Every attempt to obtain intelligence of the guilty wanderer had hitherto been unsuccessful. Adelaide’s messengers returned not; Rodolpho was unable to dispatch messengers in return, for he had no sooner set his foot within the precincts of the Vatican, than he was delivered into the hands of avenging justice. What was his present fate, and what would be that which was still reserved for him, was already well-known to every one in the neighbourhood of Ravenstein. Concealed from her by the cruel tenderness of her attendants, her husband’s situation was a secret to Adelaide alone. Surely it was cruel to hide from her an event, which she could not escape knowing in the end, till the whole consciousness of her misfortunes burst upon her at once, and with the violence of the shock crushed her.
The Lady of the Beacon-Tower entertained no apprehensions for herself; happen what would, she believed her own person to be safe. The inhabitants of the Helvetian mountains, in which she resided, had been long dissatisfied with the government of princes, who only employed their power to rob them of their liberty; and they had secretly resolved to seize the first opportunity of breaking their chains. They were prepared to run every hazard in defence of their adored Adelaide; and they counted it unnecessary to warn her of the approach of dangers, which they were firmly determined to prevent from ever reaching her. But where are the mountains so inaccessible, the protection so powerful, and the valour so impossible to be subdued, that calamity cannot overcome all obstacles in pursuit of her destined victim!
Johanna, the Queen of Hungary, who with the fury of a tigress burned to revenge her father’s death, demanded admission into these tranquil vallies, whose inhabitants, from their having granted Rodolpho a temporary asylum, she considered as adherents to the guilty Duke of Swabia. One fortress after another fell into her power: she became mistress by degrees of the whole country; and at length Adelaide heard the sound of hostile trumpets, ere she had yet been made aware, that the most revengeful of all women had penetrated into Helvetia.
Johanna’s mildness towards the murderer’s family had been only assumed, in hopes of discovering where Rodolpho himself was concealed. His seizure had rendered further artifice unnecessary, and she was now permitted to show the violence of her resentment without disguise. She led her troops in person against Ravenstein. Though lately repaired and internally fitted up with elegance and splendour, the fortress no longer possest those strong means of defence, which in its antient state had enabled it to set the attacks of foes so often at defiance. Walter Forest, however, had engaged to undertake the command of it; but at the time when Johanna unexpectedly appeared before the Castle, this brave man was detained by patriotic duties in a distant part of the country. The garrison were capable of making but a sorry resistance; the gates were thrown open; and Johanna made her triumphal entrance into Ravenstein over the bleeding corses of those, who had fallen the innocent victims of her thirst for vengeance.
Oh! Urania, I know well, that justice required the punishment of Albert’s murderers; I know well, that it was the remembrance of her father’s death, which transformed his daughter into a Feind; but still ... still I feel it impossible for me without horror and disgust to unite a thirst for blood with the name of woman. Johanna, that Saint-like princess, that builder of cloisters, that worker of miracles; that young and beautiful Johanna who, as ’tis whispered, is secretly by no means averse to the tender passions; even that very Johanna pursued her way over heaps of mutilated corses, and said with a triumphant smile to those who followed her,—“that it seemed, as if her path had been strown with roses.”—
The doors of the Great Hall were thrown open; Adelaide lay senseless in the arms of her attendants. She was half stretched across the cradle of her sleeping child, as if even in the moment of swooning she had still been aware, that enemies were approaching too pityless to spare even slumbering innocence.
The pale countenance of the Lady of the Beacon-Tower, the beauty of whose features even sorrow had not been able to destroy, and the helplessness of whose present situation served only to render her more interesting, would have touched even the hearts of dæmons with compassion; but on the incensed Johanna this very beauty produced quite a contrary effect. In the eyes of her who gladly would have seen all other charms eclipsed by her own, to be as lovely as Adelaide in itself was a crime of no inconsiderable magnitude: nor could the queen observe without extreme displeasure, that among the warriors in her train, many an eye (whose approbation she would gladly have engrossed entirely) dwelt with looks of tenderness and admiration on the fair lifeless statue, which lay extended in the dust, overthrown by fear and sorrow.
—“Who is this woman?” demanded the queen.
—“Adelaide, Lady of the Beacon-Tower.”—
—“Ha! say’st thou? the Regicide’s wife then?—and yonder brat in the cradle?”—