youth got the better and threw the villain upon the floor; he then knelt upon his breast and plunged his dagger into his heart.

The old woman meanwhile had awaked with loud screams, had started up on seeing the battle, and howling and cursing had torn her daughter away; she dragged her up to the room overhead, and bolted the door from within.

Antonio was now mounting to break into the loft, when several dark forms stalkt in, and were no little astounded at finding their leader dead on the ground.

”I am your captain now!” cried a broad bearded figure, fiercely drawing his sword.

”Provided Crescentia is mine!” answered a younger robber in a tone of defiance.

Each persisting in having his own way, they began a murderous combat.

The lamp was thrown over, and amid yells and imprecations the battle rolled in the darkness from corner to corner.