CHAPTER X. THE VOICE OF ISABEL.
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`How like a voice from the dead comes up
that voice of the wronged and dishonored,
speaking through silence and darkness to
the heart of the wronger.
—Texan MSS.
`Fear not, Don Antonio, for I Isabel, of
Prairie Eden am with you!'
The chamber was dark, and that voice,
breaking suddenly from the gloom, sounds
like hollow accents from the lips of death.
`It is her ghost,' groaned the miserable
man, as remorse began to rend every fibre
of his soul. `From the shadows of the grave
she comes to haunt me.'
`Not Isabel the ghost, but Isabel, the living,
blooming—fair as when she won your
heart at Prairie Eden.'
The cold hand pressed close within her
own, and thrilled its ice to his heart.
`Nay; shrink not from me, Don Antonio.
You loved me with an idolatry so wild, so
mad! Loved me even when my father hung
writhing on the tree, before his porch, his last
groan gurgling up to God, as your kiss was
on my lips. Long years have passed since
then, Don Antonio; would you like to look
upon my face once more? Or do you fear to
behold those eyes which once filled your soul—
those lips which once clung to yours, when
the heart was maddened by a foul drug—the
soul lost in the dreams of opium?'
Don Antonio started from the couch and
struggled nervously to free himself from the
grasp of the cold hand. But it held him as
with the clutch of an iron vice, and the cold
fingers seemed like the bony hands of a
skeleton.
`Would'st like to look upon my face, Don
Antonio?'
Not a word from the lips of the trembling
man. Alone, in that dark room, with a woman,
who had come from her grave to haunt
him, he grew icy cold and heard his heart
throb like a death-watch. Yet he was a brave
man, and had done a butcher's work on human
forms in many a battle.
All the while the sound of voices, in the
next chamber, came indistinctly to his ears,
and added to his frenzy; for he was frenzied
now, cold and hot by turns, now burning with
fever and now chilled into ice.
Suddenly all was still in the adjoining
chamber, and Don Antonio felt the cold hand
and heard the voice again.
`Come, you shall look upon my face!'
The door swung open; Don Antonio had
missed it in his nervous phrenzy, and the cold
hand let the shuddering man into the next
chamber.
`Holy Trinity! It is the novice, Brother
Paulo.'
Retreating with a shudder, Don Antonio
beheld, in the center of the chamber, the form
of a monk, whose dark cowl was thrown over
hts head and face, suffering only a glimpse of
the features to be visible.
The lamp stood on the floor, and flung its
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upward rays over that dark, motionless form
with the marble-white hands appearing from
the folds of the shapeless robe. Around were
the pictured walls of that desolate room, the
grim portraits and tapestry that flapped again
the stone which it concealed, with a slow and
hollow sound.
John of Prairie Eden, Isora, and the brave
Don Augustin—all were gone from that
gloomy chamber. The cowled figure and
Don Antonio were alone in the silence and
shadow.
`Yes, it is the novice,' said the well-remembered
voice from the shadow of the cowl.
`The novice who three months ago entered
the monastery of San Francisco, as a lay brother,
and soon became the secretary of the
reverend monk, Father Pedro. You have
never seen this face, good father,—at least,
never in a cowl—never since the night. Oh
you remember it?—the night of Praire
Eden!'
Don Antonio, even with his shaven crown
and cheek, was by no means an unhandsome
man. His dark, olive features, the boldly
chisselled nose, the ponderous brow, over-arching
large and lustrous eyes; the mouth,
around whose lips scorn and love, and the
power of a dauntless will, played by turns—
all resembled some antique head! moulded in
rich bronze.
He was, we say, by no means an unhandsome
man; his springy step, his graceful
form, the monkish robe could not altogether
hide. But now he was hideous, livid in the
face, and stricken down as by a pestilence in
every trembling limb; a fear, a horror worse
than death possessed his veins; for before
him, in the cowled form of the novice, or neophyte,
Paulo, who had glided by his side for
the last three months, he beheld not a living
shape, but a ghostly image from the regions
of the dead, sent to haunt his perjured soul.
Falling on his knees he crossed his brow
and cried to God for mercy!
The neophyte raised that marble-white
hand; in a moment the cowl would fall from
the face. Don Antonio dared not turn his
eyes away, and yet shuddered as he anticipated
the disclosure of the ghastly features of
the dead.
The cowl fell—O, what a ghastly vision
broke on Don Antonio then!
That face, whiter than alapaster, with the
delicate veins traced on the colorless brow,
and a single spot, deep red, burning like a
flame on each cheek; those lips, pale vermillion,
moving without a sound; the eyes, unnaturally
large, spreading with their strange
light from the brow to the cheek-bone, and
shining with an unfaltering glare upon the
kneeling monk.
Around this deathly face, like a crown of
ebony, was a mass of jet black hair, making
the pale features yet more pale, and giving
additional fire to the glaring eyes.
There are no words in language to picture
the sad reproach, the overwhelming melancholy
of that face. Around it, like a veil,
seemed to hang the very atmosphere of despair.
`You think it sadly changed, Don Antonio,
that face, which once won your love? Yet
we are all changed, Father Pedro! Five
years ago you were the handsome cavalier,
pressing the drugged goblet to the lips of a
weak girl, who sank at your feet, her soul
wrung in every fibre, her brain whirling in
madness. Now, you are the monk; and before
you stands the girl whom you dishonored,
while her brother bears your sinless sister
away to his bridal chamber. Bridal chamber—
a sweet word, father!—bridal chamber!—
without one priestly rite or marriage vow—a
meaning word, Father Pedro.'
She raised herself erect, in all the pride of
her fallen majesty, and stretched forth her
white hand, as though she scattered the ashes
of her curse upon his brow.
It was pitiable to see the agony of the
monk, whose heart seemed crushed by his
remorse.
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`Holy Trinity! My sister—pure and
stainless—what hath she done to merit this
wrong.'
`She is guilty even as Isabel of Prairie
Eden—guilty of her innocence and beauty.'
It was now the moment, when the cup of
Don Antonio's degradation filled even to the
brim. Before the woman, whom he had
wronged five years ago—basely wronged,
with an outrage that has no forgiveness, this
side the grave, no revenge save the outpouring
of blood—this proud man now grovelled
like a slave beneath the lash; yes, like a
hound beneath his master's scourge.
`Lady! be you a living woman, or be you
a spirit from the grave, listen for a moment
before you pour the last drop into this bitter
cup. I confess my crimes, my baseness. I
acknowledge this on my knees, thus crouching
at your feet! I murdered the father—the
daughter I dishonored—the brother I put to
death, even as he begged for a crust, for a
drop of water. No tears, no prayers, not one
writhing of my victim's soul swayed me aside
from my course! Can I confess more? Yet
my sister—in the name of God and his angels,
do not suffer wrong to visit her, and of
all wrongs, that outrage which has no baptism
of redemption but blood. For she is
pure, she is innocent! Take my life, but do
not, O—listen to me—do not harm this child
whom my dying father bequeathed to my
care!'
Cold and calm the cowled woman listened
to his prayer. Not one feature in her marble
face indicated emotion; her lip was firm, her
eye unfaltering in its withering scorn.
There was no answer from her lips, but the
monk read it in that silent vengeance of the
pale, beautiful face.
Bowing his head on his hands, the cowl
dropped over his face, and a silence ensued,
unbroken by a sound.
At last it was broken by the echo of a footstep,
and a half-clad figure rushed wildly into
the room.
It was Don Augustin, his face red with
frenzy; stained on the brow with a hideous
wound; his form divested of his handsome
coat of green and gold.
You linger here—you!—shame! Has the
monk robbed you of all that belongs to the
soldier, to the man? You linger here, and
the accursed heretic has borne your sister
away, passed the guard, disguised in my
coat, and now, perchance—but what mummery
have we here?'
For the first time he beheld the disguised
woman.
`Don Augustin,'—the voice of the monk
was husky as he raised his livid face—`in
that cowled form you behold my fate—the
destiny of my house—the woman whose honor
I crushed without remorse, five years
ago, in her home of Prairie Eden!'
The small, ferret eyes of the Mexican
twinkled with rage.
`Can I believe my eyes? Is it Don Antonio
Marin whom I see kneeling here? Arise,
be a man? Let us pursue the heretic! there
is a boat by the mole; we will pass through
the American fleet and track the robber to
his den in the Isle of Sacrificios. It is a work
of danger, I know—you are afraid—afraid!
when the honor of the home of your father is
at stake!'
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He paced the floor, rubbing his hands together,
as he cursed some dozen excellent
oaths in pure Spanish.
`Come, I will go with you I'—and Don
Antonio sprang to his feet—`but who will
lead us to the den of the heretic?'
A low, sad voice, unbroken by a tremor,
was heard echoing far along the gloomy
chamber,—
`That will I!'
And Isabel, with her pale face turned to
the light, her full eyes fixed upon her betrayer,
pointed with her white hand toward the
door.
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Lippard, George, 1822-1854 [1848], Bel of prairie Eden: a romance of Mexico (Hotchkiss & Co., Boston) [word count] [eaf252].
