“So,” cried the fury, “so perish those who shall dare to insult the love of the Lady de Vere; and as for thee, minion,” she said, turning round, “thou art a prisoner there during my pleasure.” And saying so, she pushed Beatrice into the room, and locked and bolted the door on the wretched damsel, who fell from her violence, and instantly swooned away.
When the Lady Beatrice recovered, and began to recollect what had passed, she arose in a tremor, and tottering to a seat, rested herself for some moments, throwing her eyes fearfully around the apartment. Everything in it remained as it was. No one seemed to have entered since. The lamps had begun to burn so faintly, that they appeared to tell of the approach of midnight, and this idea was strengthened by the silence that prevailed everywhere both without and within the palace. She tried the bolts of the door, but, to her great horror, she found them fast. A faint hope of escape arose, when she remembered that the King had disappeared by the inner apartment, whence there might be a passage leading to other chambers. She snatched up an expiring hand lamp, and hastened to explore it. But there was no visible mode of exit from the room, and she now became convinced that the King must have returned through the apartment whilst she lay insensible, and that some one had liberated him from without. The recollection of the cruel wound, which she almost feared might have been Sir Patrick’s death blow, together with the certainty of his captivity, and the probable issue of it, now filled her mind with horror; and this, added to the perplexity of her present situation, so overcame her, that she sat down and wept bitterly.
The lamps now, one after another, expired, until she was left in total darkness. She groped her way into the inner apartment, and, having fastened the door within, [[518]]threw herself upon the couch, and abandoned herself to all her wretchedness.
Whilst the Lady Beatrice was lying in this distressing situation, she was startled by a noise. Suddenly a glare of light flashed upon her eyes; she rubbed them, and looked towards the spot whence it proceeded. A man in a friar’s habit stood near the wall; he held a lamp high, that its light might the better fill the room. Immediately behind him was an opening in the tapestry, the folds of which being held aside by a hand and arm, admitted the entrance of another shaven crowned head. To the terror of the Lady Beatrice, she recognized in this second monk the piercing eyes and powerful features of the very Franciscan whose dagger had so alarmed her at Lochyndorbe, and the sight of whom had so affected her at Sir Walter de Selby’s funeral. She attempted to scream, but fear so overcame her, that, like one who labours under a nightmare, her lips moved, but her tongue refused to do its office, and she lay with her eyes wide open, staring on the object of her dread, in mute expectation of immediate murder.
“Is she there, Friar Rushak?” said he whom we have known by the name of the Franciscan.
“She is here,” said the first monk, who bore the lamp; “all is quiet too—thou mayest safely enter.”
The Franciscan who followed now stepped into the apartment, and came stealing forward with soft, barefooted tread.
“Give me the light, Friar Rushak, that there may be no mistake,” said he, taking the lamp from his companion.
The blood grew chill in the Lady Beatrice’s veins as the Franciscan approached the couch where she lay. He held the lamp so as to throw its light strongly upon her face.
“It is she indeed,” said he, in a muttering voice, while his features were lighted up by a grim smile of satisfaction, which gradually faded away, leaving a severe expression in his lightning eye.