Chapter XXXIX

At first Consuelo, having passed from a room where a hundred torches burned, to a room lighted by a solitary lamp, saw nothing but a kind of mystic light around her, which her eyes could not penetrate. Gradually, however, they became used to darkness; and as she perceived nothing between her and the walls of a room of an octagonal form, like the one she left, she ventured to examine the characters on the wall. This was a solitary and long inscription, arranged in many circular lines around the room, which had no outlet. As she saw this, Consuelo asked herself, not how she could get out of the room, but for what purpose it could have been made. Thoughts of evil which she endeavored to repress, obtruded themselves upon her mind, and they were confirmed by the inscriptions she read, as lamp in hand she slowly walked around the room.

"Look at the beauty of these walls, cut in the rock, twenty-four feet thick, and which have stood for a thousand years uninjured by war, or the efforts of time. This model of architectural masonry was built by the hand of slaves, doubtless to contain the treasures of some mighty lord. Yes, to bury in the depths of the rock, in the bowels of the earth, the treasures of hatred and vengeance. Here twenty generations of men have suffered, wept and blasphemed. Some were innocent--some were heroic--all were victims or martyrs: prisoners of war--serfs who had revolted, or who were too much crushed by taxes to be able to pay more--religious innovators, sublime heretics, unfortunate men, conquered warriors, fanatics, saints, and criminals--men educated in the ferocity of camps to rapine and war, who had in return been subjected to horrible reprisals--such are the catacombs of feudality and military or religious despotism. Such are the abodes that the powerful made for their victims, to stifle their cries, and conceal their existence from the light of day. Here there is no air to breathe, no ray of light, no stone to rest the head--nothing but an iron ring fastened in the wall to hold the chain, and keep them from selecting their resting-place on the damp and icy floor. Here air, light and food are at the disposal of the guards posted in the upper room, where they pleased to open the door for a moment and throw in a morsel of bread to hundreds of victims chained and heaped together on the day after a battle. Often they wounded or murdered each other, and often, yet more horrible, one alone remained, stifled in suffering and despair, amid the loathsome carcases of his companions, and sometimes attacked by the worms before death, and sinking in putrefaction before life had become extinct. Behold! O neophyte, the source of human grandeur, which you perhaps have looked on with envy and admiration. Crushed skulls, human bones, dried and withered tears, blood-spots, are the translations of the coats of arms, if you have such bequeathed you by nobility. This is what should be quartered on the escutcheons of the princes you have served, or aspire to serve, if you be a man of the people. Yes, this is the foundation of noble titles, of the hereditary glory and riches of the world. Thus has been built up a caste, which all other classes of men yet venerate and preserve. Thus have men contrived to elevate themselves from father to son above their fellows."

Having passed thrice around the room, and read this inscription, Consuelo, filled with grief and terror, placed the lamp on the floor, to rest herself. The lonely place was as silent as the grave, and terrible thoughts arose in her mind. Her eager fancy evoked dark visions. She thought she saw livid shadows, covered with hideous wounds, flitting around the hall, and crawling on the floor beside her. She thought she heard their painful sighs, and the rattling of their chains. She evolved the past in her mind, as she had imagined it in the middle ages, and as it continued during the religious wars. She fancied she heard, in the guard-room above, the heavy tread of iron-shod men, the rattling of their pikes, their coarse laughter, their mad songs, their threats and oaths when the victims complaints reached them and interrupted their terrible sleep; for those jailors had slept over their prison, over that unhealthy abyss, whence the miasmata of the tombs, and of hell, were exhaled.

Pale, her eyes staring, her hair erect with terror, Consuelo saw and heard nothing. When she had recalled her own existence, and strove to shake off the chill which had seized her, she saw that a stone had been removed, and that another passage was opened for her. She approached, and saw a narrow and stiff stairway, which she descended with great difficulty, and which ended in another cavern, darker and smaller than the first. When she touched the floor, which was soft, and yielded under her feet, Consuelo put down her lamp, to see if she did not sink in mud. She saw naught hut a fine dust, smaller than the finest sand, containing here and there a broken rib, a piece of a thigh bone, fragments of a skull, a jaw, with teeth yet solid and white, exhibiting youth and power crushed by a violent death. A few skeletons, almost entire, had been taken from the dust, and were placed against the wall. One had been perfectly preserved, and was chained around the waist, as if the prisoner had been condemned to die without being able to lie down. The body, instead of inclining forward, was stiffened and drawn back, with an expression of utter disdain. The ligaments of the body and limbs were ossified. The head was thrown back, and seemed to look at the roof; the teeth, contracted by a last effort, smiled terribly with some outbreak of fanaticism. Above the body the name and story of the prisoner were written, in large red letters, on the wall. He was an obscure martyr of religious persecution, and the last victim immolated in this place. At his feet knelt a skeleton; the head, detached from the vertebræ, lay on the pavement, but the stiffened arms yet embraced the knees of the martyr: this was his wife. The inscription bore, among other details, the following--

"N----died here with his wife, his three brothers, and his two children, because they would not renounce Lutheranism, and maintained, even amid tortures, a denial of the infallibility of the pope. He died erect, without being able to see his family suffering at his feet, on the ashes of his friends and fathers."

Opposite this inscription was thus written--

"Neophyte, the light earth on which you tread is twenty feet deep. It is neither sand nor clay, but the ashes of man. This was the ossuary of the castle. Here were thrown those who died in the grave above, when there was no room. It is all that remains of twenty generations of victims. Blessed and rare are the nobles who can reckon among their ancestors twenty generations of murderers and executioners!"

Consuelo was less terrified at these funereal ensignia than she had been in the jail at the phantoms of her own mind; there is something so grave and solemn in the very appearance of death, though the weakness of fear and the lacerations of pity obscure the enthusiasm and serenity of strong and believing souls. In the presence of these relics, the noble adept of Albert's religion felt respect and charity rather than terror and consternation. She knelt before the martyr's remains, and feeling her moral strength failing, cried, as she kissed the lacerated hand, "Oh, it is not the august spectacle of a glorious destruction which fills us with horror and pity, but the idea of life disputing with the torments of agony. It is the thought of what passes in these broken hearts that fills the souls of those who live with bitterness and terror. You, unfortunate victim, dead, and with your head turned to heaven, are not to be feared, for you have not failed. Your heart has exhaled itself in a transport which fills me with exultation."

Consuelo rose slowly, and with a degree of calmness unloosed the veil which covered the dead bones by her side. A narrow and low door opened before her. She took her lamp, and forbearing to look back, entered a corridor which descended rapidly. On her right and left she saw cells, the appearance of which was entirely sepulchral. These dungeons were too low for one to stand erect, and scarcely long enough for a person to sleep in them. They appeared the work of Cyclops, so massive and so strong was their masonry. They seemed to be intended for dens of wild and savage animals. Consuelo, however, would not be deceived. She had seen the arenæ veronia; she was aware that the tigers and bears kept for the amusements of the circus, for the combats of the gladiators, were a thousand times better furnished. Besides she read over the iron gates that these impenetrable dungeons were appropriated to conquered princes, to brave captains, to the prisoners who were most important from rank and intelligence. Care to prevent their escape exhibited the love and respect with which they had inspired their partisans. There had been stifled the voices of the lions whose roaring had filled the world with terror.

Their power and will had been crushed against an angle in the wall. Their herculian breasts had been burst in aspirations for air at an imperceptible window, cut through a wall twenty-four feet. Their eagle glance was exhausted in seeking for light amid darkness. There were buried alive persons whom they dared not kill by day. Illustrious men, noble hearts, there suffered from the use, and possibly the abuse, of power.

Having wandered for some time amid the dark and damp galleries, Consuelo heard a sound of running water, which reminded her of the terrible cavern of Riesenberg. She was, however, too much occupied by the misfortunes and crimes of humanity, to think of herself. She was forced for a time to pause and go around a cistern on the level of the ground, lighted by a torch she read on a sign-board these words:

"There they drowned them."

Consuelo looked down to see the interior of the well. The water of the rivulet, over which an hour before she had glided so peacefully, fell down into a frightful gulf, and whirled angrily round, as if it was anxious to take possession of a victim. The red light of the resinous torch made the water blood-colored.

At last Consuelo came to a massive door, which she sought in vain to open. She asked if, as in the initiations in the pyramids, she was about to be lifted in the air by invisible chains, while some cavern suddenly opened and put out her lamp. Another terror seized her, for as she walked down the gallery, she saw that she was not alone, though the person who accompanied her trod so lightly that she heard no noise. She fancied that she heard the rustling of a silk dress near her own, and that, when she had passed the well, the light of the torch reflected two trembling shadows on the wall instead of one. Who, then, was the terrible companion she was forbidden to look back on, under the penalty of losing the fruit of all her labors, and never being able to cross the threshold of the temple? Was it some terrible spectre, the appearance of which would have frozen her courage, and disturbed her reason? She saw his shadow no more, but she imagined she heard his respiration near her. She waited to see the terrible door reopen. The two or three minutes which elapsed during this expectation, seemed an age. The mute acophyte terrified her. She was afraid that he wished to test her by speaking, and forcing her by some _ruse_ to look back. Her heart beat violently. At last she saw that an inscription above the door was yet to be read:

"This is your last trial, and it is the most cruel. If your courage be exhausted, strike thrice on the left of the door. If not, strike thrice on the right. Remember, the glory of your initiation will be in proportion to your efforts."

Consuelo did not hesitate, but went to the right. One of the doors opened as if of itself, and she went into a vast room, lighted with many lamps. She was alone, and at first could not distinguish the strange objects around her. They were machines of wood, iron, and bronze, the use of which she knew not. Strange arms were displayed on the table, or hung on the wall. For one moment she fancied herself in some museum of weapons, for she saw muskets, cannons, culverins, and a perfect array of the weapons on which those now used are improvements. Care had been taken to collect all the instruments men use in immolating each other. When the neophyte had passed once or twice through the room, she saw others of a more refined character and some more barbarous--collars, wheels, saws, pulleys, hooks--a perfect gallery of instruments of torture--and, above all, a scroll supported by maces, hooks, dentated knives, and other torturing irons. The scroll read--

"They are all precious.--They have been used."

Consuelo felt her strength give way. A cold perspiration rolled down her hair, and her heart ceased to beat. Incapable of shaking off the feeling of horror and the terrible visions that crowded around her, she examined all that stood before her with that stupid curiosity which, when we are terrified, takes possession of us. Instead of closing her eyes, she looked at a kind of bronze bell, the cap of which was immense, and rested on a large body without limbs, yet which reached as low as the knees. It was not unlike a colossal statue, coarsely carved, intended for a tomb. Gradually, Consuelo overcame her torpor, and comprehended that the victim was to be placed beneath this bell. Its weight was so vast that it was impossible to lift it up. The internal body was so immense that motion was impossible. There was no intention of stifling the person put within, for the vizor of the helmet was open at the face, and all the circumference was pierced with little holes, in some of which stilettoes were yet pierced. By means of these cruel wounds they sought to torment the victim so as to wrest from him charges against his relations or friends, or confessions of political or religious faith.[14] On the top of the casque was carved, in the Spanish language--

"Viva la Santa Inquisicion!"

Beneath was a prayer, which seemed dictated by savage compassion, but which perhaps emanated from the hand of the poor mechanic ordered to make the instrument of torture--

"Holy mother of God, have mercy on the sinner!"

A lock of hair, torn out by torture, and which doubtless had been stained with blood, was below this inscription. It had, perhaps, come through one of the orifices which had been enlarged by the daggers. The hairs were grey.

All at once Consuelo saw nothing, and ceased to suffer. Without being informed by any sentiment of physical suffering, she was about to fall cold and stiff on the pavement, as a statue thrown from its pedestal, but, as her head was coming in contact with the infernal machine, she was caught in the arms of a man. This was Leverani.

[Footnote 14: Any one may see an instrument of this kind, and also a hundred others no less ingeniously constructed, in the arsenal of Venice. Consuelo never saw it, for the interior of the prisons of the Inquisition and the PIOMBE of the ducal palace were never open to the people until the occupation of the city by troops of the French Republic.]