by william mudford.
he castle of the prince of tolfi was built on the summit of the towering and precipitous rock of scylla, and commanded a magnificent view of sicily in all its grandeur. here, during the wars of the middle ages, when the fertile plains of italy were devastated by hostile factions, those prisoners were confined, for whose ransom a costly price was demanded. here, too, in a dungeon excavated deep in the solid rock, the miserable victim was immured, whom revenge pursued,—the dark, fierce, and unpitying revenge of an italian heart.
vivenzio,—the noble and the generous, the fearless in battle, and the pride of naples in her sunny hours of peace,—the young, the brave, the proud vivenzio,—fell beneath this subtle and remorseless spirit. he was the prisoner of tolfi; and he languished in that rock-encircled dungeon, which stood alone, and whose portals never opened twice upon a living captive.
it had the semblance of a vast cage; for the roof and floor and sides were of iron, solidly wrought and spaciously[109] constructed. high above ran a range of seven grated windows, guarded with massy bars of the same metal, which admitted light and air. save these, and the tall folding-doors beneath them, which occupied the centre, no chink or chasm or projection broke the smooth, black surface of the walls. an iron bedstead, littered with straw, stood in one corner, and, beside it, a vessel of water, and a coarse dish filled with coarser food.
even the intrepid soul of vivenzio shrunk with dismay as he entered this abode, and heard the ponderous doors triple-locked by the silent ruffians who conducted him to it. their silence seemed prophetic of his fate, of the living grave that had been prepared for him. his menaces and his entreaties, his indignant appeals for justice, and his impatient questioning of their intentions, were alike vain. they listened but spoke not. fit ministers of a crime that should have no tongue!
how dismal was the sound of their retiring steps! and, as their faint echoes died along the winding passages, a fearful presage grew within him, that nevermore the face or voice or tread of man would greet his senses. he had seen human beings for the last time! and he had looked his last upon the bright sky and upon the smiling earth and upon a beautiful world he loved, and whose minion he had been! here he was to end his life,—a life he had just begun to revel in! and by what means? by secret poison? or by murderous assault? no; for then it had been needless to bring him thither. famine, perhaps,—a thousand deaths in one! it was terrible to think of it; but it was yet more terrible[110] to picture long, long years of captivity in a solitude so appalling, a loneliness so dreary, that thought, for want of fellowship, would lose itself in madness, or stagnate into idiocy.
he could not hope to escape, unless he had the power, with his bare hands, of rending asunder the solid iron walls of his prison. he could not hope for liberty from the relenting mercies of his enemy. his instant death, under any form of refined cruelty, was not the object of tolfi; for he might have inflicted it, and he had not. it was too evident, therefore, he was reserved for some premeditated scheme of subtle vengeance; and what vengeance could transcend in fiendish malice, either the slow death of famine, or the still slower one of solitary incarceration till the last lingering spark of life expired, or till reason fled, and nothing should remain to perish but the brute functions of the body?
it was evening when vivenzio entered his dungeon; and the approaching shades of night wrapped it in total darkness, as he paced up and down, revolving in his mind these horrible forebodings. no tolling bell from the castle, or from any neighboring church or convent, struck upon his ears to tell how the hours passed. frequently he would stop and listen for some sound that might betoken the vicinity of man; but the solitude of the desert, the silence of the tomb, are not so still and deep as the oppressive desolation by which he was encompassed. his heart sunk within him, and he threw himself dejectedly upon his couch of straw. here sleep gradually obliterated the consciousness of misery; and bland dreams wafted his delighted spirit to scenes which were[111] once glowing realities for him, in whose ravishing illusions he soon lost the remembrance that he was tolfi’s prisoner.
when he awoke, it was daylight; but how long he had slept he knew not. it might be early morning, or it might be sultry noon; for he could measure time by no other note of its progress than light and darkness. he had been so happy in his sleep, amid friends who loved him, and the sweeter endearments of those who loved him as friends could not, that, in the first moments of waking, his startled mind seemed to admit the knowledge of his situation, as if it had burst upon it for the first time, fresh in all its appalling horrors. he gazed round with an air of doubt and amazement, and took up a handful of the straw upon which he lay, as though he would ask himself what it meant. but memory, too faithful to her office, soon unveiled the melancholy past, while reason, shuddering at the task, flashed before his eyes the tremendous future. the contrast overpowered him. he remained for some time lamenting, like a truth, the bright visions that had vanished, and recoiling from the present, which clung to him as a poisoned garment.
when he grew more calm, he surveyed his gloomy dungeon. alas! the stronger light of day only served to confirm what the gloomy indistinctness of the preceding evening had partially disclosed,—the utter impossibility of escape. as, however, his eyes wandered round and round, and from place to place, he noticed two circumstances which excited his surprise and curiosity. the one, he thought, might be fancy; but the[112] other was positive. his pitcher of water, and the dish which contained his food, had been removed from his side while he slept, and now stood near the door. were he even inclined to doubt this, by supposing he had mistaken the spot where he saw them over night, he could not; for the pitcher now in his dungeon was neither of the same form nor color as the other, while the food was changed for some other of better quality. he had been visited therefore during the night. but how had the person obtained entrance? could he have slept so soundly that the unlocking and opening of those ponderous portals were effected without waking him? he would have said this was not possible, but that, in doing so, he must admit a greater difficulty, an entrance by other means, of which, he was convinced, none existed. it was not intended, then, that he should be left to perish from hunger; but the secret and mysterious mode of supplying him with food seemed to indicate he was to have no opportunity of communicating with a human being.
the other circumstance which had attracted his notice was the disappearance, as he believed, of one of the seven grated windows that ran along the top of his prison. he felt confident that he had observed and counted them; for he was rather surprised at their number, and there was something peculiar in their form, as well as in the manner of their arrangement, at unequal distances. it was so much easier, however, to suppose he was mistaken, than that a portion of the solid iron, which formed the walls, could have escaped from its position, that he soon dismissed the thought from his mind.
[113]
vivenzio partook of the food that was before him without apprehension. it might be poisoned; but, if it were, he knew he could not escape death, should such be the design of tolfi; and the quickest death would be the speediest relief.
the day passed wearily and gloomily, though not without a faint hope that, by keeping watch at night, he might observe when the person came again to bring him food, which he supposed he would do in the same way as before. the mere thought of being approached by a living creature, and the opportunity it might present of learning the doom prepared or preparing for him, imparted some comfort. besides, if he came alone, might he not in a furious onset overpower him? or he might be accessible to pity, or the influence of such munificent rewards as he could bestow if once more at liberty, and master of himself. say he were armed. the worst that could befall, if nor bribe nor prayers nor force prevailed, was a faithful blow, which, though dealt in a damned cause, might work a desired end. there was no chance so desperate but it looked lovely in vivenzio’s eyes, compared with the idea of being totally abandoned.
the night came, and vivenzio watched. morning came, and vivenzio was confounded! he must have slumbered without knowing it. sleep must have stolen over him when exhausted by fatigue; and, in that interval of feverish repose, he had been baffled: for there stood his replenished pitcher of water, and there his day’s meal! nor was this all. casting his looks toward the windows of his dungeon, he counted but five! here was no deception; and he was now convinced there[114] had been none the day before. but what did all this portend? into what strange and mysterious den had he been cast? he gazed till his eyes ached; he could discover nothing to explain the mystery. that it was so, he knew. why it was so, he racked his imagination in vain to conjecture. he examined the doors. a simple circumstance convinced him they had not been opened.
a wisp of straw, which he had carelessly thrown against them the preceding day, as he paced to and fro, remained where he had cast it, though it must have been displaced by the slightest motion of either of the doors. this was evidence that could not be disputed; and it followed there must be some secret machinery in the walls by which a person could enter. he inspected them closely. they appeared to him one solid and compact mass of iron; or joined, if joined they were, with such nice art that no mark of division was perceptible. again and again he surveyed them, and the floor and the roof, and that range of visionary windows, as he was now almost tempted to consider them: he could discover nothing, absolutely nothing, to relieve his doubts or satisfy his curiosity. sometimes he fancied that altogether the dungeon had a more contracted appearance,—that it looked smaller; but this he ascribed to fancy, and the impression naturally produced upon his mind by the undeniable disappearance of two of the windows.
with intense anxiety, vivenzio looked forward to the return of night; and, as it approached, he resolved that no treacherous sleep should again betray him. instead of seeking his bed of straw, he continued to walk up and[115] down his dungeon till daylight, straining his eyes in every direction through the darkness, to watch for any appearances that might explain these mysteries. while thus engaged, and, as nearly as he could judge (by the time that afterward elapsed before the morning came in), about two o’clock, there was a slight, tremulous motion of the floors. he stooped. the motion lasted nearly a minute: but it was so extremely gentle that he almost doubted whether it was real, or only imaginary. he listened. not a sound could be heard. presently, however, he felt a rush of cold air blow upon him; and, dashing toward the quarter whence it seemed to proceed, he stumbled over something which he judged to be the water ewer. the rush of cold air was no longer perceptible; and, as vivenzio stretched out his hands, he found himself close to the walls. he remained motionless for a considerable time; but nothing occurred during the remainder of the night to excite his attention, though he continued to watch with unabated vigilance.
the first approaches of the morning were visible through the grated windows, breaking, with faint divisions of light, the darkness that still pervaded every other part, long before vivenzio was enabled to distinguish any object in his dungeon. instinctively and fearfully he turned his eyes, hot and inflamed with watching, toward them. there were four! he could see only four: but it might be that some intervening object prevented the fifth from becoming perceptible; and he waited impatiently to ascertain if it were so. as the light strengthened, however, and penetrated every corner of the cell, other objects of amazement struck his sight. on the[116] ground lay the broken fragments of the pitcher he had used the day before, and, at a small distance from them, nearer to the wall, stood the one he had noticed the first night. it was filled with water, and beside it was his food. he was now certain, that, by some mechanical contrivance, an opening was obtained through the iron wall, and that through this opening the current of air had found entrance. but how noiseless! for, had a feather even waved at the time, he must have heard it. again he examined that part of the wall; but both to sight and touch it appeared one even and uniform surface, while, to repeated and violent blows, there was no reverberating sound indicative of hollowness.
this perplexing mystery had for a time withdrawn his thoughts from the windows; but now, directing his eyes again toward them, he saw that the fifth had disappeared in the same manner as the preceding two, without the least distinguishable alteration of external appearances. the remaining four looked as the seven had originally looked; that is, occupying at irregular distances the top of the wall on that side of the dungeon. the tall folding-door, too, still seemed to stand beneath, in the centre of these four, as it had first stood in the centre of the seven. but he could no longer doubt what, on the preceding day, he fancied might be the effect of visual deception. the dungeon was smaller. the roof had lowered; and the opposite ends had contracted the intermediate distance by a space equal, he thought, to that over which the three windows had extended. he was bewildered in vain imaginings to account for these things. some frightful purpose, some devilish torture of mind or body,[117] some unheard-of device for producing exquisite misery, lurked, he was sure, in what had taken place.
oppressed with this belief, and distracted more by the dreadful uncertainty of whatever fate impended than he could be dismayed, he thought, by the knowledge of the worst, he sat ruminating, hour after hour, yielding his fears in succession to every haggard fancy. at last a horrible suspicion flashed suddenly across his mind, and he started up with a frantic air. “yes!” he exclaimed, looking wildly round his dungeon, and shuddering as he spoke,—“yes! it must be so! i see it! i feel the maddening truth like scorching flames upon my brain! eternal god! support me! it must be so! yes, yes, that is to be my fate! yon roof will descend! these walls will hem me round, and slowly, slowly, crush me in their iron arms! lord god! look down upon me, and in mercy strike me with instant death! o fiend! o devil!—is this your revenge?”
he dashed himself upon the ground in agony, tears burst from him, and the sweat stood in large drops upon his face: he sobbed aloud, he tore his hair, he rolled about like one suffering intolerable anguish of body, and would have bitten the iron floor beneath him; he breathed fearful curses upon tolfi, and the next moment passionate prayers to heaven for immediate death. then the violence of his grief became exhausted; and he lay still, weeping as a child would weep. the twilight of departing day shed its gloom around him ere he arose from that posture of utter and hopeless sorrow. he had taken no food. not one drop of water had cooled the fever of his parched lips. sleep had not visited his eyes[118] for six-and-thirty hours. he was faint with hunger; weary with watching, and with the excess of his emotions. he tasted of his food; he drank with avidity of the water, and reeling, like a drunken man, to his straw, cast himself upon it to brood again over the appalling image that had fastened itself upon his almost frenzied thoughts.
he slept; but his slumbers were not tranquil. he resisted, as long as he could, their approach; and when, at last, enfeebled nature yielded to their influence, he found no oblivion from his cares. terrible dreams haunted him; ghastly visions harrowed up his imagination; he shouted and screamed, as if he already felt the dungeon’s ponderous roof descending on him; he breathed hard and thick, as though writhing between its iron walls. then would he spring up, stare wildly about him, stretch forth his hands to be sure he yet had space enough to live, and, muttering some incoherent words, sink down again, to pass through the same fierce vicissitudes of delirious sleep.
the morning of the fourth day dawned upon vivenzio; but it was high noon before his mind shook off its stupor, or he awoke to a full consciousness of his situation. and what a fixed energy of despair sat upon his pale features as he cast his eyes upwards, and gazed upon the three windows that now alone remained! the three!—there were no more! and they seemed to number his own allotted days. slowly and calmly he next surveyed the top and sides, and comprehended all the meaning of the diminished height of the former, as well as of the gradual approximation of the latter. the contracted dimensions[119] of his mysterious prison were now too gross and palpable to be the juggle of his heated imagination.
still lost in wonder at the means, vivenzio could put no cheat upon his reason as to the end. by what horrible ingenuity it was contrived, that walls and roofs and windows should thus silently and imperceptibly, without noise and without motion, almost fold, as it were, within each other, he knew not. he only knew they did so; and he vainly strove to persuade himself it was the intention of the contriver to rack the miserable wretch who might be immured there with anticipation merely of a fate from which, in the very crisis of his agony, he was to be reprieved.
gladly would he have clung even to this possibility, if his heart would have let him; but he felt a dreadful assurance of its fallacy. and what matchless inhumanity it was to doom the sufferer to such lingering torments; to lead him day by day to so appalling a death, unsupported by the consolations of religion, unvisited by any human being, abandoned to himself, deserted of all, and denied even the sad privilege of knowing that his cruel destiny would awaken pity! alone he was to perish! alone he was to wait a slow-coming torture, whose most exquisite pangs would be inflicted by that very solitude and that tardy coming.
“it is not death i fear,” he exclaimed, “but the death i must prepare for! methinks, too, i could meet even that, all horrible and revolting as it is,—if it might overtake me now. but where shall i find fortitude to tarry till it come? how can i outlive the three long days and nights i have to live? there is no power within me to[120] bid the hideous spectre hence; none to make it familiar to my thoughts, or myself patient of its errand. my thoughts rather will flee from me, and i grow mad in looking at it. oh! for a deep sleep to fall upon me! that so, in death’s likeness, i might embrace death itself, and drink no more of the cup that is presented to me than my fainting spirit has already tasted!”
in the midst of these lamentations, vivenzio noticed that his accustomed meal, with the pitcher of water, had been conveyed, as before, into his dungeon. but this circumstance no longer excited his surprise. his mind was overwhelmed with others of a far greater magnitude. it suggested, however, a feeble hope of deliverance; and there is no hope so feeble as not to yield some support to a heart bending under despair. he resolved to watch, during the ensuing night, for the signs he had before observed, and, should he again feel the gentle, tremulous motion of the floor, or the current of air, to seize that moment for giving audible expression to his misery. some person must be near him, and within reach of his voice, at the instant when his food was supplied; some one, perhaps, susceptible of pity. or, if not, to be told even that his apprehensions were just, and that his fate was to be what he foreboded, would be preferable to a suspense which hung upon the possibility of his worst fears being visionary.
the night came; and, as the hour approached when vivenzio imagined he might expect the signs, he stood fixed and silent as a statue. he feared to breathe, almost, lest he might lose any sound which would warn him of their coming. while thus listening, with every[121] faculty of mind and body strained to an agony of attention, it occurred to him he should be more sensible of the motion, probably, if he stretched himself along the iron floor. he accordingly laid himself softly down, and had not been long in that position when—yes—he was certain of it—the floor moved under him! he sprang up, and, in a voice suffocated nearly with emotion, called aloud. he paused—the motion ceased—he felt no stream of air—all was hushed—no voice answered to his—he burst into tears; and, as he sunk to the ground, in renewed anguish, exclaimed, “o my god! my god! you alone have power to save me now, or strengthen me for the trial you permit.”
another morning dawned upon the wretched captive, and the fatal index of his doom met his eyes. two windows!—and two days—and all would be over! fresh food—fresh water! the mysterious visit had been paid, though he had implored it in vain. but how awfully was his prayer answered in what he now saw! the roof of the dungeon was within a foot of his head. the two ends were so near that in six paces he trod the space between them. vivenzio shuddered as he gazed, and as his steps traversed the narrow area; but his feelings no longer vented themselves in frantic wailings. with folded arms, and clenched teeth; with eyes that were bloodshot from much watching, and fixed with a vacant glare upon the ground; with a hard, quick breathing, and a hurried walk,—he strode backward and forward in silent musing for several hours. what mind shall conceive, what tongue utter, or what pen describe, the dark and terrible character of his thoughts? like the fate that[122] moulded them, they had no similitude in the wide range of this world’s agony for man. suddenly he stopped, and his eyes were riveted upon that part of the wall which was over his bed of straw. words are inscribed there! a human language, traced by a human hand! he rushes toward them; but his blood freezes as he reads,—
“i, ludovico sforza, tempted by the gold of the prince of tolfi, spent three years in contriving and executing this accursed triumph of my art. when it was completed, the perfidious tolfi, more devil than man, who conducted me hither one morning to be witness, as he said, of its perfection, doomed me to be the first victim of my own pernicious skill; lest, as he declared, i should divulge the secret, or repeat the effort of my ingenuity. may god pardon him, as i hope he will me, that ministered to his unhallowed purpose. miserable wretch, whoe’er thou art, that readest these lines, fall on thy knees, and invoke, as i have done, his sustaining mercy who alone can nerve thee to meet the vengeance of tolfi, armed with his tremendous engine which, in a few hours, must crush you, as it will the needy wretch who made it.”
a deep groan burst from vivenzio. he stood, like one transfixed, with dilated eyes, expanded nostrils, and quivering lips, gazing at this fatal inscription. it was as if a voice from the sepulchre had sounded in his ears, “prepare.” hope forsook him. there was his sentence, recorded in those dismal words. the future stood unveiled before him, ghastly and appalling. his brain already feels the descending horror; his bones seem to crack and crumble in the mighty grasp of the iron walls![123] unknowing what it is he does, he fumbles in his garment for some weapon of self-destruction. he clenches his throat in his convulsive gripe, as though he would strangle himself at once. he stares upon the walls; and his warring spirit demands, “will they not anticipate their office if i dash my head against them?” an hysterical laugh chokes him as he exclaims, “why should i? he was but a man who died first in their fierce embrace; and i should be less than man not to do as much!”
the evening sun was descending, and vivenzio beheld its golden beams streaming through one of the windows. what a thrill of joy shot through his soul at the sight! it was a precious link that united him, for the moment, with the world beyond. there was ecstasy in the thought.
as he gazed, long and earnestly, it seemed as if the windows had lowered sufficiently for him to reach them. with one bound, he was beneath them; with one wild spring, he clung to the bars. whether it was so contrived, purposely to madden with delight the wretch who looked, he knew not; but, at the extremity of a long vista cut through the solid rocks, the ocean, the sky, the setting sun, olive groves, shady walks, and, in the farthest distance, delicious glimpses of magnificent sicily, burst upon his sight. how exquisite was the cool breeze as it swept across his cheek, loaded with fragrance! he inhaled it as though it were the breath of continued life. and there was a freshness in the landscape, and in the rippling of the calm, green sea, that fell upon his withering heart like dew upon the parched earth. how he gazed, and panted, and still clung to his hold! sometimes[124] hanging by one hand, sometimes by the other, and then grasping the bars with both, as loath to quit the smiling paradise outstretched before him; till, exhausted, and his hands swollen and benumbed, he dropped helpless down, and lay stunned for a considerable time by the fall.
when he recovered, the glorious vision had vanished. he was in darkness. he doubted whether it was not a dream that had passed before his sleeping fancy; but gradually his scattered thoughts returned, and with them came remembrance. yes! he had looked once again upon the gorgeous splendor of nature! once again his eyes had trembled beneath their veiled lids at the sun’s radiance, and sought repose in the soft verdure of the olive-tree or the gentle swell of undulating waves. o that he were a mariner, exposed upon those waves to the worst fury of storm and tempest, or a very wretch, loathsome with disease, plague-stricken, and his body one leprous contagion from crown to sole, hunted forth to gasp out the remnant of infectious life beneath those verdant trees, so he might shun the destiny upon whose edge he tottered!
vain thoughts like these would steal over his mind from time to time, in spite of himself; but they scarcely moved it from that stupor into which it had sunk, and which kept him, during the whole night, like one who had been drugged with opium. he was equally insensible to the calls of hunger and of thirst, though the third day was now commencing since even a drop of water had passed his lips. he remained on the ground, sometimes sitting, sometimes lying; at intervals sleeping heavily, and, when[125] not sleeping, silently brooding over what was to come, or talking aloud, in disordered speech, of his wrongs, of his friends, of his home, and of those he loved, with a confused mingling of all.
in this pitiable condition, the sixth and last morning dawned upon vivenzio, if dawn it might be called,—the dim, obscure light which faintly struggled through the one solitary window of his dungeon. he could hardly be said to notice the melancholy token. and yet he did notice it; for, as he raised his eyes and saw the portentous sign, there was a slight convulsive distortion of his countenance. but what did attract his notice, and at the sight of which his agitation was excessive, was the change the iron bed had undergone. it was a bed no longer. it stood before him, the visible semblance of a funeral couch or bier! when he beheld this, he started from the ground; and, in raising himself, suddenly struck his head against the roof, which was now so low that he could no longer stand upright. “god’s will be done!” was all he said, as he crouched his body, and placed his hand upon the bier; for such it was. the iron bedstead had been so contrived, by the mechanical art of ludovico sforza, that, as the advancing walls came in contact with its head and feet, a pressure was produced upon concealed springs, which, when made to play, set in motion a very simple though ingeniously contrived machinery that effected the transformation. the object was, of course, to heighten, in the closing scene of this horrible drama, all the feelings of despair and anguish which the preceding one had aroused. for the same reason, the last window was so made as to admit only a shadowy[126] kind of gloom rather than light, that the wretched captive might be surrounded, as it were, with every seeming preparation for approaching death.
vivenzio seated himself on his bier. then he knelt and prayed fervently; and sometimes tears would gush from him. the air seemed thick, and he breathed with difficulty; or it might be that he fancied it was so, from the hot and narrow limits of his dungeon, which were now so diminished that he could neither stand up nor lie down at his full length. but his wasted spirits and oppressed mind no longer struggled with him. he was past hope, and fear shook him no more. happy if thus revenge had struck its final blow; for he would have fallen beneath it almost unconscious of a pang. but such a lethargy of the soul, after such an excitement of its fiercest passions, had entered into the diabolical calculations of tolfi; and the fell artificer of his designs had imagined a counteracting device.
the tolling of an enormous bell struck upon the ears of vivenzio! he started. it beat but once. the sound was so close and stunning that it seemed to shatter his very brain, while it echoed through the rocky passages like reverberating peals of thunder. this was followed by a sudden crash of the roof and walls, as if they were about to fall upon and close around him at once. vivenzio screamed, and instinctively spread forth his arms, as though he had a giant’s strength to hold them back. they had moved nearer to him, and were now motionless. vivenzio looked up, and saw the roof almost touching his head, even as he sat cowering beneath it; and he felt that a further contraction of but a[127] few inches only must commence the frightful operation. roused as he had been, he now gasped for breath. his body shook violently; he was bent nearly double. his hands rested upon either wall, and his feet were drawn under him to avoid the pressure in front. thus he remained for more than an hour, when that deafening bell beat again, and again came the crash of horrid death. but the concussion was now so great that it struck vivenzio down. as he lay gathered up in lessened bulk, the bell beat loud and frequent; crash succeeded crash; and on and on and on came the mysterious engine of death, till vivenzio’s smothered groans were heard no more. he was horribly crushed by the ponderous roof and collapsing sides; and the flattened bier was his iron shroud.
