'Thou sayest: 'Awake her not.' Will she ever again waken? Speak quickly. Tell me the naked truth, for evil spirits filled my sleep with dreams of terror. I saw her pleading for death, but thou wast unarmed as now; and another stood near, who murdered the child I gave thee. Speak! Was this all a horrid dream, a fearful jest of the summer's night to appal my soul?'
The bridegroom bows his head under the unendurable weight of this question. He shudders, and with lifted hand tries to turn the old man back.
'Ha! thou darest not speak—thou art silent, I know it all now. God punishes me because I have bowed to thy king, and sought alliance with thy craven blood, alien as thou art!'
The window panes rattle as the wild cry echoes from the old man's quivering lips; all present tremble at the voice of his despair. He seizes his sword with both his hands, and while it trembles in his grasp, continues:
'Art thou still silent? My fathers were the enemies of thine; had I a son, he would have been thy deadly foe. I had an only daughter—I gave her to thee—she too is gone—take all—there is no one to care for now—the inheritance is also thine.'
The sword rattles in his hands, the blade falls from his grasp, as he strikes it against the pillar near him. The bridegroom starts forward and endeavors to stay the old man. The old man pushes him off, they wrestle in their bewilderment, and struggle like wild beasts. Despair nerves the aged arms with iron strength. Young and agile as he is, the bridegroom feels the hands of his adversary pressing heavily upon his shoulders, he bends under the weight, the old man hurls him to the ground, and, no longer requiring aid from others, strides over the prostrate body. He stalks on with flashing, burning eyes, his gigantic shadow striding with him on the wall, his wide robes floating on the wind, his white hair streaming, his form winged with the courage of despair. The retainers follow, the vaulted ceilings echoing back the sharp gride of their footsteps. Only one lighted saloon now lies between them and the chamber of the ladies of the castle. The double door at the other end is thrown wide open, the walls and windows of the wedding chamber are crimsoning with the early hues of day, silence and solitude pervade them, nothing falls upon the air save the twitter of the birds and the murmur of the fountains. The old man rushes on directly to the open door and toward the reddening east.
He reaches the threshold, and the immense red face of the just risen sun dazzles his eyes. Is it the bloody Heart of God he sees pulsating through the universe? Blinded for a moment, he staggers on at random, when suddenly he sees the floor is red with blood. The dreadful phantoms of the night are again around him, no longer floating in misty visions, but glaring fixed before him in the stern light of dread reality. In the fierce blaze of its pitiless rays, he sees the dead body of his brother's son; the bloody form of his only child, his good daughter, lies pale at his feet. Like a drowning man he gasps for breath, beats the air wildly around him, as if trying to rescue himself from this hell of spectres. Then he stands motionless, as if transfixed to the spot. Awakened by the noise and rumor, guests, feudal retainers, servants, and attendants rush to the spot, each in turn to be terror-stricken at the threshold, to move within awed and silent. All eyes wander from the old lord of the castle to the stiffening corpses at his feet. They lie together now! The left arm of the exile is round the neck of his sister; her head rests on his armed bosom just above the spot where the sword still remains plunged in his breast; his right hand has fallen beside it. There was no one near to close their dying eyelids, the pupils glitter glassily in the whitening light of the ascending sun, and the blood which is everywhere around, on the bridal bed, on the coat of mail of the young chieftain, on the white robes and snowy bosom of the bride, already congeals into dark pools or crimson corals. Above this cooling stream their features rest in marble peace—a faint smile is on the lips of the young bride—while a passing thought of warlike glory still beams from the broad, pallid brow of the young hero. So tranquil their repose, the agonies of death must have seemed light to them, lost in the ecstasies of faithful spirits.
The old man continues to stand as he first stood—no groan escapes his lips, no shuddering shakes his frame. The new comers press those already present forward, but all breaths are hushed, hands are fixed steadily on sword hilts that they may not rattle, all sound is stilled—they stand in awe of that dreadful moment when their lord shall awake from his torpor, and turn to them his face of woe. How will they bear the anguish written there? despair without a ray of hope!
O God! what a miracle! He turns toward them, greets them imperiously but courteously, as was his wont, as if, absorbed in thought and doubtful of the dire reality before him, he was trying to ascertain its truth. Fever burns in his eye and flames upon his wrinkled cheek.