Chapter THE FIFTH: The Wonders of St. Areline

No sooner had the oaken panel closed behind him, than the Duke found himself cautiously groping his way in utter darkness, being guided by the sound of the footsteps of the Monk.

Presently the Monk laid hand upon the Duke’s shoulder.

“Kneel, mortal, kneel,” he exclaimed in a voice which the Duke thought wondrously changed of a sudden, “kneel and behold the wonders of St. Areline! Speak not upon the peril of thy immortal soul!”

Upon the pavement of stone the Duke sank down, and the Monk began to murmur certain mysterious words, in a low, yet deep tone, and thus he continued for the space of the fourth part of an hour, when a light was seen dimly gleaming at one end of the place, and presently another and another, and gradually increasing in radiance they soon appeared to the wondering eyes of the Duke, dancing within the surface of a vast mirror of dazzling steel.

Strange it was that although the meteors,--for such they seemed--grew more brilliant every moment, and shed a more intense brightness along the surface of the mirror in which they shone, yet not a ray of light escaped to illumine the apartment, and the figures of the Duke and the Monk were wrapt in mid-night shadow.

And now soft clouds of feathery mist began to roll within the surface of the mirror, and the meteors gradually faded away into an universal brightness, which like the mellow beams that herald the coming day, poured a flood of rosy light over the tumultuous chaos within the dazzling steel.

“Behold!” cried the Monk, “behold the blessed St. Areline!”

A dim and ghastly form arose from amid the rolling clouds, far in the distance; nearer it drew and nearer, and presently the outlines of a nun, attired in the solemn hood, and sweeping robes of white, became clear and perceptible.

Advancing to the front of the mirror with a gliding motion, the hands of the spectre were folded upon its breast, and the hood of white, hung drooping over its face.

The Duke trembled with terror, and his brow was wet with large drops of moisture that oozed from his shivering skin.

“_Mortal!_” exclaimed a voice, soft as the tones of a spirit of light,--“_mortal, what wouldst thou know?_” The voice came from the shrouded face of the spectre.

With tremulous voice, and as if urged by some invisible power, the Duke shrieked forth--

“I would know my doom--I would know my fate!”

The hood fell back from the head of the Spectre, and its arms slowly extended!

“O Jesu!” shrieked the Duke,--“Look, look! the skeleton hands, the fleshless skull, the hollow eyes! One hand grasps a cross, and one a grinning skull.--Look, look!”

“Speak not!” whispered the Monk, “speak not upon pain of eternal doom!”

The voice again sounded through the cell.

“Dost thou seek in the name of the Holy One? Dost thou ask trusting in his Saints?”

“I do!”

“Thou art answered!” and the bare and hideous bones of the spectre head were covered, quick as a flash of light, with ruddy and healthy flesh, the hollow sockets gleamed with dark and brilliant orbs, and the skeleton hands glowed with life, as a skin of rosy loveliness shrouded the disjointed bones.

“Thou art answered!” and as the spectre whispered the words, a skeleton form came gliding along the mirror, holding an hour-glass in its fleshless hand.

“_Behold!_” exclaimed the vision pointing to the things of graves, “_behold thy doom?_”

A shriek of horror came from the lips of the Duke.

“O, horror of horrors!” he shouted, “It is the form of Death!--Look! look! Behold! He turns, he turns with a ghastly smile--he points to the hour glass!” The tyrant, assassin and betrayer started forward with every nerve quivering with the intensity of his terror. “O God of Heaven! _The Sands of the glass are run!_”

“Ha!” shrieked the Monk, with a wild yell, that sounded like the howl of a dying war-horse. “Heaven wills it, thy sands are run, thy doom is fixed!”

A stream of light poured around the cell, brighter than the blaze of the noon-day sun, and a clap of thunder shook the pillars to their very centre.

With his eyes rolling with affright, the Duke glanced upward, and beheld the Monk standing erect, his arms outstretched, and his hood cast backward from his face.

“O God! _Thou_ here! Albertine--thou here!”

“Ha! It is _I_!--Thy fate--thy curse--thy doom!”

The Duke felt himself seized in a grasp of iron, and hurriedly dragged along the pavement of stone.

In a moment he heard the sharp spring of a door closing behind him, and brushing his hand over his eyes, to restore his fading vision, he looked around.

A spur of the whitened steep on which the convent was founded, arising some twenty feet above the body of the mass of rock, was imbedded in the darkened wall of the tower, with its summit extending in a platform some three feet square, toppling over the dark abyss below.

Level as the sun-dial and smooth as polished steel, the summit of the rock, projecting from the tower, might scarce afford a resting place for footstep of human thing. In silence and in awe the Duke gazed around.

Above was the moonlit sky, below far, far below, a hundred fathoms down sunk the dark and shadowy abyss, separated from the waters of the lake by a ridge of rocks, that arose along the shores of the mountain tarn, overlooking the sullen blackness of the impenetrable void, on one side, while on the other towered and frowned above the walls of the gloomy convent.

Gazing hurriedly around, the Duke beheld the walls of the Monastery, extending on either side of the tower, in whose stones the platform-rock was imbedded, all smooth, even and moss-grown; at his back leading into the cell of St. Areline, was the secret door, fashioned in complete resemblance to the wall around, fast closed and secured, while high overhead arose the dark and frowning fabric of the tower, its rugged outline, rising like a thing of omen into the dim blue of the midnight sky.

This platform of rock was never looked upon by the peasantry of the valley, save with wonder and with awe--a thousand dark traditions, named the tower as the scene of many a deed of murder, and a thousand legends dyed the platform stone with the crimson drops of innocent blood.

“Where am I,” shrieked the Duke with a low, murmured whisper. “It is a dream, a dream of horror!”

“Thou art in the temple of my vengeance!” the response came hissing between the clenched teeth of the monk. “Behold its roof, yon sky, the walls, the boundless horizon, the floor, the wide earth; and the place of sacrifice, yon bottomless abyss!”