Midst the Wild Carpathians Part 50

"Not for myself. But I reflected that thou wert not thine own but thy country's."

"I belong to no one now."

"Thy mind was so full of lofty plans. Destiny chose thee to be a Prince among men, a hero among the kings of the earth whose name should fill the pages of history."

"All that is over now," cried Banfi, with drunken self-forgetfulness.

"I am n.o.body and nothing. The vault beneath this floor is all that belongs to me. In the world without I am a fugitive and a vagabond."

"Ha!" hissed Azrael. "Then thy enemies have triumphed over thee?"

"My curse be upon their heads! I had compa.s.sion upon them, so I have perished."

"Is Csaky also among thy persecutors?"

"Yes; he is my most pitiless pursuer."

"And have all thy faithful friends deserted thee?"

"The fallen has no faithful friends."

"Thou mightst hire mercenaries and begin the struggle anew. Thou art rich enough."

"My wealth has gone."

"Thou mightst beg for help from foreign lands."

"That would be treason against my country. I have fallen and know what awaits me. I must die. But my enemies shall not triumph at my death as at a festival, or laugh aloud to see me go pale and downcast to my doom.

I will die alone."

"By Allah, thou shalt not die alone! Come, let us fill our gla.s.ses.

Accursed be the world! we'll speak of it no more. Come, stifle thy soul in the delirium of joy, and when thy drooping head sinks down upon my breast, I will light the end of this lunt. Thou shalt dream of bliss, of paradise, of kisses ravished and returned; the twofold throbbing of our hearts shall beat the minutes; here below, the stillness of death; there above, the howling of the tempest and of thy foes; and then an earthquaking thunder, rending and scattering the rocks, shall proclaim to heaven and h.e.l.l that none shall ever find Denis Banfi here on earth again!"

"Azrael, thou art a devil, and I love thee!" cried Banfi, and he clasped the girl in his arms as if she had been a little child.

An hour has pa.s.sed, and the room has grown dark. The torches are expiring. In the huge vaulted chamber no other light is visible but the red vapour streaming from the orifices of the censer, which gleams like a many-eyed monster, and the burning end of the linstock, lit by Banfi in the midst of his mad orgy, crawling slowly along the room like a fiery serpent.

Naught is to be heard in the deep silence but the sighs of two lovers, and the throbbing of two hearts.

Banfi slept long.

Suddenly he awoke. Pitch-black darkness surrounded him. It was some time before his reeling brain could realize where he was, or why he was there. He felt an icy wind streaming through the room, but it was only after a long interval that he grasped the fact that a door was open somewhere, and that the cold night air was rus.h.i.+ng in from outside.

Gradually the scenes of the by-gone night and the vows of death came back to his mind, and he felt that he still lived. "The girl has certainly repented of her wish to die," thought he, and he began to grope about for her. The couch was empty.

"Azrael! Azrael!" he cried repeatedly; but there was no answer.

At last he tottered to his feet, and s.n.a.t.c.hing some embers from the hearth, lit a torch. The solitary, feeble light did not penetrate far, but as far as it extended Azrael was nowhere to be seen.

The first thing he perceived was the linstock cut in two by a pair of shears.

"Coward soul!" he growled, and, pierced through and through by the air, would have put on his mantle, when a roll of parchment fell at his feet, and picking it up he recognized Azrael's handwriting, and read as follows--

"My lord, you read not hearts aright. We give our love for our own sakes, but we do not give ourselves for love's sake. You have frittered away your power, and, deserted by all the world, think to find me faithful who loved your power and that only: I am his who has inherited that power. He who is in the ascendant I adore, but I hate and despise the fallen. Corsar Beg's fate should have warned you that one day you too might fare like him ..."

Banfi could not read it to the end. His face grew dark with shame. "To sink so low as this! This wretched slavish soul even while embracing me was devising treachery! And I to wish to spend my last moments in the arms of such a monster----" At that moment he _loathed_ himself.

"Cowardice and infamy! A man who has lived as I have lived, to desire such a death! He who has always been wont to meet his foes face to face, to hide himself from them in his last moments!--to hide himself in the arms of a slave! Shame upon him!

"This lesson has done me good. It was meet that I who could forget a wife who sacrificed herself to deliver me out of the hands of my enemies, should fall into the power of a harlot who would have betrayed me to them. Yet even now it is not too late. My life is forfeit, but at least I can save my honour. None shall be able to boast that he has betrayed me. My enemies shall never say that I hid myself from them and they found me out. I'll appear before them boldly, as I ought to have done at first."

Full of this resolution, Banfi went straightway into the secret courtyard, where he had left his horse. He was surprised to find it no longer there. The odalisk had taken it away with her.

He smiled disdainfully.

"What matters it, so long as she has not stolen me also."

He returned into the rocky chamber, rekindled the lunt, came out, and closing the iron door behind him made his way along the banks of the cold Szamos.

Towards midday he sat down on the bank to rest, and he had scarcely been there a quarter of an hour, when he heard the trampling of horses, and looking up--the bushes completely concealed him--beheld Ladislaus Csaky and Azrael on horseback, side by side, at the head of an armed band. The girl seemed to be pointing out something to Csaky on the rocks above, and the worthy gentleman was beside himself for joy.

Banfi smiled scornfully.

"Poor Tartars!"

As soon as the band had pa.s.sed by, Banfi continued his journey. He had not gone far when he came upon a poor peasant cleaving wood.

"Dost know whither that armed band has gone?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. They have gone to capture Denis Banfi, on whose head a great price has been set."

"How much?"

"If a n.o.ble capture him he will receive an estate, if a peasant, two hundred ducats."

"Little enough, but enough for you, I dare say. I am Denis Banfi."

The peasant took off his cap.

"Does my lord wish to be led anywhither?"

"Lead me to the place where they will pay you two hundred ducats."

A quarter of an hour afterwards a tremendous explosion resounded through the mountains, which shook the earth for half-a-mile around. The enchanted garden of the Gradina Dracului had collapsed into an inaccessible chaos.