"A madman's theme must be madness," cried the ill-favored robber.
"Be it so," answered the Rossignol; "although I accept not your name—I take the word as my subject. Madness shall be my theme."
He struck a few chords with a light, bold hand—and the silvery sound in that fearful place seemed like the tones of an angel's harp. In an instant, all other noise was so completely hushed that Horace could hear distinctly the slow drip of water distilling from the roof of the cave.
The attention of the robbers deepened as, after a short prelude, Rossignol began to sing. His exquisite voice poured forth in a wild and original air, sometimes rapid and almost gay, but at the close of every verse ending in a minor key, and in tones of such deep pathos that they sounded like a dirge from the dead, or a wail for the lost.
Horace had often listened to music, but he had never before heard such music as this. In others he had felt sweet song a charm, but in Raphael it was a power. It was a spell which kept chained in almost breathless silence the reckless beings whose fierce passions brooked no restraint either of law or conscience.
MADNESS.
A wanderer stood by a rapid stream,
When a scroll unto him was brought;
'Twas a father's message of love, addrest
To one whose childhood his care had blest.
'Twas an offer of pardon, peace and rest;—
But the prodigal whom he sought,
Only flung the scroll from the river's brink,
And watched it slowly and slowly sink.
Oh! Madman, to break love's golden link!
On a hill stood a poor wayfaring man,
When a parchment to him was given
By which he was proved the rightful heir
To all the broad region before him there,
The wooded valleys, and meadows fair,
Bounded but by the arch of heaven.
But with reckless hand he the parchment tore,
And the breezes afar the fragments bore.
Oh! Madman, that wealth can be thine no more!
A doomed man crouched o'er his prison fire,
His heart for his fate he steeled;
Already he heard the castle bell
Boom drearily forth his dying knell,
When his eye on a royal writing fell;
'Twas his pardon, signed and sealed!
But he flung the pardon into the flame,
And so went forth to a death of shame.
Oh! Madman, well hast thou earned the name!
"Almost as well," exclaimed Beppo, "as the rhymer who could make such a song! Sing to us of men of flesh and blood, for the world holds no such fools as those in your ballad—they be more unnatural than the ghosts and goblins of nursery rhymes."
"For the matter of that," observed Marco, another of the robbers, "there's many a prodigal I wot of, has thrown his father's letter away."
"But to tear a deed of inheritance—throw a pardon into the fire—nothing so wild, so improbable was ever yet said or sung. Such mad freaks as those are not played by men even in their dreams."
"Are you sure of that?" asked the Rossignol, while his fingers, as if unconsciously, wandered over the strings of his guitar.