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) (56 page)

Having thus resolved, Francisco
repaired to his own apartment, enveloped himself in a cloak, secured weapons of
defense about his person, and then quitted the mansion, unperceived by a living
soul. Almost at the same time, but by another mode of egress—namely, the
private staircase leading from her own apartments into the garden, and which
has been so often mentioned in the course of this narrative—Donna Nisida stole
likewise from the Riverola palace. She was habited in male attire; and beneath
her doublet she wore the light but strong cuirass which she usually donned ere
setting out on any nocturnal
 
 enterprise,
and which she was now particularly cautious not to omit from the details of her
toilet, inasmuch as the mysterious appearance of the muffled figure, which had
alarmed her on the previous evening, induced her to adopt every precaution
against secret and unknown enemies. Whither was the Lady Nisida now hurrying,
through the dark streets of Florence?—what new object had she in contemplation?

Her way was bent toward an
obscure neighborhood in the immediate vicinity of the cathedral; and in a short
time she reached the house in which Dame Margaretha, Antonio’s mother, dwelt.
She knocked gently at the door, which was shortly opened by the old woman, who
imagined it was her son that sought admittance; for, though in the service of
the Count of Arestino, Antonio was often kept abroad late by the various
machinations in which he had been engaged, and it was by no means unusual for
him to seek his mother’s dwelling at all hours.

Margaretha, who appeared in a
loose wrapper hastily thrown on, held a lamp in her hand; and when its rays
streamed not on the countenance of her son, but showed the form of a cavalier
handsomely appareled, she started back in mingled astonishment and fear. A
second glance, however, enabled her to recognize the Lady Nisida; and an
exclamation of wonder escaped her lips. Nisida entered the house, closed the
door behind her, and motioned Dame Margaretha to lead the way into the nearest
apartment. The old woman obeyed tremblingly; for she feared that the lady’s
visit boded no good; and this apprehension on her part was not only enhanced by
her own knowledge of all Antonio’s treachery toward Count Francisco, but also
by the imperious manner, determined looks, and strange disguise of her
visitress. But Margaretha’s terror speedily gave way to indescribable
astonishment when Nisida suddenly addressed her in a language which not for
many, many years, had the old woman heard flow from that delicious mouth!

“Margaretha,” said Nisida, “you
must prepare to accompany me forthwith! Be not surprised to hear me thus
capable of rendering myself intelligible by means of an organ on which a seal
was so long placed. A marvelous cure has been accomplished in respect to me,
during my absence from Florence. But you must prepare to accompany me, I say;
your son Antonio——”

“My son!” ejaculated the woman,
now again trembling from head to foot, and surveying Nisida’s countenance in a
manner denoting the acutest suspense.

“Your son is wounded—mortally
wounded in a street skirmish——”

“Wounded!” shrieked Margaretha.
“Oh, dear lady—tell me all—tell me the worst! What has happened to my
unfortunate son? He is dead—he is dead! Your manner convinces me that hope is
past!”

And she wrung her hands bitterly,
while tears streamed down her wrinkled cheeks.

“No, he is not dead, Margaretha!”
exclaimed Nisida; “but he
 
 is
dying—and he implored me, by everything I deemed sacred, to hasten thither and
fetch you to him, that he may receive your blessing and close his eyes in
peace.”

“In peace!” repeated the old
woman bitterly: then, to herself she said, “Donna Nisida suspects not his
perfidy—knows not all his wickedness.”

“Delay not,” urged the lady,
perceiving what was passing in her mind. “You are well aware that my brother,
who, alas! has disappeared most mysteriously, dismissed Antonio abruptly from
his service many months ago; but, whatever were the cause, it is forgotten, at
least by me. So tarry not, but prepare to accompany me.”

Margaretha hastened to her
bedroom, and reappeared in a few minutes, completely dressed and ready to issue
forth.

“Keep close by me,” said Nisida,
as she opened the house-door; “and breathe not a word as we pass through the
streets. I have reasons of my own for assuming a disguise, and I wish not to be
recognized.”

Margaretha was too much absorbed
in the contemplation of the afflicting intelligence which she had received, to
observe anything at all suspicious in these injunctions; and thus it was that
the two females proceeded in silence through the streets leading toward the
Riverola mansion.

By means of a pass-key Nisida
opened the wicket-gate of the spacious gardens, and she traversed the grounds,
Margaretha walking by her side. In a few minutes they reached a low door,
affording admission into the basement-story of the palace, and of which Nisida
always possessed the key.

“Go first,” said the lady, in a
scarcely audible whisper; “I must close the door behind us.”

“But wherefore this way?”
demanded Margaretha, a sudden apprehension starting up in her mind. “This door
leads down to the cellars.”

“The officers of justice are in
search of Antonio—and I am concealing him for your sake,” was the whispered and
rapid assurance given by Nisida. “Would you have him die in peace in your arms,
or perish on the scaffold?”

Margaretha shuddered
convulsively, and hurried down the dark flight of stone steps upon which the
door opened. Terrible emotions raged in her bosom—indescribable alarms, grief,
suspicion, and also a longing eagerness to put faith in the apparent friendship
of Nisida.

“Give me your hand,” said the
lady; and the hand that was thrust into hers was cold and trembling.

Then Nisida hurried Margaretha
along a narrow subterranean passage, in which the blackest night reigned; and,
though the old woman was a prey to apprehensions that increased each moment to
a fearful degree, she dared not utter a word either to question—to implore—or
to remonstrate. At length they stopped; and Nisida, dropping Margaretha’s hand,
drew back heavy bolts which raised ominous echoes in the vaulted passage. In
another moment a door began to move stubbornly on its hinges; and almost at the
same time a faint light gleamed forth—increasing
 
 in power as the door opened
wider, but still attaining no greater strength than that which a common iron
lamp could afford. Margaretha’s anxious glances were plunged into the cellar or
vault to which the door opened, and whence the light came: but she saw no one
within. It, however, appeared as if some horrible reminiscence, connected with
the place, came back to her startled mind; for, falling on her knees, and
clinging wildly to her companion, she cried in a piercing tone, “Oh! lady,
wherefore have you brought me hither?—where is my son?—what does all this
horrible mystery mean? But, chiefly now of all—why, why are we here—at this
hour?”

“In a few moments you shall know
more!” exclaimed Nisida; and as she spoke, with an almost superhuman strength
she dragged, or rather, flung the prostrate woman into the vault, rushing in
herself immediately afterward, and closing the door behind her.

“Holy God!” shrieked Margaretha,
gazing wildly round the damp and naked walls of solid masonry, and then up at
the lamp suspended to the arched ceiling, “is this the place? But no! you are
ignorant of all that; it was not for that you brought me hither! Speak, lady,
speak! Where is Antonio? What have I done to merit your displeasure? Oh, mercy!
mercy! Bend not those terrible glances upon me! Your eyes flash fire! You are
not Nisida—you are an evil spirit! Oh, mercy! mercy!”

And thus did the miserable woman
rave, as, kneeling on the cold, damp ground she extended her tightly-clasped
hands in an imploring manner toward Nisida, who, drawn up to her full height,
was contemplating the groveling wretch with eyes that seemed to shoot forth
shafts of devouring flame! Terrible, indeed, was the appearance of Nisida! Like
to an avenging deity was she—no longer woman in the glory of her charms and the
elegance of her disguise, but a fury—a very fiend, an implacable demoness,
armed with the blasting lightnings of infernal malignity and hellish rancor!

“Holy Virgin, protect me!”
shrieked Margaretha, every nerve thrilling with the agony of ineffable alarm.

“Yes, call upon Heaven to aid
you, vile woman!” said Nisida, in a thick, hoarse, and strangely altered voice,
“for you are beyond the reach of human aid! Know ye whose remains—or rather the
mangled portions of whose remains—lie in this unconsecrated ground? Ah! well
may you start in horror and surprise, for I know all—all!”

A terrific scream burst from the
lips of Margaretha; and she threw her wild looks around as if she were going
mad.

“Detestable woman!” exclaimed
Nisida, fixing her burning eyes more intently still on Margaretha’s
countenance: “you are now about to pay the penalty of your complicity in the
most odious crimes that ever made nights terrible in Florence! The period of
vengeance has at length arrived! But I must torture ere I slay ye! Yes, I must
give thee a foretaste of that hell to which your soul is so soon to plunge
down! Know, then, that Antonio—your son Antonio—is no more. Not three hours
have
 
 elapsed since he was
slain—assassinated—murdered, if you will so call it—and by my commands.”

“Oh! lady, have pity upon me—pity
upon me, a bereaved mother!” implored the old woman, in a voice of anguish so
penetrating, that vile as she was, it would have moved any human being save
Nisida. “Do not kill me—and I will end my miserable days in a convent! Give me
time to repent of all my sins—for they are numerous and great! Oh! spare me,
dear lady—have mercy upon me—have mercy upon me!”

“What mercy had you on them whose
mangled remains are buried in the ground beneath your feet?” demanded Nisida,
in a voice almost suffocated with rage. “Prepare for death—your last moment is
at hand!” and a bright dagger flashed in the lamp-light.

“Mercy—mercy!” exclaimed
Margaretha, springing forward, and grasping Nisida’s knees.

“I know not what mercy is!” cried
the terrible Italian woman, raising the long, bright, glittering dagger over
her head.

“Holy God! protect me! Lady—dear
lady, have pity upon me!” shrieked the agonized wretch, her countenance
hideously distorted, and appallingly ghastly, as it was raised in such bitterly
earnest appeal toward that of the avengeress. “Again I say mercy—mercy!”

“Die, fiend!” exclaimed Nisida;
and the dagger, descending with lightning speed, sunk deep into the bosom of
the prostrate victim. A dreadful cry burst from the lips of the wretched woman;
and she fell back—a corpse!

“Oh! my dear—my well-beloved and
never-to-be-forgotten mother!” said Nisida, falling upon her knees by the side
of the body, and gazing intently upward—as if her eyes could pierce the entire
building overhead, and catch a glimpse of the spirit of the parent whom she
thus apostrophized—“pardon me—pardon me for this deed! Thou didst enjoin me to
abstain from vengeance—but when I thought of all thy wrongs, the contemplation
drove me mad—and an irresistible power—a force which I could not resist—has
hurried me on to achieve the punishment of this wretch who was so malignant an
enemy of thine; dearest mother, pardon me—look not down angrily on thy
daughter!”

Then Nisida gave way to all the
softer emotion which attended the reaction that her mind was now rapidly
undergoing, after being so highly strung, as for the last few hours it was—and
her tears fell in torrents. For some minutes she remained in her kneeling
position, and weeping, till she grew afraid—yes, afraid of being in that lonely
place, with the corpse stretched on the ground—a place, too, which for other
reasons awoke such terrible recollections in her mind.

Starting to her feet—and neither
waiting to extinguish the lamp, which she herself had lighted at an early
period of the night, nor to withdraw her dagger from the bosom of the murdered
Margaretha—Nisida fled from the vault, and regained her own apartment in
safety, and unperceived.

*****

 When morning dawned, Nisida
rose from a couch in which she had obtained two hours of troubled slumber, and,
having hastily dressed herself, proceeded to the chamber of her brother
Francisco.

But he was not there—nor had his
bed been slept in during the past night.

“He is searching after his
Flora,” thought Nisida. “Alas, poor youth—how it grieves me thus to be
compelled to thwart thee in thy love! But my oath—and thine interests,
Francisco, demand this conduct on my part. And better—better it is that thou
shouldst hear from strangers the terrible tidings that thy Flora is a prisoner
in the dungeon of the inquisition, where she can issue forth only to proceed to
the stake! Yes—and better, too, is it that she should die, than that this
marriage shall be accomplished!”

Nisida quitted the room, and
repaired to the apartment where the morning repast was served up.

A note, addressed to herself, lay
upon the table. She instantly recognized the handwriting of Dr. Duras, tore open
the billet, and read the contents as follows: