CHAPTER XXXV
Rosamunde, walking within the madhouse garden, where cypresses and dusky laurels hid the grey stone wall, saw a haze of gold steal into the sky towards the north. It was towards twilight and a strong wind blew, ridging the lake with foam, tossing the cypress boughs, moaning over the house. Rosamunde, puzzled by the glow towards the north, called to Miriam, who had been spinning in the room above.
Either the Jewess was asleep or the wind drowned the cry, for no face showed at the narrow window. From the garden an outer stair built on stone pillars led to a postern opening into the women’s room. Rosamunde had been given the key of this door; for the garden had been surrendered to her by Jocelyn’s orders. The mad folk were never loosed from their vaults; there were two soldiers besides old Nicholas and his wife to keep watch and ward over the place.
Rosamunde, climbing up the stone stair, found Miriam asleep on her bed in the corner. She did not trouble to wake the Jewess, but turned to the near window and looked out over the water. Twilight was descending, and the towering woods were steeped in the hoarse mystery of a winter’s eve. The crags in the west were edged with gold, and a luminous mist poured up towards the clouds. Above the black spires of the waving trees the sky was lurid, yet not with the sunset. Purple masses of vapour played over the forest, and there was a hot, parched perfume on the wind.
Rosamunde, troubled by the strange face of the sky, turned and woke Miriam from her sleep. Together they stood on the landing at the top of the stone steps and watched the red glow increase in the heavens. There was some huge power striding over the woods; its sound swelled the piping of the wind, a far roar as of the voice of a rising sea.
Miriam clung to Rosamunde’s shoulder.
“A wild sunset,” she said, not guessing the truth. “Pah! what a strange scent on the wind. How black the woods seem. We shall have a storm in the night.”
Rosamunde looked out on the scene in silence, with Miriam’s breath upon her cheek.
“It is no sunset,” she said at last; “it is not the full west, and there is no break in the clouds.”
“What means, then, the light in the sky, sister?”
“A forest fire,” said Rosamunde slowly.
“My God, we shall burn.”
“The water is broad enough to hold us safe.”
A sudden cry pealed out over the mere, where old Nicholas was standing in his boat, poling back towards the island. He lifted a hand, pointed to the sky, bent to his work, and brought the boat over with foam at the prow. Voices answered him from the landing stage, where his old wife and two soldiers were watching the sky. They entered the court when Nicholas had moored his boat and clapped to the gate.
Rosamunde and Miriam leant against the stone balustrading of the stairway, watching the distant fire. The increasing grandeur of the scene reacted differently upon the two, inspiring fear in the Jewess and an unconscious calm in the Lady of Joyous Vale. A broad glare now hung as a curtain above the trees, and against it rose a thousand moving things. The sky grew full of screaming birds sweeping in terror from the breath of the fire, their wings whirring and panting towards the south. Some swooped for the island, settled on the roof and walls, or plunged, chattering, into the garden beneath. A great raven perched on the tiles overhead, and sat there croaking like a messenger of death.
Above the contrasted blackness of the forest foreground rose the aureole of the approaching fire. Pennons of flame tongued towards the heavens, while vast masses of smoke merged into the clouds. The glare began to play upon the surface of the mere, splashing the waves with ruddy gold, gleaming on the foam as it swept from the west. The distant peaks caught the earthly lightning from afar; the roar of the great furnace gathered and grew.
Even as the two women watched in silent awe, the meadow lands edging the lake seemed alive with hurrying shadows. The gloom teemed with desperate life. The wild beasts of the wood came panting out, herding and struggling towards the water. The wolf and the hare were flying together; the boar and the stag galloped side by side. Droves of wild pigs broke out in black masses, while above, with a perpetual whirr of wings, birds pinioned with the wind from the drifting smoke.
The live things were soon fighting in the shallows, trampling each other, bellowing and howling. The water grew alive with struggling beasts where a pack of wolves had taken to the mere and headed for the island. They crawled ashore by the stage, trotted hither and thither, their ululations making the night more terrible.
Ever the fire came nearer, beating up to heaven, rolling southwards with palpitating splendour. A vast canopy of smoke had overspread the valley. Soon the deep gloom of the near thickets grew streaked with light as with the gleaming through of some rich sunset in scarlet and gold. Trees were falling in the forest, and the wind blew as from a furnace.
Rosamunde and Miriam stood still at the top of the stone stair. The terror of the night stupefied the senses, numbed even fear by the chaos of its splendour. It was as the end of all things upon earth, when the myriad wings of angels should dome the heavens, and the universe should elapse in fire.
A thousand demoniac voices seemed to answer the howling of the wolves. All about the island the beasts padded, casting up their snouts, giving tongue to swell the midnight chorus. The voices of the madhouse were as the voices of hell.
Rosamunde and the Jewess drew back from the stairway into the room, stood shivering at the door, listening to the uproar beneath. They heard a sound as of splintered wood, yells of exultation, old Nicholas’s voice fierce yet faint, the terse cracking of his whip. Rosamunde, white and fearful, seized Miriam’s arm, spoke in a hoarse whisper.
“The mad folk have broken loose.”
“Loose!”
“Listen to their cries. They will slay old Nicholas. Quick, we must keep them out.”
They clapped to the door, locked and bolted it, dragged up the beds and benches, piled them against it. As they laboured, panting with fear, a great bird flapped in by the open window, beat blindly about from wall to wall. Rosamunde ran and closed the casement frame, casting a rapid glance at the burning forest. Smoke and a myriad ruddy stars were flying athwart the heavens. The flames had rolled to the rim of the meadowland, and the valley seemed edged with a wall of fire.
In the court below a grim fight had begun. The madmen who had broken loose from their vaults had fallen upon old Nicholas and the two soldiers, penned them in a corner by the gate. The three were overpowered by the furious many, beaten down, trampled, torn limb from limb. Then, in the unreasoning madness of their triumph, the mob had broken down the great gate, and opened the house to the beasts of the forest.
In a moment the wolves, scenting blood, came padding in, leaping on each other in the narrow entry. A hundred red-eyed things surged into the court, foam dropping from their white-fanged snouts. The place became as a pagan amphitheatre, full of death and immeasurable horror. While the fire devoured the trees of the forest, the madman and the wolf rent and slew each other.