"Look, Giaours! miscreants in race.
And infidels in creed!
Look on this pale, distorted face,
And tell me what ye read!
These limbs convulsed, these fiery pangs,
These eyeballs hot and blear—
Ha! know ye not what they portend?
The plague—the plague is here!
And it has sealed you for its own!
Ay! every Judas kiss
I gave shall bring to you anon
An agony like this!
All art is vain; your poisoned blood
All leechcraft will defy;
Like me ye shall in anguish writhe—
Like me in torture die!"
Once more he stepped, their chief to reach
And blast him with his breath;
But sank, as if revenge itself
Were striving hard with death.
And through the group a horrid thrill
His words and aspect woke,
When, with a proud, undaunted mien,
Their chief Alphonzo spoke:
"And deem'st thou, treacherous renegade,
Whatever may befall,
These warriors true, these hearts of proof,
Death ever can appall?
Ay, writhe and toss, no taint of fear
The sight to them can bring;
Their souls are shrived, and Death himself
For them has lost his sting!
"Then let him come as gory War,
With life-wounds deep and red,
Or let him strike as fell Disease
With racking pains instead—
Still in these spirits he shall find
A power that shall defy
All woe and pain that can but make
The mortal body die.
So, brethren, leave this carrion here—
ay, choke not with thy gall!—
And through our camp a note of cheer
Let every bugle call!
We'll tear yon crescent from its tower
Ere stars are out to-night:
And let Death come—we'll heed him not!—
So forward! to the fight!"
A groan of rage upon his lips,
Almanzor hid his head
Beneath his mantle's ample fold,
And soon was with the dead.
But, roused by those intrepid words,
To death-defying zeal,
The chieftains armed as if they longed
To hear the clash of steel.
The trumpets sounded merrily,
While, dazzlingly arrayed,
On Alphuara's walls they rushed,
And low the crescent laid!
And of the gallant, gallant hearts,
Who thus grim Death defied,
'Mid pestilence and carnage, none
Of plague or battle died!
A TASTE OF FRENCH DUNGEONS.
AN INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF MRS. RADCLIFFE.
Toward the middle of the year 1795, a short time after the deplorable affair of Quiberon, an English lady was taken prisoner just as she was entering France by the Swiss frontier. Her knowledge of French was limited to a few mispronounced words. An interpreter was soon found, and upon his interrogating her as to her motives for attempting so perilous an enterprise without passport, she replied that she had exposed herself to all these dangers for the purpose of visiting the château where the barbarous Sieur de Fayel had made Gabrielle de Vergy eat the heart of her lover. Such a declaration appeared so ridiculous to those who heard it that they were compelled to doubt either the sanity or the veracity of the strange being who ventured upon it. They chose to do the latter, and forwarded the stranger to Paris, with a strong escort, as an English spy. Upon her arrival there, she was safely deposited in the Conciergerie.
Public feeling just then ran very high against the English. The countrywoman of Pitt was loaded with ill-usage; and her terrors, expressed in a singular jargon of English mingled with broken French, served but to augment the coarse amusement of her jailers. After exhausting every species of derision and insult upon their prisoner, they ended by throwing her into the dampest and most inconvenient dungeon they could find. The door of this den was not more than four feet high; and the light that dimly revealed the dripping walls and earthen floor, came through a horizontal opening four inches in height by fifteen in width. The sole movables of the place consisted of a rope pallet and a screen.
The bed served for both couch and chair; the screen was intended as a partial barrier between the inhabitant of the dungeon and the curious gaze of the jailers stationed in the adjoining apartment, who could scrutinize at will, through a narrow opening between the cells, the slightest movements of their prisoner.
The stranger recoiled with disgust, and asked whether they had not a less terrible place in which to confine a woman.