He awoke.
His form was pinioned in the embrace of a woman’s arms, and a woman’s face hung over him, its large and lustrous eyes, mingling their light, with his own.
“Rosalind!” he shrieked as he sprang to his feet with surprise—“Rosalind here, in this lone chamber!”
“I am here—” she exclaimed as she fell weeping on his bosom—“’Tis a strange story Guiseppo, but—my heart feels chilled when I think of the fearful scene, which made this Red Chamber a place of death. An hour ago, I slept within the bower of the Ladye Annabel, which the Count allotted for my prison, when a strange figure, clad in robes of sable, strode into the chamber, and bade me enjoy my freedom, as he pointed to the open door! I hastened along the corridor, I descended the stairway, and sought refuge in this chamber, from two dark figures who seemed pursuing me, when I found thee, Guiseppo, flung prostrate along the cold floor, and—”
“Thou didst watch over me, when sleeping, love of mine? Thy prison hath not stolen the bloom from thy cheek or the fire from thine eye.”
As he spoke the door of the Red Chamber was flung suddenly open, and the aged Steward of the Castle rushed to the side of Guiseppo, with hasty steps and a disordered manner, shouting as his gray hairs waved in the night wind—
“A message, Lord Guiseppo—a message of life and death! The Count Aldarin sends thee this—read, and read without delay—for I tell thee ’tis a scroll of life and death.”
Guiseppo perused the scroll, and——
The spirit of the Chronicle beckons us on to the most dark and fearful scene of the Historie.[5]