The gondola stopped finally at the outlet from the gardens and the park. The place was picturesque, and the stream lost itself amid antique rocks, and was no longer navigable. Consuelo had a very short time to consider the grand, moonlighted landscape. She was yet in the vast area of the palace grounds; but art here had only striven to preserve nature in its primitive beauty—the old trees, strewn by chance in the dark glades, the happy accidents of the landscape, the rugged hills, the unequal cascades, the herds of bounding and timid stags.
A new person now arrested Consuelo's attention: this was Gottlieb, who sat idly on a sedan chair, in the attitude of calm and reverie. He trembled as he recognised his prison friend; but, at a sign from Marcus, did not speak.
"You then forbid the poor child to shake hands with me?" said Consuelo, in a half whisper to her guide.
"When you have been initiated, you will be free in all your actions," said he. "Now be satisfied with seeing how much Gottlieb's health has been improved and how his physical power has been revived."
"Can I not, at least, know," said the neophyte, "whether he suffered persecution on my account, after my escape from Spandau? Excuse my impatience. This idea has never ceased to torment me, until the day when I saw him on the grounds of the house I live in."
"He has really suffered," said Marcus, "yet not for a long time. As soon as he knew you to be rescued, he boasted of having contributed to it; and his somnambulist revelations had nearly proved fatal to some of us. They wished to confine him in a madhouse, as much to punish him as to prevent him from aiding other prisoners to escape. He then fled; and as we had our eye upon him, he was brought hither, where we have attended both to his body and mind. We will return him to his country and his family when we have given him power, and prudence necessary to enable him to toil in our task, which now has become his own, for he is one of our purest and most useful adepts. The chair, however, is ready, madame: will you get into it? I will not leave you, though I confide you to the faithful arms of Karl and Gottlieb."
Consuelo sat quietly in the sedan, which was closed on every side, and which received air only from a few openings in the top. She saw, then, nothing that passed around her. Sometimes she caught a glimpse of the stars, and therefore thought she was in the open air. At other times she saw the transparent medium intercepted; she knew not whether by trees or by solid edifices. The persons who bore her sedan walked rapidly, and in the most profound silence. She sometimes attempted to discover, as their footsteps sounded on the sand, whether three or four persons accompanied her. Often she fancied that she discovered the step of Leverani on the right of the chair; this, however, might be an illusion, which she sought to avoid thinking of.
When the sedan paused, Consuelo could not refrain from a sentiment of terror, when she saw herself under the gateway of an old feudal mansion. The moon shed a full light on the court, which was surrounded with crumbling ruins, and filled with persons clad in white, who went and came, some alone and some clinging together, like fitful spectres. This dark arcade exhibited a blue, transparent fantastic picture. The wandering and silent shadows, speaking in a low tone, their noiseless motion over the grass, the appearance of the ruins, which Consuelo recognised as those she had seen before, and where she had seen Albert, made such an impression on her that she felt an almost superstitious awe. She looked instinctively for Leverani, who was with Marcus; but the darkness was so great that she could not distinguish which of the two offered her his hand. On this occasion her heart chilled with a sudden sadness, an indescribable fear, which rendered her almost senseless.
Her hood was so arranged, and her cloak so put on, that she could see every one without being recognised. Some one told her in a low voice not to speak a single word, no matter what she might see. She was then taken to the extremity of the court, where a strange spectacle met her glance.
A bell with a faint and melancholy sound collected the spectres in the round chapel, where Consuelo had at one time sought a shelter from the tempest. This chapel was now lighted with tapers, arranged in systematic order. The altar seemed to have been, recently built, was covered with a pall, and strewn with strange symbols. The emblems of Christianity were mingled with those of Judaism, Egyptian relics, and cabalistic tokens. In the centre of the choir, the area of which had been reconstructed with balustrades and symbolic columns, was seen a coffin encircled by tapers and covered with cross bones, surmounted by a death's head, in which burned a blood-colored light. Near to this cenotaph a young man was led. Consuelo could not see his features, as a large bandeau covered half of his face. He seemed crushed by fatigue and emotion, and he had one arm and one leg bare. His arms were tied behind his back, his white robe was spotted with blood, and a ligature on his arm seemed to indicate that he had been bled. Two shadows with burning torches hovered around him, and on his breast were showers of sparks and clouds of smoke. Then there began, between him and those who presided over the ceremony, and who bore various unique insignia, a strange dialogue, which put Consuelo in mind of those Cagliostro had made her listen to at Berlin, between Albert and various unknown persons. Then spectres, armed with swords, whom she heard called the terrible brothers placed the candidate on the floor, and, putting the points of their swords on his heart, while many others clashed their weapons, began an angry contest; some pretending to prevent the admission of a new brother, treating him as perverse, unworthy, and a traitor; while others pretended to fight for him, in the name of truth and right. This strange scene had the effect of a painful dream on Consuelo. This contest, these menaces, this magic worship, the sobs of the young men as they hung around the coffin, were so well feigned, that a spectator who had not been initiated would have been terrified. When the sponsors of the candidate had triumphed in the argument and the combat, he was lifted up and a dagger placed in his hand. He was ordered to advance and strike at any one who should oppose his entry into the temple.