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“Reverend Father, I sought the Lady Hippolita.” |
“Hippolita!” replied a hollow voice; “camest thou to this castle to seek |
Hippolita?” and then the figure, turning slowly round, discovered to |
Frederic the fleshless jaws and empty sockets of a skeleton, wrapt in a |
hermit’s cowl. |
“Angels of grace protect me!” cried Frederic, recoiling. |
“Deserve their protection!” said the Spectre. Frederic, falling on his |
knees, adjured the phantom to take pity on him. |
“Dost thou not remember me?” said the apparition. “Remember the wood of |
Joppa!” |
“Art thou that holy hermit?” cried Frederic, trembling. “Can I do aught |
for thy eternal peace?” |
“Wast thou delivered from bondage,” said the spectre, “to pursue carnal |
delights? Hast thou forgotten the buried sabre, and the behest of Heaven |
engraven on it?” |
“I have not, I have not,” said Frederic; “but say, blest spirit, what is |
thy errand to me? What remains to be done?” |
“To forget Matilda!” said the apparition; and vanished. |
Frederic’s blood froze in his veins. For some minutes he remained |
motionless. Then falling prostrate on his face before the altar, he |
besought the intercession of every saint for pardon. A flood of tears |
succeeded to this transport; and the image of the beauteous Matilda |
rushing in spite of him on his thoughts, he lay on the ground in a |
conflict of penitence and passion. Ere he could recover from this agony |
of his spirits, the Princess Hippolita with a taper in her hand entered |
the oratory alone. Seeing a man without motion on the floor, she gave a |
shriek, concluding him dead. Her fright brought Frederic to himself. |
Rising suddenly, his face bedewed with tears, he would have rushed from |
her presence; but Hippolita stopping him, conjured him in the most |
plaintive accents to explain the cause of his disorder, and by what |
strange chance she had found him there in that posture. |
“Ah, virtuous Princess!” said the Marquis, penetrated with grief, and |
stopped. |
“For the love of Heaven, my Lord,” said Hippolita, “disclose the cause of |
this transport! What mean these doleful sounds, this alarming |
exclamation on my name? What woes has heaven still in store for the |
wretched Hippolita? Yet silent! By every pitying angel, I adjure thee, |
noble Prince,” continued she, falling at his feet, “to disclose the |
purport of what lies at thy heart. I see thou feelest for me; thou |
feelest the sharp pangs that thou inflictest—speak, for pity! Does aught |
thou knowest concern my child?” |
“I cannot speak,” cried Frederic, bursting from her. “Oh, Matilda!” |
Quitting the Princess thus abruptly, he hastened to his own apartment. |
At the door of it he was accosted by Manfred, who flushed by wine and |
love had come to seek him, and to propose to waste some hours of the |
night in music and revelling. Frederic, offended at an invitation so |
dissonant from the mood of his soul, pushed him rudely aside, and |
entering his chamber, flung the door intemperately against Manfred, and |
bolted it inwards. The haughty Prince, enraged at this unaccountable |
behaviour, withdrew in a frame of mind capable of the most fatal |
excesses. As he crossed the court, he was met by the domestic whom he |
had planted at the convent as a spy on Jerome and Theodore. This man, |
almost breathless with the haste he had made, informed his Lord that |
Theodore, and some lady from the castle were, at that instant, in private |
conference at the tomb of Alfonso in St. Nicholas’s church. He had |
dogged Theodore thither, but the gloominess of the night had prevented |
his discovering who the woman was. |
Manfred, whose spirits were inflamed, and whom Isabella had driven from |
her on his urging his passion with too little reserve, did not doubt but |
the inquietude she had expressed had been occasioned by her impatience to |
meet Theodore. Provoked by this conjecture, and enraged at her father, |
he hastened secretly to the great church. Gliding softly between the |
aisles, and guided by an imperfect gleam of moonshine that shone faintly |
through the illuminated windows, he stole towards the tomb of Alfonso, to |
which he was directed by indistinct whispers of the persons he sought. |
The first sounds he could distinguish were— |
“Does it, alas! depend on me? Manfred will never permit our union.” |
“No, this shall prevent it!” cried the tyrant, drawing his dagger, and |
plunging it over her shoulder into the bosom of the person that spoke. |
“Ah, me, I am slain!” cried Matilda, sinking. “Good heaven, receive my |
soul!” |
“Savage, inhuman monster, what hast thou done!” cried Theodore, rushing |
on him, and wrenching his dagger from him. |
“Stop, stop thy impious hand!” cried Matilda; “it is my father!” |
Manfred, waking as from a trance, beat his breast, twisted his hands in |
his locks, and endeavoured to recover his dagger from Theodore to |
despatch himself. Theodore, scarce less distracted, and only mastering |
the transports of his grief to assist Matilda, had now by his cries drawn |
some of the monks to his aid. While part of them endeavoured, in concert |
with the afflicted Theodore, to stop the blood of the dying Princess, the |