All at once, she fancied she heard them beneath her, as if they ascended some secret stairway or approached to some invisible door, or as if, like familiar spirits, they were about to rush through the wall before her. She let her light fall, and fled into the garden. The rivulet caused her to cease her flight. She listened to footsteps, which she fancied she heard behind her. She then became somewhat amazed, and got into the boat which the gardener had for bringing sand and turf from the forest. Consuelo fancied that when she loosed it she would gain the opposite bank; but the current was very rapid, and passed out of the enclosure through a grated arch. Borne off by the current, the boat in a few moments would have knocked against the grating. To avoid the shock, she put forth her hands—for a native of Venice and a child of its people could not be at any difficulty in relation to such a manœuvre. By a strange chance, however, the grating yielded to her hands, and swang open, in obedience to the impulse the boat received from the current. "Alas!" thought Consuelo, "they never shut this passage, perhaps: I am but a prisoner on parole, and yet I fly and violate my word. I do so, however, only to seek protection from my hosts, not to abandon and betray them!"
She sprang on shore at a turn of the current whither the boat had been driven, and rushed into a thick hedge. Consuelo could not proceed rapidly through the undergrowth. The alley wound about, and the fugitive every moment knocked against the trees, and frequently fell on the turf. Yet she felt a return of hope to her soul: she thought it impossible for Leverani to discover her.
After having wandered a long time at hazard, she found herself at the foot of a hill, strewn with rocks, the varied outline of which was painted on a grey and clouded sky. A storm-wind of some power, had arisen, and the rain began to fall. Consuelo, not daring to return, for fear that Leverani had followed, and might look for her on the banks of the stream, ventured on the rude hill-side path. She thought that when she had reached the top, she would discover the lights of the castle and ascertain her position. When she had arrived, however, in the darkness, the lightning, which began to illumine the heavens, showed her the ruin of a vast building, which seemed the imposing and melancholy monument of another age.
The rain forced Consuelo to seek shelter, and with difficulty she found it. The towers were roofless, and flocks of ger-falcons and tiercelets were terrified at her approach, and uttered a sharp and acute cry, which sounded like that of the spirits of evil inhabiting some old ruin.
Amid the stones and ivy, Consuelo went through the chapel, which, by the lightning, exhibited the outline of its dislocated mouldings, and went into the court-yard which was overgrown with short smooth grass. She avoided by chance a deep well, the presence of which on the surface was only indicated by superb capillary plants, and a rose-tree which were in undisturbed possession of the interior. The mass of ruined buildings around this courtyard presented the strangest aspect. At every flash, the eye could scarcely take in these pale and downcast spectres; all these incoherent forms of ruin, vast stacks of chimneys, the summits of which were blackened by fires long extinct forever, and springing from amid walls which were bare and terribly high; broken stairways, showing their helices, into the void, as if to enable witches to go to their aerial dance; whole trees installed and in possession of rooms, on the walls of which frescoes were yet visible; stone benches in the deep window recesses, desertedness within and without these mysterious retreats, refuges of lovers in times of peace and the sentinels' station during war; finally, loop-holes, festooned with coquettish garlands, isolated spires, piercing the skies like obelisks, and doors completely crushed by the falling ruins. It was a fearful and poetical spot, and Consuelo felt herself under the influence of a kind of terror, as if her presence had profaned a space reserved for the funeral conferences and silent reveries of the dead. In a calm night, and when less agitated, she would not, perhaps, have so pitied the rigor of time and the fates which so violently destroy palace and fortress, leaving their ruins on the grass by the side of those of the hut. The sadness which is inspired by the ruins of these formidable abodes rise not identical in the imagination of the artist and the patrician. At this moment of terror and fear, however, and on this stormy night, Consuelo, unsustained by the enthusiasm which had impelled her in more serious undertakings, felt herself again become a child of the people, and trembled at the idea of seeing again appear the phantoms of night, especially the old lords, the stern occupants of them, while alive, and, after death, their threatening and menacing possessors. The thunder lifted up its voice; the wind made the bricks crumble and the cement fall from the dismantled pile, while the long branches of the ivy twined like serpents around the embrasures of the towers. Consuelo, who was looking for a shelter from the fierce tempest, went beneath the vault of a stairway which seemed in better preservation than the others. It was that of a vast feudal tower, the most ancient and solid of the edifice. After about twenty steps, she came to a broad octagonal hall which occupied all the interior of the tower. The opposite stairway having been made, as is the case with all constructions of this kind, in the thickness (eighteen or twenty feet) of the wall. The vault of this hall was like the interior of a hive. There were now neither doors nor windows, but the openings were so narrow that the wind easily lost its power in passing through them. Consuelo resolved to wait in this place until the tempest was over, and approaching a window, stood for more than an hour, contemplating the grand spectacle of a sky in flames, and listening to the terrible voices of the storm.
The wind at last lulled, the clouds became dissipated, and Consuelo thought she would go. On her return, however, she was amazed to find a more permanent light than that of day occupy the interior of the room. This clearness, after a season of, as it were, tremulous light, increased and filled the vault, and a light crackling sound was heard in the hearth. Consuelo looked and saw beneath the half-arch of this old hall, an enormous recess open before her, and a wood-fire which seemed to have kindled itself and burned out alone. She approached, and saw half-burned branches and all that indicated a fire having been kept up, and abandoned without precaution.
Terrified at this circumstance, which informed her of the presence of a host, Consuelo, who saw no trace of furniture here, hurried towards the stairway, and was about to descend, when she heard voices and the sound of feet on the pavement below. Her fantastic terrors then became real apprehensions. This damp and devastated tower could only be inhabited by some gamekeeper, perhaps as savage as his abode—it may be, drunk and brutal—and probably by no means so honest and respectful as the good Matteus. The steps rapidly approached, and Consuelo hurried up the stairway, to avoid being met by those who might come. After having gone about twenty steps, she found herself on the second floor, from the one where they would be apt to come, since, being roofless, it was uninhabitable. Fortunately the rain had ceased, and she saw a few stars through the climbing shrubs, which had covered the top of the tower, about ten toises above her head. A ray of light from below soon began to trace shadows on the walls of the ruin, and Consuelo, approaching stealthily, looked through a crevice into the room she had just left. Two men were in the hall: one walking and stamping his feet to warm them, and the other leaning down in the fireplace, attempting to rekindle the fire which began to burn. At first, she did not see that their apparel betokened exalted rank; but the light of the fire being revived, he who heaped it up with the point of his sword, got up to lean the weapon against a salient stone. Consuelo saw long black hair, at the appearance of which she trembled, and a brow which had nearly wrung a cry of terror and tenderness from her. He spoke, and she had no doubt the person she saw was Albert of Rudolstadt.
"Draw near, my friend," said he to his companion, "and warm yourself at the only fireplace of this old castle. A bad state of things, Von Trenck; but you have, in your wanderings, found matter worse."
"Sometimes," answered the lover of the Princess Amelia, "I have found nothing at all. This place is really more comfortable than it seems, and I will be glad to make more of it. Ah! count, you then come sometimes to muse in these ruins and watch your arms[13] in this haunted tower."
"I often come for better reasons. I cannot now tell you why, but will hereafter."