“A little,” and she gathered her sables more closely about her and pressed nearer to my side. The capricious moon here suddenly leaped forth like the pale ghost of a frenzied dancer, standing tiptoe on the edge of a precipitous chasm of black clouds. Her rays, pallidly green and cold, fell full on the dreary stretch of land before us, touching up with luminous distinctness those white mysterious milestones of the Campo Santo which mark where the journeys of men, women, and children began and where they left off, but never explain in what new direction they are now traveling. My wife saw and stopped, trembling violently.
“What place is this?” she asked, nervously.
In all her life she had never visited a cemetery—she had too great a horror of death.
“It is where I keep all my treasures,” I answered, and my voice sounded strange and harsh in my own ears, while I tightened my grasp of her full, warm waist. “Come with me, my beloved!” and in spite of my efforts, my tone was one of bitter mockery. “With me you need have no fear! Come.”
And I led her on, too powerless to resist my force, too startled to speak—on, on, on, over the rank dewy grass and unmarked ancient graves—on, till the low frowning gate of the house of my dead ancestors faced me—on, on, on, with the strength of ten devils in my arm as I held her—on, on, on, to her just doom!
CHAPTER XXXVI.
The moon had retreated behind a dense wall of cloud, and the landscape was enveloped in semi-darkness. Reaching the door of the vault, I unlocked it; it opened instantly, and fell back with a sudden clang. She whom I held fast with my iron grip shrunk back, and strove to release herself from my grasp.
“Where are you going?” she demanded, in a faint tone. “I—I am afraid!”
“Of what?”—I asked, endeavoring to control the passionate vibrations of my voice and to speak unconcernedly. “Because it is dark? We shall have a light directly—you will see—you—you,” and to my own surprise I broke into a loud and violent laugh. “You have no cause to be frightened! Come!”
And I lifted her swiftly and easily over the stone step of the entrance and set her safely inside. Inside at last, thank Heaven! I shut the great gate upon us both and locked it! Again that strange undesired laugh broke from my lips involuntarily, and the echoes of the charnel house responded to it with unearthly and ghastly distinctness. Nina clung to me in the dense gloom.