A trivial and ordinary want, whose claims at another
time they would have regarded as a vulgar interruption of their
spiritualised intercourse, not only, by its natural operation, sundered
it for ever, but, before it ceased, converted that intercourse into a
source of torment and hostility inconceivable, except among cannibals. The bitterest enemies on earth could not have regarded each other with
more abhorrence than _these lovers_. Deluded wretches! you boasted of
having hearts, I boast I have none, and which of us gained most by the
vaunt, let life decide. My story is nearly finished, and so I hope is
the day. When I was last here I had something to excite me;--talking of
those things is poor employment to one who has been a witness to them. On the _sixth_ day all was still. The door was unnailed, we
entered,--they were no more. They lay far from each other, farther than
on that voluptuous couch into which their passion had converted the mat
of a convent bed. She lay contracted in a heap, a lock of her long hair
in her mouth. There was a slight scar on her shoulder,--the rabid
despair of famine had produced no farther outrage. He lay extended at
his length,--his hand was between his lips; it seemed as if he had not
strength to execute the purpose for which he had brought it there. The
bodies were brought out for interment. As we removed them into the
light, the long hair of the female, falling over a face no longer
disguised by the novice’s dress, recalled a likeness I thought I could
remember. I looked closer, she was my own sister,--my only one,----and I
had heard her voice grow fainter and fainter. I had heard----” and his
own voice grew fainter--it ceased. “Trembling for a life with which my own was linked, I staggered towards
him. I raised him half up in my arms, and recollecting there must be a
current of air through the trap-door, I attempted to trail him along
thither. I succeeded, and, as the breeze played over him, I saw with
delight unutterable the diminution of the light that streamed through
it. It was _evening_,--there was no longer any necessity, no longer any
time for delay. He recovered, for his swoon arose not from exhausted
sensibility, but from mere inanition. However it was, I found my
interest in watching his recovery; and, had I been adequate to the task
of observing extraordinary vicissitudes of the human mind, I would have
been indeed amazed at the change that he manifested on his recovery. Without the least reference to his late story, or late feelings, he
started from my arms at the discovery that the light had diminished, and
prepared for our escape through the trap-door, with a restored energy of
strength, and sanity of intellect, that might have been deemed
miraculous if it had occurred in a convent:--Happening to occur full
thirty feet below the proper surface for a miracle, it must be put to
the account of strong excitement merely. I could not indeed dare to
believe a miracle was wrought in favour of my profane attempt, and so I
was glad to put up with second causes. With incredible dexterity he
climbed up the wall, with the help of the rugged stones and my
shoulders,--threw open the trap-door, pronounced that all was safe,
assisted me to ascend after him,--and, with gasping delight, I once more
breathed the breath of heaven. The night was perfectly dark. I could not
distinguish the buildings from the trees, except when a faint breeze
gave motion to the latter. To this darkness, I am convinced, I owe the
preservation of my reason under such vicissitudes,--the glory of a
resplendent night would have driven me mad, emerging from darkness,
famine, and cold. I would have wept, and laughed, and knelt, and turned
idolater. I would have “worshipped the host of heaven, and the moon
walking in her brightness.” Darkness was my best security, in every
sense of the word. We traversed the garden, without feeling the ground
under our feet. As we approached the wall, I became again deadly
sick,--my senses grew giddy, I reeled. I whispered to my companion, “Are
there not lights gleaming from the convent windows?”--“No, the lights
are flashing from your own eyes,--it is only the effect of darkness,
famine, and fear,--come on.”--“But I hear a sound of bells.”--“The bells
are ringing only in your ears,--an empty stomach is your sexton, and you
fancy you hear bells. Is this a time to faulter?--come on, come on. Don’t hang such a dead weight on my arm,--don’t fall, if you can help
it. Oh God, he has swooned!”

“These were the last words I heard. I had fallen, I believe, into his
arms. With that instinct that acts most auspiciously in the absence of
both thought and feeling, he dragged me in his brawny arms to the wall,
_and twisted my cold fingers_ in the ropes of the ladder. The touch
restored me in a moment; and, almost before my hand had touched the
ropes, my feet began to ascend them. My companion followed extempore. We
reached the summit,--I tottered from weakness and terror. I felt a
sickly dread, that, though the ladder was there, Juan was not. A moment
after a lanthorn flashed in my eyes,--I saw a figure below. I sprung
down, careless, in that wild moment, whether I met the dagger of an
assassin, or the embrace of a brother. “Alonzo, dear Alonzo,” murmured a
voice. “Juan, dear Juan,” was all I could utter, as I felt my shivering
breast held close to that of the most generous and affectionate of
brothers. “How much you must have suffered,--how much I have suffered,”
he whispered; “during the last horrible twenty-four hours, I almost gave
you up. Make haste, the carriage is not twenty paces off.” And, as he
spoke, the shifting of a lanthorn shewed me those imperious and
beautiful features, which I had once dreaded as the pledge of eternal
emulation, but which I now regarded as the smile of the proud but
benignant god of my liberation. I pointed to my companion, I could not
speak,--hunger was consuming my vitals. Juan supported me, consoled me,
encouraged me; did all, and more, than man ever did for man,--than man
ever did, perhaps, for the most shrinking and delicate of the other sex
under his protection. Oh, with what agony of heart I retrace his manly
tenderness! We waited for my companion,--he descended the wall. “Make
haste, make haste,” Juan whispered; “I am famishing too. I have not
tasted food for four-and-twenty hours, watching for you.” We hurried on. It was a waste place,--I could only distinguish a carriage by the light
of a dim lanthorn, but that was enough for me. I sprung lightly into it. “_He is safe_,” cried Juan, following me. “_But are you?_” answered a
voice of thunder. Juan staggered back from the step of the carriage,--he
fell. I sprung out, I fell too--on his body. I was bathed in his
blood,----he was no more.”




CHAPTER X. Men who with mankind were foes. * * * *
    Or who, in desperate doubt of grace.--
     * * * *

    SCOTT’S MARMION.