From Jest to Earnest

by Edward Payson Roe

"Now, uncle," cried Lottie, "it's your turn. I have given you
COMEDY; we shall expect from you high tragedy."

The word "comedy," as Lottie here used it, jarred unpleasantly on Hemstead's ear, and the thought crossed Harcourt's mind, "Can she be leading Hemstead on in heartless jest, as we proposed at first? How I have changed since that day! and I was in hopes that she had, too, somewhat."

But Mr. Dimmerly had taken up the thread of the narrative where
Lottie had dropped it.

"Ninon," he said, "lived a long while ago, and did not properly refer the tall stranger to her mamma. A trysting place and time were agreed upon, and the mysterious stranger in green, who was apparently a forester, said that he had a deer to kill before nightfall; and, raising her hand to his lips, departed. Ninon sat a long time, lost in a maze of thought, and then, in the twilight, roused the rapt child from his visions, and they started for their home. But villainous faces had hovered on the outskirts of the village green, and ill-omened eyes had marked the beauty of Ninon and the spiritual face of her brother. At that time there was in France a terrible monster, known as Giles de Laval, whose emissaries were ever on the alert for such victims. It was this cruel man who suggested to Perrault his world-renowned story of Barbe-bleu, the Blue-Beard that Dan there knows all about. Well, when Ninon and her little brother were passing a thicket but half-way home, two masked men sprang out upon them, and, stifling their terror-stricken cries, carried them to a distance from the highway. They then bound bandages firmly over their mouths, and lifted them on their horses and galloped away and away, till poor Ninon felt that she could never find her way home again, even if she had a chance. Soon the shadowy walls of a great castle rose before them, with a single light in a lofty tower. The feet of the iron-shod horses rang on the draw-bridge, which rose after them, and then Ninon knew they were prisoners. At first they were shut up in a dungeon that was perfectly dark, for their cruel jailer knew the overpowering effect of such rayless gloom. But strange little Pierre said that the place was brighter than the sun, and that lovely faces were smiling at him. Ninon, however, saw nothing, and it was dark indeed to her, and she sobbed bitterly, and called on her mother and lover for help. But only stony-hearted Laval and his accomplices heard her girlish voice. A bell in one of the towers slowly tolled out eleven o'clock. A little later the door of their cell opened, and light streamed in. Two men in hideous masks seized them, and carried them up and up, till Ninon, in horror, thought that they were to be thrown from the top of the tower. But worse than that awaited them; for soon they entered a large circular room, in which, on a sort of throne, sat a dreadful-looking man, clad in sable. He had human form and features, but reminded one of the more disgusting kind of wild beasts. His eyes were small, piercing, and malignant, but his face was large, sensual, devilish, and poor Ninon lost hope from the moment she saw him. She instinctively felt that to sue for mercy from such a monster would be worse than vain. She had lost hope utterly. She and her mother had been mistaken. The saints cared for neither little Pierre nor herself, and had left them to fall into the clutches of this demon. She glanced slowly around the room in the faint hope of escape, or even for the chance of throwing herself from a window, if it were needful, in order to escape from that horrible man. But the walls were thick. No light came from without, but only from a great furnace, that was Strangely constructed and made her shudder. For a long time there was perfect silence in the dreadful place. The two masked men, grotesque and horrible, stood near the furnace, motionless as statues. The sable monster on his black throne watched them without moving a muscle in his great, coarse face, only his small eyes seemed like two scintillating sparks of infernal fire, as with a fiendish kind of pleasure he marked the agony of Ninon. Although the young girl instinctively gave up all hope of life, yet never had life seemed so sweet. Its homeliest details now appeared precious, and their poor little cottage, heaven, compared with this den of infamy. She had just tasted the exquisite happiness of a new and before unknown love, and now she was to die. She thought of her mother growing gray in loneliness and grief. She thought of her lover coming eagerly to their trysting-place; but when he should come on the morrow, Christmas day, what would she be?—where would she be? and in her anguish she cried aloud, and, kneeling, stretched out her hands towards the sable throne.

"Then for the first time the coarse, thick lips of the monster distorted themselves into a hideous grin, but otherwise he did not move, and the awful silence continued in that chamber of death.

"Ninon put her hands to her face, to hide his ugly visage, and then sank down in the apathy of despair.

"There was nothing in Ninon's agony that disturbed Laval. Scarcely a night passed but some victim like herself writhed under his remorseless eyes. Their mortal fear and sufferings were his recreation before the sterner business of sorcery that followed; and the more demonstrative they were in their pain, the more highly spiced was his pleasure. At first Ninon's beautiful and expressive face kept his whole attention; but after a time he began to note the strange-appearing little boy who accompanied her. There was no fear in his calm, pale face. There was no dread in his large, spiritual eyes, that seemed to look past the monster and his thick walls to some rare vision beyond.

"'What does the little wretch see?' he queried, for Laval, like his age, was very superstitious.

"But Ninon must be goaded out of her apathy, or the night would be dull; so at last the thick lips open, and the awful silence is broken by more awful words:

"'Girl, thou who art to lose body and soul, look at me.'