CHAPTER XI.
The inconstant Ryno had one day been belated while engaged in the chase, which had become his favorite occupation since the destruction of his matrimonial peace. He had pursued a wounded doe into a thicket out of which he was unable to find his way. The evening air blew chill, the stars shone faintly through the nebulous atmosphere, and the moonless night was spreading its brown mantle over the earth. A deep silence pervaded the forest, broken only by the hootings of the owl, and the howlings of the wolf. Ryno dismounted to grope for the devious path. He wandered on in this manner for the space of a quarter of an hour, leading his horse by the bridle-rein, when suddenly he heard a flourish of drums and trumpets. Looking up, he was astonished to find himself at no great distance from a magnificent and brilliantly illuminated castle. Pleased and surprised, for in all his hunting excursions he had never encountered it before, he threw himself upon his horse and hastened toward its gates. Trumpets and comets rang a merry peal, the drawbridge descended, the gate flew open, and he soon found himself in the inner court, surrounded by a band of richly clad and golden locked pages. They seized his bridle, relieved him of his hunting-spear, bow and quiver,--one of them respectfully held his stirrup, while another, on bended knee, bade him welcome.
'Do you know me?' asked Ryno with astonishment.
'Who does not know the knightly Ryno, so renowned for his personal beauty, and indomitable courage!' humbly answered the courtly page. 'Will you please to follow me to the banqueting hall? You are expected there with affectionate impatience by count Arno, the lord of the castle, and Rosamunda his charming daughter.'
Readily yielding to this welcome invitation, he left his horse to the attendants, and followed the smooth-tongued flatterer into the castle. A marble vestibule, supported by a colonade of porphyry, led him to a broad alabaster stair-case, which was surmounted by a gilded and richly ornamented balustrade. Twelve servants in dresses of white silk, embroidered with gold, preceded him with torches to light his steps. The folding doors of the banqueting room flew open. A richly covered table, glittering with golden vessels and surrounded by knights and ladies, stood in the middle of the hall, and a splendid chandelier poured a flood of light from above. Uncertain whether he could trust his senses, Ryno entered, and the most delightful music from the balcony of the hall greeted his arrival. The knights and dames rose respectfully from their seats, while a venerable old man in a knightly costume, with a delicate female whose beauty was too dazzling for mortal pen to describe, advanced to meet him. Touching a full goblet with her rosy lips, the female thus addressed him: 'With this cup, Rosamunda, the daughter of the house, greets the brave Ryno, in the name of the lord of the castle.'
Already intoxicated by what he saw, Ryno drained the golden cup, impressed a glowing kiss upon Rosamunda's delicate fingers, shook the proffered hand of the old knight, who led him to the upper end of the table and seated him by Rosamunda's side. Familiar conversation, jests and laughter, the delightful music, the exhilarating cup, and, more than all these, the proximity of the blooming maiden, so warmed his blood and confused his mind, that the question never occurred to him how the castle came to be there, and its inhabitants to know him. He soon became engaged in a tender conversation with Rosamunda, and but too soon did they comprehend each other's glances. The table was now cleared, and the dance began. Drunk with pleasure, Ryno floated through the assembly with Rosamunda, pressing her divine form to his beating heart, and amid the tumult and giddiness of the waltz robbing her of a first kiss, which was warmly returned. When the dance was ended, the company sought the refreshing coolness of the gardens. The lovers soon found themselves in a solitary grotto, where, sunk in Ryno's embrace, Rosamunda murmured that she would be his forever, and that she doubted not of her father's consent to their union.
This brought the inconstant Ryno to his senses. With much embarrassment he stammered:
'By my knightly oath and duty, I love you beyond measure, charming girl, but I cannot become your husband, for--I am already another's.'
Tears flowed in torrents from Rosamunda's eyes, upon this declaration. With the most violent sorrow she reproached him for having stormed her heart and destroyed its peace, while bound by earlier ties. She declared that she could not live without him, and at last implored him to dissolve his first marriage, that he might become her's alone.
Ryno anxiously endeavored to effect a retreat. 'Aliande is my lawful wife,' said he, in a tone of decision: 'and never, never will I repudiate her.'
New reproaches, new tears, and new solicitations followed. Ardent kisses burned upon his lips, the softest arms twined about his neck, and the most voluptuous bosom beat against his throbbing heart. He was almost subdued; but he summoned resolution and, gently repulsing her, said: 'Leave me, charming maiden,--my integrity must soon wither under your warm embrace, and with a consciousness of my baseness, I should then stand before you as a faithless husband, a seducer of innocence, and a dishonored knight. Pardon my frankness. Your personal charms and yielding disposition captivate my senses, which have too often led me astray. You desire marriage. That must not, cannot be! I am weak and giddy; but no severity of torment shall make me a faithless villain! My wife is good; I am indebted to her for all my earthly prosperity and happiness. She has already suffered too much through my inconstancy,--and rather should this hand wither than I would repudiate Aliande for the purpose of pledging it to another; even were that other the divine Rosamunda.'
Once more she threw her arms around him in a last effort to subdue his heart;--and while he was vainly striving to escape from her embrace, the grotto was suddenly illuminated by torches, and the lord of the castle stood before him surrounded by knights and servants, and foaming with rage.
'What do I see!' thundered he: 'What shame and disgrace are visited upon my gray hairs! Rosamunda in this solitary grotto under the mantle of night, in the arms of a youthful stranger! My house is forever degraded and my lineage dishonored!'
'Your daughter is innocent and inviolate,' answered Ryno; 'and her lips will inform you, that no unworthy knight now stands before you.'
'You are in error, my good father,' cried Rosamunda, embracing his knees with anguish; 'Ryno is already married!'
'Married!' growled the old man, repulsing his daughter with a violence that caused her to sink to the earth in a swoon: 'Married! Then is my daughter's dishonor beyond remedy! That word decides your fate, Ryno! and you shall feel how the abuser of the laws of hospitality is punished in Arno's castle. Seize him, slaves! bind the wretch in fetters!'
Ryno's hand rushed to his side, but having thrown off his sword for the dance, he found no weapon there. He struggled manfully against the rabble host however, until he was finally overcome, cast upon the ground, bound, and thrown into a deep dungeon beneath the castle.
He lay upon mouldering straw, confined with clanking chains which were made fast to the wall. A dim lamp lighted the place clearly enough to show all its horrors. 'This is undeserved!' cried Ryno, as his eye wandered about his new residence and finally rested upon the heavy iron door. 'How many times have heavenly enjoyments rewarded my faithlessness to my Aliande; and now that I, for the first time, have conducted myself as became a virtuous knight, I sigh in these chains. If dame fortune will persist in such blindness and stupidity, I shall take care how I trust her hereafter!'
The prisoner had lost himself in sad rumination, the name of Aliande now and then escaping from his laboring bosom with many a sigh. At length a lively contention arose outside his prison door. A female voice was heard in earnest solicitation, and a manly one opposing; finally he heard the clinking of gold, and the bolts were withdrawn.
In the most seductive night dress, with streaming hair, tearful eyes and pale cheeks, which increased her beauty a thousand fold, Rosamunda tottered into the prison. With a trembling and mournful voice she said to him, 'you have rejected me when you were yet free to choose; but I come not now to speak of myself, of my love, or of the grief inflicted by your rejection. Your welfare alone has induced me to seek you once more. Your life, which is dearer to me than my own,--dearer even than my eternal happiness,--stands upon a cast.'
'I am sorry that such a momentary hallucination should be followed by such serious consequences,' said Ryno.
'The lioness robbed of her young, is a lamb in comparison with my father when the honor of his family is concerned. You have only the cruel choice between my hand and a miserable death.'
'That is a hard alternative!' said Ryno with a shudder.
'Reflect that you are forever lost to Aliande. If your wife loves like Rosamunda, she would rather yield you to another's arms than deliver you up to a horrible death.'
'No artful sophistry, or seductive blandishments, can change my resolution. Your father must cite me before a court of honor, if he be an honorable knight. There will I answer his charge, and give him all the satisfaction he has a right to claim. If he do not that, if he be determined to destroy a chained and defenceless man in a secret dungeon, he is a despicable assassin.'
'Ryno!' cried Rosamunda, again clasping him with wild self-abandonment. Gently releasing himself from her embrace he bore her as far as his chains would permit, and called the sentinels. Upon their entrance he committed the weeping maiden to their care and commanded them to conduct her to her father.
'A night of torment!' sighed Ryno, throwing himself back upon his straw: 'but I have one consolation amid all my sorrows. By my death I shall seal that fidelity which I have heretofore but ill kept, and expiate the tears which my inconstancy has cost Aliande,--thus becoming purified and prepared for the joys of Walhalla. The gods bless and protect my wife and children!'
Again were the bolts withdrawn, and, in a mourning dress, the lord of the castle entered.
'You may thank a feeling of compassion that I condescend once more to parley with you!' said the old man with a painful suppression of his rage.
'I desire not your compassion.'
'You have violated the laws of hospitality and seduced my only child.'
'That is not true!'
'Knights and serfs were witnesses of my shame, which blood alone can efface. Were your previous marriage dissolved, however, and Rosamunda your wife, I might, perhaps, forgive you.'
'That can never be.'
'Rosamunda's person is fair, and yet fairer is her guileless heart. She is of the noblest lineage. Immense treasures lie in the caves of this castle, and my lands extend twenty days' journey towards the north. Take your life from my daughter's hand!'
'Place everlasting torments in one scale, and an imperial crown in the other, I repudiate my wife at no price.'
'Will Aliande be less inconsolable as a widow than divorced?'
'Waste not your breath!'
'By the eternal gods! I warn you for the last time. These prison walls see you Rosamunda's husband, or echo the death-sigh forced from you by the rack!'
Ryno tore one of the golden locks from his head and handed it to his persecutor. 'If one spark of humanity yet slumbers in your bosom you will send this lock to my poor wife, with the message--That I die faithful to her, and that I wish her to train up my son as a good and virtuous knight.--Now let your executioners come on, I am ready.'
'Then, by Woden!' roared the foaming parent, 'you never behold the rising of another sun!'
He struck a bell, and twelve armed men with closed visors and drawn swords, slowly and silently entered. One of them detached Ryno's chains from the wall. Again the bell sounded, and at the other end of the prison the heavy doors of the torture vault flew open with a horrible clang. The cave-like room was hung with black and lighted with torches. Every instrument which the cruelty of man has invented for the torment of his fellow man, brightly polished and arranged with frightful regularity, met the glance of the unfortunate prisoner. Large pincers were glowing in a chafing dish, and in the centre of the room stood the dreadful rack with its fearful and mysterious equipments. Three hideous ruffians, with naked arms, in blood-red caps and doublets, stood waiting beside it. On the right was an open and empty coffin.
'For the last time, choose!' cried the incensed tyrant.
'Death!' said Ryno, calmly, and sighing the name of Aliande, he advanced toward the rack with a firm step. A beam of light suddenly illuminated the dungeon. The torture-chamber, the guards, the rack, the executioners, had all vanished,--and Ryno found himself again in a magnificent room whose azure star-besprinkled dome was supported by rose-crowned pillars. With a friendly smile the sorceress Hiorba approached him; and, as on the first day of his marriage, with the glow of newly awakened love, sank the happy Aliande upon his breast, thanking him for his unshaken fidelity to his early vows.
'You have sustained the trial!' said Hiorba, 'and thereby expiated many a former folly, which Aliande must now forget. Love has returned, confidence is born anew, and I shall leave the again united pair with unshaken hope. The unhappy Daura will accompany me. Possibly she may learn forgetfulness in my quiet and peaceful retreat, which she ought never to hare left. Farewell, my children. Forget not the true watchwords of hymen--LOVE AND FIDELITY! Ryno, remain the same Ryno you were in the grotto and in Arno's dungeon. Aliande, never forget that, not tears and reproaches, but kindness and affection only, can reclaim an erring husband.'
She disappeared in a cloud of incense, and the reunited lovers sealed their mutual promise to obey her sage instructions, with a kiss.
Faithfully was that promise kept. Even when Aliande's head had become silvered with age she alone was the happiness of Ryno, as he was hers; and it was many years before the venerable matron, surrounded by her grandchildren, was surprised by her friend Hiorba, who came in a robe of light to kiss her expiring breath from her pale lips.