CHAPTER XXXVI. A FUNERAL PEAL.
Toll! toll! toll! toll! toll!
Heard from just underneath, the sound was hideous; for the bell was rusty and old, and jangled with dull vibrations long after each peal had ceased. The minister looked and listened with horror. Knowing as he did that the place had been turned to unholy uses, and retained none of its sacred character, he felt the whole proceeding to be diabolic.
He called to Baptisto, but the Spaniard, still keeping his sallow face turned upward, and monotonously continuing his work, did not seem to hear.
Toil! toll! toll! toll!—a sound to set the soul, as well as the teeth, on edge; a peal worthy of Satan himself.
All at once it ceased, with a last quivering jangle of moribund moaning notes.
Baptisto released the rope, took off his hat, and taking out his handkerchief, quietly wiped his brow; then, turning his dark eyes as if by accident towards the door, he perceived the minister.
He did not seem at all surprised, but sighed heavily, and turned up the whites of his eyes; then with a bow of profound respect, he advanced. In his suit of deep black, bound up with crape, and his high hat, crape-bound also, he looked like a highly respectable English undertaker. The resemblance was complete when he put his snow-white handkerchief to his mouth, and coughed solemnly behind it.
“In Heaven’s name, man, what are you about?” cried Santley, aghast.
Baptisto sighed again, turned up his eyes, and shook his head dismally.
“Senor,” he replied in a low voice, “I was ringing the chapel bell.”
“So I heard. But why?” the clergyman demanded.
“Hush! not so loud, senor,” he said, sinking his voice still lower. “Respect our sorrow!”
Santley’s astonishment increased, and he gazed wildly at Baptisto.
“Have you gone mad?” he returned, unconsciously obeying the request and sinking his voice. “Your sorrow? What sorrow? Be good enough to explain this mystery.”
“Will you step into the house, senor, and speak to my master. He will explain to you, I do not doubt; oh yes, he will explain.”
And Baptisto sighed again.
“He is at home, then?”
“Yes, senor!”
“And Mrs. Haldane?”
Baptisto groaned, and shook his head’ from side to side.
“You know I have an appointment with your mistress to-day?”
“Yes, senor, I know that,” answered Baptisto; then, as if greatly affected he turned away and put his handkerchief to his eyes.
“In the name of God,” cried Santley, “what does it all mean?”
Baptisto turned, and fixed his great black eyes on those of the clergyman. “Senor, what do they say in your own church? ‘In the midst of life, we are in death!’”
As he spoke, he pointed upward solemnly. Santley started as if stabbed. Then for the first time he began to understand. The dreary bell, the servant’s suit of black, the man’s unaccountably solemn and mysterious manner, all seemed to point to some horrible fatality.
“Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “Is any one dead? Who is it? Speak—tell me——”
Baptisto paused, still fixing his eyes on Santley, and preparing to watch the full effect of his words.
“Alas, senor, my mistress! my poor mistress!”
Santley staggered back, and his face, which had before been very pale, became livid.
“Not dead! no, no!” he moaned.
“Senor,” replied the Spaniard, “it is true. She died last night.”
Alas, the blackness of the wintry sky! That dreary darkness of the earth, the snow-wrapt woods! Before that woeful message, delivered so sadly yet so impressively by the Spaniard, the last brightness of the light seemed to fade away! Though the bell had ceased to toll, its dull vibration seemed still to ring on the air! The clergyman staggered back, his heart stopped; for a moment he seemed about to faint, and he had to clutch the doorway of the chapel for support. Baptisto saw the movement, but made no sign; even if the other had been falling to the earth, indeed, he would have offered him no assistance.
With one hand upon his heart, as if some sharp pain was there, the clergyman struggled for speech. At last it came.
“It is a lie,” he panted; “it must be a lie. No, no! She is not dead; it is impossible. Speak, man! If you have any mercy, say it is a lie! She lives!”
The Spaniard, who with a very ugly expression had heard himself accused of falsehood, and whose black eyes had gleamed very balefully, almost smiled—the faint, wicked, inner smile peculiar to him.
“Yes, you are right, senor; she lives!”
Santley drew a quick breath of relief, and, coming closer, clutched the Spaniard’s arm.
“I knew it—I was sure of it. What did you mean by telling me that falsehood?”
Quietly, but firmly, Baptisto took the other’s hand and displaced it from his arm. His air of cold respect did not change, but the expression of his eyes and mouth was malignant.
“I did not lie, senor.”
“What! and yet you said——”
“I said my lady lived, senor, and it is true. We Spaniards do not lie. She lives indeed—not here, but yonder, senor, among the angels of the sky. Ah yes, she is there! Her body is at rest; her soul, senor, lives still for ever.”
“Dead! O God!... When did she die?”
“Last night, senor, as I said.”
It was true, then, though so inconceivable. There was no mistaking the words, the manner of the man; and yet beneath them both, there was a sinister appearance of horrible satisfaction. The grief seemed simulated, the solemnity strangely false and treacherous. The cruel black eyes, which shone so balefully, seemed to express a malignant pleasure in the torture the tongue was inflicting. And yet, all the while, Baptisto’s manner was perfectly polite—the manner of a servant to a superior, stately in the manner of his race, but characteristically calm and respectful.
“Since you doubt me, senor,” continued the Spaniard, “speak to my master. He himself will tell you of his sorrow, and you will know from him that, after all, I do not lie.”
As the man spoke, he fixed his eyes on something beyond the doorway, and bowed profoundly. Santley turned, and saw, standing close to him, the master of Foxglove Manor.