“What noise was it?” said Ugo, starting up and listening.
“Hush!” repeated Emily. “It surely came from the ramparts above:” and, on looking up, they perceived a light moving along the walls, while, in the next instant, the breeze swelling, the voice sounded louder than before.
“Who goes yonder?” cried a sentinel of the castle. “Speak or it will be worse for you.” Bertrand uttered a shout of joy. “Hah! my brave comrade, is it you?” said he, and he blew a shrill whistle, which signal was answered by another from the soldier on watch; and the party, then passing forward, soon after emerged from the woods upon the broken road, that led immediately to the castle gates, and Emily saw, with renewed terror, the whole of that stupendous structure. “Alas!” said she to herself, “I am going again into my prison!”
“Here has been warm work, by St. Marco!” cried Bertrand, waving a torch over the ground; “the balls have torn up the earth here with a vengeance.”
“Aye,” replied Ugo, “they were fired from that redoubt, yonder, and rare execution they did. The enemy made a furious attack upon the great gates; but they might have guessed they could never carry it there; for, besides the cannon from the walls, our archers, on the two round towers, showered down upon them at such a rate, that, by holy Peter! there was no standing it. I never saw a better sight in my life; I laughed, till my sides aked, to see how the knaves scampered. Bertrand, my good fellow, thou shouldst have been among them; I warrant thou wouldst have won the race!”
“Hah! you are at your old tricks again,” said Bertrand in a surly tone. “It is well for thee thou art so near the castle; thou knowest I have killed my man before now.” Ugo replied only by a laugh, and then gave some further account of the siege, to which as Emily listened, she was struck by the strong contrast of the present scene with that which had so lately been acted here.
The mingled uproar of cannon, drums, and trumpets, the groans of the conquered, and the shouts of the conquerors were now sunk into a silence so profound, that it seemed as if death had triumphed alike over the vanquished and the victor. The shattered condition of one of the towers of the great gates by no means confirmed the valiant account just given by Ugo of the scampering party, who, it was evident, had not only made a stand, but had done much mischief before they took to flight; for this tower appeared, as far as Emily could judge by the dim moonlight that fell upon it, to be laid open, and the battlements were nearly demolished. While she gazed, a light glimmered through one of the lower loop-holes, and disappeared; but, in the next moment, she perceived through the broken wall, a soldier, with a lamp, ascending the narrow staircase, that wound within the tower, and, remembering that it was the same she had passed up, on the night, when Barnardine had deluded her with a promise of seeing Madame Montoni, fancy gave her somewhat of the terror she had then suffered. She was now very near the gates, over which the soldier having opened the door of the portal-chamber, the lamp he carried gave her a dusky view of that terrible apartment, and she almost sunk under the recollected horrors of the moment, when she had drawn aside the curtain, and discovered the object it was meant to conceal.
“Perhaps,” said she to herself, “it is now used for a similar purpose; perhaps, that soldier goes, at this dead hour, to watch over the corpse of his friend!” The little remains of her fortitude now gave way to the united force of remembered and anticipated horrors, for the melancholy fate of Madame Montoni appeared to foretell her own. She considered, that, though the Languedoc estates, if she relinquished them, would satisfy Montoni’s avarice, they might not appease his vengeance, which was seldom pacified but by a terrible sacrifice; and she even thought, that, were she to resign them, the fear of justice might urge him either to detain her a prisoner, or to take away her life.
They were now arrived at the gates, where Bertrand, observing the light glimmer through a small casement of the portal-chamber, called aloud; and the soldier, looking out, demanded who was there. “Here, I have brought you a prisoner,” said Ugo, “open the gate, and let us in.”
“Tell me first who it is, that demands entrance,” replied the soldier. “What! my old comrade,” cried Ugo, “don’t you know me? not know Ugo? I have brought home a prisoner here, bound hand and foot—a fellow, who has been drinking Tuscany wine, while we here have been fighting.”