A dim lamp was substituted for that weak and
struggling beam that counterfeited day-light. The penitent was stretched
on her bed of rest--the humane priest sat beside her; and if his
presence gave no dignity to the scene, it at least softened it by the
touches of humanity. * * * * * * * *

“My father,” said the dying Isidora, “you pronounced me
forgiven.”--“Yes, my daughter,” said the priest, “you have assured me
you are innocent of the death of your infant.”--“You never could have
believed me guilty,” said Isidora, raising herself on her pallet at the
appeal--“the consciousness of _its_ existence alone would have kept me
alive, even in my prison. Oh, my father, how was it possible it could
live, buried with me in this dreadful place almost as soon as it
respired? Even the morbid nourishment it received from me was dried up
when my sentence was read. It moaned all night--towards morning its
moans grew fainter, and I was glad--at last they ceased, and I was
very--happy!” But, as she talked of this fearful happiness, she wept. “My daughter, is your heart disengaged from that awful and disastrous
tie that bound it to misfortune here, and to perdition hereafter?” It
was long before she could answer; at length she said in a broken voice,
“My father, I have not now strength to search or to struggle with my
heart. Death must very soon break every tie that was twined with it, and
it is useless to anticipate my liberation; the effort would be
agony--fruitless agony, for, while I live, I must love my destroyer! Alas! in being the enemy of mankind, was not his hostility to me
inevitable and fatal? In rejecting his last terrible temptation--in
resigning him to his destiny, and preferring submission to my own, I
feel my triumph complete, and my salvation assured.”--“Daughter, I do
not comprehend you.”--“Melmoth,” said Isidora, with a strong effort,
“Melmoth was here last night--within the walls of the Inquisition--within
this very cell!” The priest crossed himself with marks of
the profoundest horror, and, as the wind swept hollowly through
the long passage, almost expected the shaken door would burst open, and
disclose the figure of the Wanderer. * * * * * * *

“My father, I have had many dreams,” answered the penitent, shaking her
head at a suggestion of the priest’s, “many--many wanderings, but this
was no dream. I have dreamed of the garden-land where I beheld him
first--I have dreamed of the nights when he stood at my casement, and
trembled in sleep at the sound of my mother’s step--and I have had holy
and hopeful visions, in which celestial forms appeared to me, and
promised me his conversion--but this was no dream--I saw him last night. Father, he was here the whole night--he promised--he assured me--he
adjured me to accept of liberation and safety, of life and of felicity. He told me, nor could I doubt him, that, by whatever means he effected
his entrance, he could also effect my escape. He offered to live with me
in that Indian isle--that paradise of ocean, far from human resort or
human persecution. He offered to love me alone, and for ever--and then I
listened to him. Oh, my father, I am very young, and life and love
sounded sweetly in my ears, when I looked at my dungeon, and thought of
dying on this floor of stone! But--when he whispered the terrible
condition on which the fulfilment of his promise depended--when he told
me that”----

“Her voice failed with her failing strength, and she could utter no
more. “Daughter,” said the priest, bending over her bed, “daughter, I
adjure you, by the image represented on this cross I hold to your dying
lips--by your hopes of that salvation which depends on the truth you
utter to me, your priest and your friend--the conditions proposed by
your tempter!” “Promise me absolution for repeating the words, for I
should wish that my last breath might not be exhaled in uttering--what I
must.”--“_Te absolvo_,” &c. said the priest, and bent his ear to catch
the sounds. The moment they were uttered, he started as from the sting
of a serpent, and, seating himself at the extremity of the cell, rocked
in dumb horror. “My father, you promised me absolution,” said the
penitent. “_Jam tibi dedi, moribunda_,” answered the priest, in the
confusion of thoughts using the language appropriated to the service of
religion. “Moribunda indeed!” said the sufferer, falling back on her
pallet, “Father, let me feel a human hand in mine as I part!”--“Call
upon God, daughter!” said the priest, applying the crucifix to her cold
lips. “I loved his religion,” said the penitent, kissing it devoutly, “I
loved it before I knew it, and God must have been my teacher, for I had
no other! Oh!” she exclaimed, with that deep conviction that must thrill
every dying heart, and whose echo (would God) might pierce every living
one--“Oh that I had loved none but God--how profound would have been my
peace--how glorious my departure--_now_--_his_ image pursues me even to
the brink of the grave, into which I plunge to escape it!”

“My daughter,” said the priest, while the tears rolled fast down his
cheeks--“my daughter, you are passing to bliss--the conflict was fierce
and short, but the victory is sure--harps are tuned to a new song, even
a song of welcome, and wreaths of palm are weaving for you in paradise!”

“Paradise!” uttered Isidora, with her last breath--“_Will he be there!_”




CHAPTER XXXVIII. Loud tolled the bell, the priests prayed well,
      The tapers they all burned bright,
    The monk her son, and her daughter the nun,
      They told their beads all night! * * * * *

    The second night------

    * * * * *

    The monk and the nun they told their beads
      As fast as they could tell,
    And aye the louder grew the noise,
      The faster went the bell! * * * * *

    The third night came------

    * * * * *

    The monk and the nun forgot their beads,
      They fell to the ground dismayed,
    There was not a single saint in heaven
      Whom they did not call to their aid! SOUTHEY. Monçada here concluded the tale of the Indian,--the victim of Melmoth’s
passion, no less than of his destiny, both alike unhallowed and
unutterable. And he announced his intention of disclosing to him the
fates of the other victims, whose skeletons were preserved in the vault
of the Jew Adonijah in Madrid. He added, that the circumstances relating
to them, were of a character still darker and more awful than those he
had recited, as they were the result of impressions made on masculine
minds, without any excitement but that of looking into futurity. He
mentioned, too, that the circumstances of his residence in the house of
the Jew, his escape from it, and the reasons of his subsequent arrival
in Ireland, were scarcely less extraordinary than any thing he had
hitherto related.