The servant, who had
not stayed long enough to have crossed the court to Conrad’s apartment,
came running back breathless, in a frantic manner, his eyes staring, and
foaming at the mouth. He said nothing, but pointed to the court. The company were struck with terror and amazement. The Princess
Hippolita, without knowing what was the matter, but anxious for her son,
swooned away. Manfred, less apprehensive than enraged at the
procrastination of the nuptials, and at the folly of his domestic, asked
imperiously what was the matter? The fellow made no answer, but
continued pointing towards the courtyard; and at last, after repeated
questions put to him, cried out, “Oh! the helmet! the helmet!”

In the meantime, some of the company had run into the court, from whence
was heard a confused noise of shrieks, horror, and surprise. Manfred,
who began to be alarmed at not seeing his son, went himself to get
information of what occasioned this strange confusion. Matilda remained
endeavouring to assist her mother, and Isabella stayed for the same
purpose, and to avoid showing any impatience for the bridegroom, for
whom, in truth, she had conceived little affection. The first thing that struck Manfred’s eyes was a group of his servants
endeavouring to raise something that appeared to him a mountain of sable
plumes. He gazed without believing his sight. “What are ye doing?” cried Manfred, wrathfully; “where is my son?”

A volley of voices replied, “Oh! my Lord! the Prince! the Prince! the
helmet! the helmet!”

Shocked with these lamentable sounds, and dreading he knew not what, he
advanced hastily,—but what a sight for a father’s eyes!—he beheld his
child dashed to pieces, and almost buried under an enormous helmet, an
hundred times more large than any casque ever made for human being, and
shaded with a proportionable quantity of black feathers. The horror of the spectacle, the ignorance of all around how this
misfortune had happened, and above all, the tremendous phenomenon before
him, took away the Prince’s speech. Yet his silence lasted longer than
even grief could occasion. He fixed his eyes on what he wished in vain
to believe a vision; and seemed less attentive to his loss, than buried
in meditation on the stupendous object that had occasioned it. He
touched, he examined the fatal casque; nor could even the bleeding
mangled remains of the young Prince divert the eyes of Manfred from the
portent before him. All who had known his partial fondness for young Conrad, were as much
surprised at their Prince’s insensibility, as thunderstruck themselves at
the miracle of the helmet. They conveyed the disfigured corpse into the
hall, without receiving the least direction from Manfred. As little was
he attentive to the ladies who remained in the chapel. On the contrary,
without mentioning the unhappy princesses, his wife and daughter, the
first sounds that dropped from Manfred’s lips were, “Take care of the
Lady Isabella.”

The domestics, without observing the singularity of this direction, were
guided by their affection to their mistress, to consider it as peculiarly
addressed to her situation, and flew to her assistance. They conveyed
her to her chamber more dead than alive, and indifferent to all the
strange circumstances she heard, except the death of her son. Matilda, who doted on her mother, smothered her own grief and amazement,
and thought of nothing but assisting and comforting her afflicted parent. Isabella, who had been treated by Hippolita like a daughter, and who
returned that tenderness with equal duty and affection, was scarce less
assiduous about the Princess; at the same time endeavouring to partake
and lessen the weight of sorrow which she saw Matilda strove to suppress,
for whom she had conceived the warmest sympathy of friendship. Yet her
own situation could not help finding its place in her thoughts. She felt
no concern for the death of young Conrad, except commiseration; and she
was not sorry to be delivered from a marriage which had promised her
little felicity, either from her destined bridegroom, or from the severe
temper of Manfred, who, though he had distinguished her by great
indulgence, had imprinted her mind with terror, from his causeless rigour
to such amiable princesses as Hippolita and Matilda. While the ladies were conveying the wretched mother to her bed, Manfred
remained in the court, gazing on the ominous casque, and regardless of
the crowd which the strangeness of the event had now assembled around
him. The few words he articulated, tended solely to inquiries, whether
any man knew from whence it could have come? Nobody could give him the
least information. However, as it seemed to be the sole object of his
curiosity, it soon became so to the rest of the spectators, whose
conjectures were as absurd and improbable, as the catastrophe itself was
unprecedented. In the midst of their senseless guesses, a young peasant,
whom rumour had drawn thither from a neighbouring village, observed that
the miraculous helmet was exactly like that on the figure in black marble
of Alfonso the Good, one of their former princes, in the church of St.
Nicholas. “Villain! What sayest thou?” cried Manfred, starting from his trance in
a tempest of rage, and seizing the young man by the collar; “how darest
thou utter such treason? Thy life shall pay for it.”

The spectators, who as little comprehended the cause of the Prince’s fury
as all the rest they had seen, were at a loss to unravel this new
circumstance. The young peasant himself was still more astonished, not
conceiving how he had offended the Prince. Yet recollecting himself,
with a mixture of grace and humility, he disengaged himself from
Manfred’s grip, and then with an obeisance, which discovered more
jealousy of innocence than dismay, he asked, with respect, of what he was
guilty? Manfred, more enraged at the vigour, however decently exerted,
with which the young man had shaken off his hold, than appeased by his
submission, ordered his attendants to seize him, and, if he had not been
withheld by his friends whom he had invited to the nuptials, would have
poignarded the peasant in their arms. During this altercation, some of the vulgar spectators had run to the
great church, which stood near the castle, and came back open-mouthed,
declaring that the helmet was missing from Alfonso’s statue. Manfred, at
this news, grew perfectly frantic; and, as if he sought a subject on
which to vent the tempest within him, he rushed again on the young
peasant, crying—

“Villain! Monster! Sorcerer! ’tis thou hast done this!