“Advance—look—observe!” said the stranger, tearing off the sheet which had been the only covering of the sleeper who had now sunk into the long and last slumber—“There is no mark of violence, no distortion of feature, or convulsion of limb—no hand of man was on him. He sought the possession of a desperate secret—he obtained it, but he paid for it the dreadful price that can be paid but once by mortals. So perish those whose presumption exceeds their power!”
“Aliaga, as he beheld the body, and heard the words of the stranger, felt himself disposed to summon the inmates of the house, and accuse the stranger of murder; but the natural cowardice of a mercantile spirit, mingled with other feelings which he could not analyse, and dared not own, withheld him,—and he continued to gaze alternately on the corse and the corse-like stranger. The latter, after pointing emphatically to the body, as if intimating the danger of imprudent curiosity, or unavailing disclosure, repeated the words, “We meet again to-morrow night!” and departed.
“Aliaga, overcome by fatigue and emotion, sunk down by the corse, and remained in that trance-like state till the servants of the inn entered the room. They were shocked to find a dead body in the bed, and scarce less shocked at the death-like state in which they found Aliaga. His known wealth and distinction procured for him those attentions which otherwise their terrors or their suspicions might have withheld. A sheet was cast over the body, and Aliaga was conveyed to another apartment, and attended sedulously by the domestics.
“In the mean time, the Alcaide arrived; and having learned that the person who had died suddenly in the inn was one totally unknown, as being only a writer, and a man of no importance in public or private life, and that the person found near his bed in a passive stupor was a wealthy merchant,—snatched, with some trepidation, the pen from the ink-horn which hung at his button-hole, and sketched the record of this sapient inquest:—— “That a guest had died in the house, none could deny; but no one could suspect Don Francisco di Aliaga of murder.”
“As Don Francisco mounted his mule the following day, on the strength of this just verdict, a person, who did not apparently belong to the house, was particularly solicitous in adjusting his stirrups, &c.; and while the obsequious Alcaide bowed oft and profoundly to the wealthy merchant, (whose liberality he had amply experienced for the favourable colour he had given to the strong circumstantial evidence against him), this person whispered, in a voice that reached only the ears of Don Francisco, “We meet to-night!”
“Don Francisco checked his mule as he heard the words. He looked round him—the speaker was gone. Don Francisco rode on with a feeling known to few, and which those who have felt are perhaps the least willing to communicate.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Χαλεπον δε το φιλησαι·
χαλεπον το μη φιλησαι·
χαλεπωτερον δε παντων