Penny Dreadful Multipack Vol. 1 (Illustrated. Annotated. 'Wagner The Wehr-Wolf,' 'Varney The Vampire,' 'The Mysteries of London Vol. 1' + Bonus Features) (Penny Dreadful Multipacks) (21 page)

Nisida made a powerful effort to
subdue the emotions that were agitating her: and, advancing toward the door,
she made a sign for the banditti to follow her.

She led them to her own suit of
apartments, and to the innermost room—her own bed-chamber—having carefully
secured the several doors through which they passed.

The banditti stood round the
table, their eyes wandering from the six tempting-looking money-bags to the
countenance of Nisida, and then back to the little sacks; but Stephano studied
more the countenance than the other objects of attraction; for Nisida’s face
once more expressed firm resolution and her
 
 haughty,
imperious, determined aspect, combined with her extraordinary beauty, fired the
robber-chieftain’s heart.

Taking from her bosom another
slip of paper, she passed it to Stephano, who read its contents aloud for the
benefit of his companions—“The trial of Fernand Wagner will take place this day
week. If he be acquitted, your services will not be required. If he be
condemned, are ye valiant and daring enough (sufficiently numerous ye are,
being upward of fifty in all) to rescue him on his way back from the
judgment-hall to the prison of the ducal palace? The six bags of gold now upon
the table are yours, as an earnest of reward, if ye assent. Double that amount
shall be yours if ye succeed.”

“It is a generous proposition,”
observed Lomellino.

“But a dangerous one,” said
Piero.

“Nevertheless, it shall be accepted,
if only for her fair self’s sake,” exclaimed Stephano, completely dazzled by
Nisida’s surpassing majesty of loveliness; then, with a low bow, he intimated
his readiness to undertake the enterprise.

Nisida handed him a third paper,
on which the following lines were written:—“Take the gold with you, as a proof
of the confidence I place in you. See that you deceive me not; for I have the
power to avenge as well as to reward. On Sunday evening next let one of you
meet me, at ten o’clock, near the principal entrance of the Cathedral of St.
Mary, and I will deliver the written instructions of the mode of proceeding
which circumstances may render necessary.”

“I shall keep the appointment
myself,” said Stephano to his companions; and another obsequious but somewhat
coarse bow denoted full compliance with all that Nisida had required through
the medium of the slips of paper.

She made a sign for the banditti
to take the bags of gold from the table, an intimation which Piero and
Lomellino did not hesitate to obey.

The private staircase leading
into the garden then afforded them the means of an unobserved departure; and
Nisida felt rejoiced at the success of her midnight interview with the chiefs
of the Florentine banditti.

FLORA’S CAPTIVITY—A COMPANION—THE
LIVING TOMB

Six
 
days had now elapsed since Flora
Francatelli became an inmate of the Carmelite Convent.

During this period she was
frequently visited in her cell by Sister Alba, the nun who had received her at
the bottom of the pit or well into which she descended by means of the chair;
and that recluse gradually prepared her to fix her mind upon the necessity of
embracing a conventual life.

It was not, however, without
feelings of the most intense—the most acute—the most bitter anguish, that the
unhappy maiden received the announcement that she was to pass the remainder of
her existence in that monastic institution.

All the eloquence—all the
sophistry—all the persuasion of
 
 Sister
Alba, who presided over the department of the penitents, failed to make her
believe that such a step was necessary for her eternal salvation.

“No,” exclaimed Flora, “the good
God has not formed this earth so fair that mortals should close their eyes upon
its beauties. The flowers, the green trees, the smiling pastures, the cypress
groves were not intended to be gazed upon from the barred windows of a
prison-house.”

Then the nun would reason with
her on the necessity of self-denial and self-mortification; and Flora would
listen attentively; but if she gave no reply, it was not because she was
convinced.

When she was alone in her cell
she sat upon her humble pallet, pondering upon her mournful condition, and
sometimes giving way to all the anguish of her heart, or else remaining silent
and still in the immovability of dumb despair.

Her suspicions often fell upon
the Lady Nisida as the cause of her terrible immurement in that living
tomb—especially when she remembered the coldness with which her mistress had
treated her a day or two previous to her forced abduction from the Riverola Palace.
Those suspicions seemed confirmed, too, by the nature of the discourse which
Sister Alba had first addressed to her, when she upbraided her with having
given way to “those carnal notions—those hopes—those fears—those dreams of
happiness, which constitute the passion that the world calls love.”

The reader will remember that
Flora had suspected the coolness of Nisida to have risen from a knowledge of
Francisco’s love for the young maiden; and every word which Sister Alba had
uttered in allusion to the passion of love seemed to point to that same fact.

Thus was Flora convinced that it
was this unfortunate attachment, in which for a moment she had felt herself so
supremely blest, that was the source of her misfortunes. But then, how had
Nisida discovered the secret? This was an enigma defying conjecture; for
Francisco was too honorable to reveal his love to his sister, after having so
earnestly enjoined Flora herself not to betray that secret.

At times a gleam of hope would
dawn in upon her soul, even through the massive walls of that living tomb to
which she appeared to have been consigned. Would Francisco forget her? Oh! no,
she felt certain that he would leave no measure untried to discover her fate,
no means unessayed to effect her deliverance.

But, alas! then would come the
maddening thought that he might be deceived with regard to her real position;
that the same enemy or enemies who had persecuted her might invent some
specious tale to account for her absence, and deter him from persevering in his
inquiries concerning her.

Thus was the unhappy maiden a
prey to a thousand conflicting sentiments; unable to settle her mind upon any
conviction save the appalling one which made her feel the stern truth of her
captivity.

 Oh! to be condemned so
young to perpetual prisonage, was indeed hard, too hard—enough to make reason
totter on its throne and paralyze the powers of even the strongest intellect.

Sister Alba had sketched out to
her the course of existence on which she must prepare to enter. Ten days of
prayer and sorry food in her own cell were first enjoined as a preliminary, to
be followed by admission into the number of penitents who lacerated their naked
forms with scourges at the foot of the altar. Then the period of her penitence
in this manner would be determined by the manifestations of contrition which
she might evince, and which would be proved by the frequency of her
self-flagellations, the severity with which the scourge was applied, and the
anxiety which she might express to become a member of the holy sisterhood. When
the term of penitence should arrive, the maiden would be removed to the
department of the convent inhabited by the professed nuns; and then her flowing
hair would be cut short, and she would enter on her novitiate previously to taking
the veil, that last, last step in the conventual regime, which would forever
raise up an insuperable barrier between herself and the great, the beautiful,
the glorious world without!

Such was the picture spread for
the contemplation of this charming, but hapless maiden.

Need we wonder if her glances
recoiled from her prospects, as if from some loathsome specter, or from a
hideous serpent preparing to dart from its coils and twine its slimy folds
around her?

Nor was the place in which she
was a prisoner calculated to dissipate her gloomy reflections.

It seemed a vast cavern hollowed
out of the bowels of the earth, rendered solid by masonry and divided into
various compartments. No windows were there to admit the pure light of day; an
artificial luster, provided by lamps and tapers, prevailed eternally in that
earthly purgatory.

Sometimes the stillness of death,
the solemn silence of the tomb reigned throughout that place: then the awful
tranquillity would be suddenly broken by the dreadful shrieks, the prayers, the
lamentations, and the scourges of the penitents.

The spectacle of these
unfortunate creatures, with their naked forms writhing and bleeding beneath the
self-inflicted stripes, which they doubtless rendered as severe as possible in
order to escape the sooner from that terrible preparation for their
novitiate—this spectacle, we say, was so appalling to the contemplation of
Flora, that she seldom quitted her own cell to set foot in the chamber of
penitence. But there were times when her thoughts became so torturing, and the
solitude of her stone chamber so terrible, that she was compelled to open the
door and escape from those painful ideas and that hideous loneliness, even
though the scene merely shifted to a reality from which her gentle spirit recoiled
in horror and dismay.

But circumstances soon gave her a
companion in her cell. For, on the second night of her abode in that place, the
noise of the well-known machinery was heard; the revolution of wheels
 
 and the play of the dreadful
mechanism raised ominous echoes throughout the subterrane. Another victim came:
all the cells were tenanted: and the new-comer was therefore lodged with Flora,
whose own grief was partially forgotten, or at all events mitigated, in the
truly Christian task of consoling a fellow-sufferer.

Thus it was that the Countess of
Arestino and Flora Francatelli became companions in the Carmelite convent.

At first the wretched Giulia gave
way to her despair, and refused all comfort. But so gentle, so willing, so
softly fascinating were the ways of the beautiful Flora, and so much sincerity
did the charming girl manifest in her attempts to revive that frail but
drooping flower which had been thrown as it were at her feet; at the feet of
her, a pure though also drooping rosebud of innocence and beauty: so earnest
did the maiden seem in her disinterested attentions, that Giulia yielded to the
benign influence, and became comparatively composed.

But mutual confidence, that
outpouring of the soul’s heavy secrets, which so much alleviates the distress
of the female mind, did not spring up between the countess and Flora; because
the former shrank from revealing the narrative of her frailty, and the latter
chose not to impart her love for the young Count of Riverola. Nevertheless, the
countess gave her companion to understand that she had friends without, who
were acquainted with the fact of her removal to the Carmelite convent, and on
whose fidelity as well as a resolute valor she could reckon; for the promise
made to her by the robber-captain, and the idea that the Marquis of Orsini
would not leave her to the dreadful fate of eternal seclusion in that place,
flashed to her mind when the first access of despair had passed.

Flora was delighted to hear that
such a hope animated the Countess of Arestino: and throwing herself at her
feet, she said, “Oh! lady, should’st thou have the power to save me——”

“Thinkest thou that I would leave
thee here, in this horrible dungeon?” interrupted the countess, raising Flora
from her suppliant position on the cold pavement of the cell, and embracing
her. “No, if those on whom I rely fulfill the hope that we have entertained we
shall go forth together. And, oh!” added the countess, “were all Florence to
rise up against this accursed institution, pillage it, and sack it, and raze it
to the ground, so that not one stone shall remain upon another, heaven could
not frown upon the deed! For surely demons in mortal shape must have invented
that terrible engine by means of which I was consigned to this subterrane!”

The recollection of the anguish
she had suffered during the descent, a mental agony that Flora herself could
fully appreciate, she having passed through the same infernal ordeal, produced
a cold shudder which oscillated throughout Giulia’s entire form.

But we shall not dwell upon this
portion of our tale; for the reader is about to pass to scenes of so thrilling
a nature, that all he has yet read in the preceding chapters are as nothing to
the events which will occupy those that are to follow.

We said then, at the opening of
this chapter, that six days had
 
 elapsed
since Flora became an inmate of the convent, and four since circumstances had
given her a companion in the person of Giulia of Arestino.

It was on the sixth night, and
the two inmates of the gloomy cell were preparing to retire to their humble
pallet, after offering their prayers to the Virgin, for adversity had already
taught the countess to pray, and to pray devoutly, too, when they were startled
and alarmed by the sudden clang of a large bell fixed in some part of the
subterrane.

The echoes which it raised, and
the monotonous vibration of the air which it produced, struck terror to their
souls.

A minute elapsed, and again the
bell struck.

Flora and the countess exchanged
glances of terror and mysterious doubt, so ominous was that sound.

Again a minute passed, and a
third time clanged that heavy iron tongue.

Then commenced a funeral hymn,
chanted by several female voices, and emanating as yet from a distance,
sounding, too, as if the mournful melody was made within the very bowels of the
earth.

But by degrees the strain became
louder, as those who sang approached nearer; and in a short time the sound of
many light steps on the stone pavement of the chamber of penitence were heard
by Giulia and her companion in their cell.

Again did they exchange terrified
glances, as if demanding of each other what this strange interruption of
night’s silence could mean. But at that instant the hymn ceased—and again the
loud bell clanged, as if in some far-off gallery hollowed out of the earth.

Oh! in that convent where all was
mysterious, and where a terrific despotism obeyed the dictates of its own wild
will, such sounds as that funeral chant, and that deafening bell, were but too
fairly calculated to inspire the souls of the innocent Flora and the guilty
Giulia with the wildest apprehension!

Suddenly the door opened, and
Sister Alba, who presided over the chamber of penitence, appeared on the
threshold.

“Come forth, daughters!” she
exclaimed; “and behold the punishment due to female frailty.”

The Countess of Arestino and
Flora Francatelli mechanically obeyed this command; and a strange—a
heart-rending sight met their eyes.

The chamber of penitence was
filled with nuns in their convent-garbs; and the penitents in a state of semi-nudity.
On one side of the apartment, a huge door with massive bolts and chains stood
open, allowing a glimpse, by the glare of the lamps, tapers, and torches, of
the interior of a small cell that looked like a sepulcher. Near the entrance to
that tomb, for such, indeed, it was—stood the lady abbess: and on the pavement
near her knelt a young and beautiful girl, with hands clasped and countenance
raised in an agony of soul which no human pen can describe. The garments of
this hapless being had been torn away from her neck and shoulders, doubtless by
the force used to drag her thither: and her suppliant attitude, the despair
that
 
 was depicted by her
appearance, her extreme loveliness, and the wild glaring of her deep blue eyes,
gave her the appearance of something unearthly in the glare of that vacillating
light.

“No, daughter,” said the abbess,
in a cold, stern voice; “there is no mercy for you on earth.”

Then echoed through the chamber
of penitence a scream, a shriek so wild, so long, so full of agony, that it
penetrated to the hearts of Flora, the countess, and some of the penitents,
although the abbess and her nuns seemed unmoved by that appalling evidence of
female anguish. At the same instant the bell struck again; and the funeral hymn
was recommenced by the junior recluses.