Part 8 (1/2)
CHAPTER XIV.
1st MONK.--The storm increases; hark! how dismally It sounds along the cloisters!
BERNARD.--As on I hastened, bearing thus my light, Across my path, not fifty paces off, I saw a murdered corse, stretched on its back, Smeared with new blood, as though but freshly slain.
JOANNA BAILLIE.
The apartment adjoining the council-room of the castle, and selected this night as the scene of King Ferdinand's banquet, was at the commencement of the storm filled with the expected guests. From forty to fifty were there a.s.sembled, chosen indiscriminately from the Castilians and Arragonese, the first statesmen and bravest warriors of the age. But the usual animated discussion, the easy converse, and eager council, had strangely, and almost unconsciously, sunk into a gloomy depression, so universal and profound, that every effort to break from it, and resume the general topics of interest, was fruitless. The King himself was grave almost to melancholy, though more than once he endeavored to shake it off, and speak as usual. Men found themselves whispering to each other as if they feared to speak aloud--as if some impalpable and invisible horror were hovering round them. It might have been that the raging storm without affected all within, with a species of awe, to which even the wisest and the bravest are liable when the Almighty utters His voice in the tempest, and the utter nothingness of men comes home to the proudest heart.
But there was another cause. One was missing from the council and the board; the seat of Don Ferdinand Morales was vacant, and unuttered but absorbing anxiety occupied every mind. It was full two hours, rather more, from the given hour of meeting; the council itself had been delayed, and was at length held without him, but so unsatisfactory did it prove, that many subjects were postponed. They adjourned to the banquet-room; but the wine circled but slowly, and the King leant back on his chair, disinclined apparently for either food or drink.
”The storm increases fearfully,” observed the aged Duke of Murcia, a kinsman of the King, as a flash of lightning blazed through the cas.e.m.e.nts, of such extraordinary length and brilliance, that even the numerous l.u.s.tres, with which the room was lighted, looked dark when it disappeared. It was followed by a peal of thunder, loud as if a hundred cannons had been discharged above their heads, and causing several gla.s.ses to be s.h.i.+vered on the board. ”Unhappy those compelled to brave it.”
”Nay, better out than in,” observed another. ”There is excitement in witnessing its fury, and gloom most depressing in listening to it thus.”
”Perchance 'tis the shadow of the coming evil,” rejoined Don Felix d'Estaban. ”Old legends say, there is never a storm like this, without bringing some national evil on its wings.”
”Ha! say they so?” demanded the King, suddenly, that his guests started. ”And is there truth in it?”
”The lovers of such marvels would bring your Grace many proofs that, some calamity always followed such a tempest,” replied Don Felix. ”It may or may not be. For my own part, I credit not such things. We are ourselves the workers of evil--no fatality lurking in storms.”
”Fated or casual, if evil has occurred to Don Ferdinand Morales, monarch and subject will alike have cause to a.s.sociate this tempest with national calamity,” answered the King, betraying at once the unspoken, but engrossing subject of his thoughts. ”Who saw him last?”
Don Felix d'Estaban replied that he had seen him that day two hours before sunset.
”And where, my Lord--at home or abroad?”
”In his own mansion, which he said he had not quitted that day,” was the rejoinder.
”And how seemed he? In health as usual?”
”Ay, my liege, save that he complained of a strange oppressiveness, disinclining him for all exertion.”
”Did he allude to the council of to-night?”
”He did, my Lord, rejoicing that he should be compelled to rouse himself from his most unwonted mood of idleness.”
”Then some evil has befallen him,” rejoined the King; and the contraction of his brow denied the calmness, implied by his unmoved tone. ”We have done wrong in losing all this time, Don Alonzo,” he added, turning to the Senor of Aguilar, ”give orders that a band of picked men scour every path leading hence to Morales' mansion: head them thyself, an thou wilt, we shall the more speedily receive tidings. Thine eyes have been more fixed on Don Ferdinand's vacant seat, than on the board this last hour; so hence, and speed thee, man.
It may be he is ill: we have seen men stricken unto death from one hour to the other. If there be no trace of him in either path, hie thee to his mansion; but return not without news. Impalpable evil is ever worse than the tangible and real.”
Don Alonzo scarcely waited the conclusion of the King's speech, so eager was he to depart; and the longing looks cast after him betrayed how many would have willingly joined him in his search.
”His wife?” repeated the King, in answer to some suggestions of his kinsman's. ”Nay, man; hast thou yet to learn, that Morales' heart would break ere he would neglect his duty? No: physical incapacity would alone have sufficient power to keep him from us--no mental ill.”
If the effort to continue indifferent conversation had been difficult before, it now became impossible. The very silence felt ominous. What evil could have befallen? was asked internally by each individual; but the vague dread, the undefined horror of something terrible impending, prevented all reply; and so nearly an hour pa.s.sed, when, far removed as was the council-room from the main body of the castle, a confusion as of the entrance of many feet, and the tumultuary sound of eager voices, was distinguished, seeming to proceed from the great hall.
”It cannot be Don Alonzo so soon returned,” remarked the Duke of Murcia; but even as he spoke, and before the King had time to make an impatient sign for silence, so intently was he listening, the Lord of Aguilar himself re-entered the apartment.
”Saints of heaven!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the King, and his exclamation was echoed involuntarily by all around. The cheek of the warrior, never known to blanch before, was white as death; his eye haggard and wild; his step so faltering, that his whole frame reeled. He sunk on the nearest seat, and, with a shuddering groan, pressed both hands before his eyes.
”Wine! wine! give him wine!” cried Ferdinand impetuously, pus.h.i.+ng a br.i.m.m.i.n.g goblet towards him. ”Drink, man, and speak, in Heaven's name.