Legends from River & Mountain

by Carmen Sylva; Alma Strettell

As she went forward, the air grew thick and heavy, and she felt the same sense of deadly faintness that she remembered in her dream steal over her now. Presently her guide lifted a dark hanging, that covered one of the doors in the passage they had been following, and they came out into a lofty hall. Here the darkness had fully closed in, and the great, misty spaces of the roof were lit by swinging lamps, that threw out a strong perfume as they burnt. Underneath, all along the walls, ran long divans, or heaps of cushions, covered with silken drapery, and above them hung canopies formed of huge flower-heads, like poppies, whose transparent, blood-red petals waved and fluttered gently in the upper air, shedding the same drowsy perfume as the lamps. Upon the divans many maidens lay sleeping, in all sorts of positions, just as they had sunk down while at work. The faces of some were familiar to Antonia; these were the girls who had been ravished from the village since she could remember; and others there were, who had been taken many years before her birth, and of whom she had but heard. Before every girl—for they kept their youth unchanged—stood a wide tapestry-frame, on which, through each weary day, their fingers wove strange and lovely patterns, in delicate hues of every kind. As long as daylight lasted, the witch, as Antonia learnt afterwards, kept them awake by many ingenious means of torture; by unearthly and startling sounds that broke from the vaults below—by cruel pricks from the magic needles they worked with—by strokes, too, from her fairy wand, with which she walked up and down, and which lengthened at her pleasure, so that none were out of its reach. But even so, though their fingers might move, their heads were heavy and giddy, and no thought of home, no stirrings of a desire for freedom, ever arose with enough strength to give them energy to rebel.

As she entered the hall, the witch cast off her black veil, and Antonia beheld the cruel red eyes, the lank jaws, and the grizzled tresses, the sight of which had first bereft her wretched captives of all their will and courage. But upon brave little Antonia they failed in their dreadful effect, and the witch saw it with surprise. “Here we have a hearty lass indeed,” she jeered; “and truly I might have known it, since she is the first I have known foolhardy enough to come to these gates of her own accord. Perhaps she will be able to bear the burden of the keys.” And bending down, she drew from under an iron table a heavy ebony casket, bound with silver, and a huge bunch of keys. Both of these she fastened with chains about Antonia’s shoulder, and the poor girl almost sank to the ground beneath their terrible weight. The witch grinned. “I have long been looking for a girl strong enough to carry these about for me,” she said, “and perhaps they will keep thee quiet. Now follow me; thy time for slumber is not yet.”

So all through the night, and for many other nights and days, Antonia followed her about, staggering beneath her burden, while the witch visited all the doors and grated windows of the castle, all the underground cells where she put her few unruly prisoners, or where she kept her treasures of gold and jewels, and stores of beautiful silks for the embroideries. Antonia now carried the keys of all these doors, bound about her in such a way that she herself could not raise a hand to touch one.

When the midday sun was hot, all the maidens, and Antonia among them, were allowed to spend an hour in the garden; and as soon as she entered it Antonia knew it for the place she had seen in her dreams. There were the high, dark walls, that matted boughs of ivy, and a poisonous scarlet creeper, only partly succeeded in hiding. There were the strange shrubs and nameless purple flowers, and there was to be felt the heavy, sickly air—she remembered it all so well. The sun struck through the overhanging boughs with a fierce, burning heat, as though it were shining through a roof of glass, and no refreshing breezes ever stirred the leaves, or cooled the brows of the captive maidens. Yet they never complained; and when, during their short hour of leisure, Antonia spoke to them as to old acquaintances, or told them she had come from their home, they did not seem to care about hearing of it, or to have any recollection of their former friends. She saw she could expect no help from them. From whom was she to look for it, then? Surely, only from her guardian, St. Anthony, whose voice it had been, she knew, that had bidden her “give help from within the castle.” But where, in all this bewitched, wicked place, could she find a corner to pray to him, or a spot worthy of his holy presence? Not one of the captive maidens wore her rosary, or seemed ever to think of saying a prayer. How could he turn his eyes upon such a household? Oh! could it be that she, in her earnest desire to obey his voice and help her forsaken sisters, might be thought worthy to make a shrine for him! Well, at any rate she would try.

And so, day after day, in the little time given her for rest and refreshment, Antonia toiled to make St. Anthony a shrine. She found a spot, hidden among wild-rose bushes—the only flowers in the garden that she knew—where there was a ruined pillar and what looked like the remains of an old archway. Here there were some fallen stones; and others she brought—staggering under their weight and that of her hateful keys—from more distant parts of the garden. Sometimes her strength almost gave way; sometimes she had to stop her work because of the spying eyes of the witch herself; sometimes she had to make great efforts to overcome the dull, faint feeling that the unwholesome air produced, and that she feared above all things.

But at last the work was done, and a little shrine rose unseen among the thick bushes. She covered the grey stone with a shower of rose-leaves, and the white petals of a fragrant flower that grew among the grass of the garden—and looked proudly and hopefully upon her labour of love. And now she flung herself upon her knees before it, praying St. Anthony to accept her work, to fill the shrine which she had made, and to free his children from the captivity of evil. At first there was no answer; the minutes of her short hour of rest were ebbing fast away, and the bell which called back the maidens to their tasks was beginning to sound, when her eager eyes caught sight of a shadowy form in the niche of the little shrine. It grew plainer, and a figure like that of an old man, robed in grey, hovered for a moment against the wall. Scarcely had his foot touched the rose-covered pedestal, when a sound like thunder rent the air, and a mighty blast of wind swept through the trees of the sleeping garden. Antonia fell with her face to the earth, but in the roar of the storm she was aware of these words, spoken by the same voice she had heard in her dream: “Thy prayer is heard, the prison-gates are open, and thou art freed from thy burden; but it shall fall upon her who laid it on thee—yea, for twice two hundred years.” The thunder rolled louder, and she heard and knew no more.

When she came to herself she was again in her own little room at home, and might have thought this was but a second awakening from a dream, only that a great noise of rejoicing broke upon her ear, and when she went out into the village, she found that in every house whence a maiden had once been stolen away, the lost one was now restored to the love of her people. Her own parents, too, clasped her with joy to their hearts, for she now found that she had been missing for a whole year, and they also had given her up as lost. When her story was known, the enthusiasm of the village knew no bounds; Antonia was looked up to by every one as only next door to a saint herself, and a splendid shrine, you may be sure, was raised by the people to St. Anthony.

There was one person in the village, however, who thought that nobody had made enough of Antonia, after all, and so he devoted himself for the rest of his days to making up the lack.

And now, amid all the happy faces in the village, faces of parents consoled and lovers reunited, only a few sad ones were seen, those of the maidens who had returned young, to find their loved ones old, or forgetful, or dead. For these Antonia came too late; and thus it is that no evil can be so blotted out but that it will leave some traces in this world.

Of the castle on the hill, however, no traces were left save a few ruins. It was years, to be sure, before any one ventured up there, and then nothing was found but owls and bats and a heap of whitened bones. But something like the old castle still reappears now and then, the people say; only it always shows itself down in the valley, where it first stood, and where the pit now is. It has been seen once or twice, and the saying is, that if only the beholder could throw something that belonged to him upon this castle—a cap, a kerchief, or what not—it would be fixed to the spot and would become his property. Once a maiden, who knew naught of the tale, went to draw water near the spot, and came running home to tell her father she had seen a splendid house standing above the old pit.