CHAPTER XVIII.
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The day of retribution—of a fearful trial,
is come!—Horrible mockery!—the sunlight
streams through the iron grating, and falls upon
the straw of this accursed dungeon. How
beautifully—how wooingly it looks—lovelier
than ever, about to be forever lost! Do I tremble—
would I yet live and linger out the years
in a life of curses, among those who howl
their denunciations forever in my ears? Could
I survive this exposure, this infamy, and cherish
life on any terms and at all hazards! I
would not die—not thus, not thus—on that
horrible scaffolding, I shudder but to think on.
Yet what hope would I rely upon? I have
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none to whom in this perilous hour, I would
turn in expectation. No fond spirit now labors,
unsleepingly, for my relief. I have not
lived for such an interest—I have not sought
to enlist such affections—none hope—none
seek my escape—none would assist in its
consummation! I am alone—I must die!—
and what,—horrible thought!—if he should
not bring the weapon?—if his shrinking and
woman-like conscience should scruple, thus,
to interfere with the decree of justice, and I
should be led out in the accursed cart, through
the jeering multitude, and go through all the
trials of that death of shame and muscular
agony!—let me not think of it. Let me not
think!—
And I closed my eyes as if to shut out
thought, and rushed to the extremest corner
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of my cell, despairing of the appearance of
Harding with the dagger he had promised.
But a few hours were left, and the sharp and
repeated strokes of the hammer, at a little
distance, indicated the rapid progress of the
executioner in his preparations for the terrible
performance of his office. I groaned in my
agony of thought, and buried my head still
deeper in the meshes of my couch.—Thanks,
thanks—the fates be praised—he comes—the
bolts shoot back—the doors are unbarred—he
is here! I live again—I shall not stand then on
that fearful fabric. He brings me that which
shall enable me to give it my defiance, and
disappoint the gaping multitude, already beginning
to assemble. I shall defeat them
still!
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“Oh, Harding—I had almost given you up—
I had begun to despond—to despair. I
dreaded that the weakness of your spirit had
yielded to your conscience, and that you had
forgotten your pledge. God of terror! what a
horrible agony the thought brought along with
it. It is well you came; I had else cursed
you with spectres that would have fastened on
you like wolves. They would have drained
the blood, at the same moment, from all the
arteries in your system. Give me the knife.”
“It is here, and, oh, Martin—I have had a
terrible struggle with my own sense of what
is right in the performance of this office. I
have resisted the suggestions of conscience—
I have overcome the rebukes of my own mind—
I have done wrong, and do not seek to excuse
myself—but I have brought you what
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you desired. Here, take it, take it at once
and quickly before I repent me of having so
weakly yielded in the struggle.”
“I have it—I have it!” I shouted wildly—
shaking the naked blade as if in defiance, in
the direction of the scaffold. “I am secure
from that shame—I shall not be the capped
and culprit thing of ignominy which they
would make me, in the eyes of that morbid
rabble. I am free from the dishonor of such
a death. Ah, Harding, thou hast almost redeemed
thy fault—thou hast almost taught me
to forgive thee for thy offending. Nay—I
could almost forbear to howl my curses in thy
ears, and avoid saying to thee, as I do—may
the furies tug at thy vitals, like snakes, in all
hours—”
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“Forbear, forbear!” he shrieked—oh, cruel;
wantonly cruel as thou art—where is thy
promise, Martin—where is thy honor—wilt
thou deceive me?”
“Ha! ha! ha!—fool that thou art—didst
thou not deceive and betray me? Where was
thy honor, false hypocrite—where was thy
forbearing mercy? Wert thou not cruel,
wantonly cruel then? Hell's curses be upon
thee—I would have thee live forever to enjoy
them—thou shouldst have an eternity of torment—
thou shouldst have an exaggerated
sense of life for its better appreciation. Forbearance,
indeed! No—I would invent a
curse for thee that—and ha! thou art come in
season, at the fit moment, to be my help in
imprecation. Come forward—thou has lips
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would make an oath tell—and tell to the quick.
Come hither, come hither, my Constance!”
And he dragged forward the young and terrified
wife, who had just then made her appearance
in the dungeon, and forcing her upon
her knees before him, he stood over her, waving
the gleaming dagger in her eyes.
“Thou shalt kneel, Constance!—it is a
solemn moment, and thou hast that to perform
which requires that word and action should
well suit its solemnity. Ay, fold thy hands
upon thy breast—yet I ask thee not to pray—
thou must curse and not pray. Speak then
as I tell thee—speak and palter with me not,
for, doomed as I am to death, and hopeless of
escape, as I have nothing now to hope, I have
nothing now to apprehend from man. Speak
after me, then, as thou hast a love for life—as
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thou hast a leading and a lasting terror of a
horrible death!”
Agonized with the situation of Constance,
Harding advanced to interfere, but with a
giant-like strength, the criminal hurled him
back with a single arm, while he threatened, if
he again approached, to bury the weapon in
the bosom of the kneeling and terror-stricken
woman. On a sudden, she recovered her
energies, and in coherent but feeble tones, she
called upon her husband to proceed.
“It is well thou art thus docile. Thou art
wise, Constance—thou art obedient, as thou
hast ever been. Keep thy hands folded, and
speak after me—say, in thy wonted manner to
thy God—bid him hearken to thy prayer—bid
him, in tenderness and love for thee, to grant
it as thou makest it. Promise him largely of
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thy increased love and obedience for this.
Promise him thy exclusive devotion—say
thou wilt live only for him; and strive to forget
all the other attractions, whatever they
may be, of life and society. I care not if thou
keepest these pledges, it is enough for me
that thou makest them.”
She did as she was required. She implored
the Father, fervently to sanction the
prayer she was about to make—she vowed
her whole love and duty, in return, so far as
her poor capacities would permit, entirely to
him. She spoke in the fullness of accumulated
feelings, and with a devotion as deep and
touching, as it was tearless and dignified.
“Well—that is enough. Thou hast been
as liberal in promises, as I could well desire
thee; and now for the prayer and petition thou
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hast to offer. Look on this man—the murderer
of thy husband—the wretch, who,
wouldst thou believe it, my Constance, has
the audacity to have a love even for thee, in
his cruel heart—the wretch, whom—thou wilt
be slow to think so, my Constance, but it is
true—whom thou dost love—”
She looked up to him, as he proceeded, with
a most imploring expression—but he had no
touch of pity in his soul. He proceeded—
“It is true, and you dare not deny it, my
Constance. You love the wretch who has
murdered your husband, and, perhaps, when
my bloody grave, which his hands have dug,
has been well covered over, you will take
shelter in his bosom—”
The wretched woman shrieked in agony,
and fell at length upon the floor—but he
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allowed her no respite. After a few moments,
making her resume her position upon her
knees, he continued—
“Him, thou must curse! Say after me—
God of heaven and earth, if thou be, as thou
art said to be, just in thy provisions— Say
on!”
She repeated: He went on.—
“If the power be in thee, as I believe, to do
the will of thy creatures on earth—”
She repeated.
“If thou canst curse and bless—build up and
destroy—yield pleasure or pain—make happy
or miserable—”
She repeated.
“I call upon thee, with thy agents and ministering
powers to curse with thy eternal
wrath—to blister with thy unceasing
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severities—to torture with thy utmost varieties of
pain—to make sore the body—to make bitter
the life—to make wretched the spirit—to pursue
at all seasons and in all lands, with thy
unceasing and most aggravated asperities, this
bloody man, the destroyer of my husband.”
The youth, upon whom this imprecation
was to fall, rushed forward—
“Speak it not! oh, speak it not, lady!—in
charity speak it not. I can bear with the
curse from his lips—from any lips—but thine.
Sanction not, I pray you, this wantoness of
cruelty—pardon rather, and forgive me that I
have been the unwilling, and, in all times, the
sad instrument of Providence in this proceeding.”
“Back, back, William Harding—the curse
must be uttered—it must be felt—it must be
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borne. Speak on, Constance Faber—speak
on—as I have told it thee. She looked up in
his face with the calm resignation of a saint—
and, as one entering upon the pilgrimage of
martyrdom, she proceeded regularly in the
formula, sentence after sentence, which he
had prescribed; while he, standing above, muttered
his gratification as every added word
seemed to arouse new agonies in the bosom
of the denounced. But, as she reached the
part assigned to the application of the curse,
she entreated these curses upon the head of
Constance Faber, if she should ever teach
her lips to invoke other than blessings upon
any being of the human family, whatever, in
the sight of heaven or of earth, his offence
might be! The glare from the eyes of the
disappointed criminal was that of a hyena,
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robbed of his prey. A malignant shriek burst
from his lips, as, with uplifted arm and furious
stroke, he aimed the weapon at her bosom.
Harding sprang forward, but the weapon, as
she swooned away from the blow, had penetrated
her side. The youth, with unlooked for
power, tore her from his grasp, before his blow
could be repeated, and bore her out of his
reach to the opposite part of the cell. The
keeper and his assistants rushed in upon the
prisoner. As they approached, he aimed the
bloody dagger at his own bosom, but, at that
instant, fear came over his heart—the fates had
paralyzed him—he was a coward! he shrunk
back from the stroke and the dagger fell from
his hands. Without difficulty he was in a
moment secured. Constance was but slightly
wounded, yet happily, enough so, to be
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entirely ignorant of the horrors of the scene so
malignantly forced upon her. In his cell, the
wretch howled over the unperforming weakness
of his hand, which had not only failed to
secure him his victim, but had left him without
the ability to defeat his doom.
* * * * * * * *
The hour is come! O cursed weakness, that
I should fail at that moment of escape—But
the fates had written it—I must fulfil my destiny.
My eyes grow dim—I fail to see any
longer the crowd—all is confused and terrible.
What spectres are these that surround me? It
is Emily,—and why does the old father shake
his palsied hand in my face—will no one keep
off the intruders?—they have no concern here.
I have raved—but now all is before me. What a
multitude—does this suffering of a fellow
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creature give them pleasure! Should I ask—I who
have lived in that enjoyment! Would I had also
been weak; I should have escaped this exposure—
this pain. It is but for a moment, however—
but a momentary thrill; and then—fate
will have no secrets. I shall no longer be its
blind victim—its slave. There is an old man
at the foot of the scaffold, that I would not see
there! It is old Andrews. Would he were
gone—or that I could look elsewhere. But no
matter—it will soon be over. I would I had
a God at this moment—better to have believed—
on earth there is nothing for me—such a
faith, though folly, had been grateful. But
now—now it is too late. The hour is come!—
The sunlight and the skies are gone—gone—
gone—gone.”
