Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/104

 three miles from Eisenherz. Her enemies said that by that short seclusion the wretched woman believed that she atoned for all the sins of the past twelvemonth. She usually went with only one attendant, the old soldier and his wife, who took care of the chapel, providing her with simple food.

It was a cold and foggy evening when the duchess descended from her great gilt coach, and took the winding way through the woods that led her to the chapel. Her yellow velvet train rustled over the wet dead leaves. The wind was sighing among the leafless larches, and moaning among the black boughs of the fir trees. Two hundred yards up, a stirring in the brake startled the duchess; she looked, and saw, by the light her servant carried, an old man, whom she recognised as the old guardian of the chapel, kneeling and gathering fir-cones. He looked pale and ill, and did not at first rise, but shook either with cold or fear when the duchess addressed him.

"Karl Hauffman," she cried, "why are you so far from the chapel? Did you not expect me? Is the man imbecile? Answer."

The old man rose, drew himself feebly up, and made the military salute, still trembling with the cold as he made the salute, and came nearer. Just then an owl hooted three times.

"Your royal highness," he said, his teeth chattering, "we did expect you; we had your message yesterday; but my wife is ill, and I have been out gathering fir-cones for the fire."

"You should not leave the chapel. Are the altar lamps lit for our devotions?"

"Your royal highness, they are. We expected you half an hour ago."

"And are the candles ready in the room of the Twelve Apostles?"

"Everything has been made ready for your royal highness; and I will go forward with the lantern through the wood."

"The wind seems rising," said the duchess.

"There will be a storm soon," said the old man, as he led on with the light.

As the old man pushed open the rusty chapel door, which was wet with damp, the wind shook the mouldy black and silver hangings of the walls, which rose and fell with a melancholy wavelike swell. Two of the candles on the altar blew out with the draught. At that moment a horn sounded higher up the mountain, and seemed to be answered by an echo far down towards the city, and an owl screeched as if in answer. Then there was a deep silence.

The duchess knelt for some time in prayer. Then she rose, and said to her attendant, "You remain here, while I go and make my confessions, according to my custom, in the chamber of the Apostles."

The duchess rose, crossed herself, and lifting the black hangings to the left of the altar, entered the apartment which her superstition had so strangely furnished. The black curtain fell behind her, and seemed to shut her out for ever from all living things. It seemed a grave that she had entered. It was a long low-roofed room, dimly lit, and hung with dark tapestry like the chapel. In the centre stood a long table, covered with a dark red cloth, round which, with gilt cups before them, sat twelve wax figures of the apostles, as large as life, with flaxen hair and beards, and clothed according to the strictest tradition of the old painters. The wax faces and staring black eyes of eleven of the number were fixed on Saint Peter, who, with the gilt cross keys in his right hand, sat at their head. The attitude of each apostle was varied. Saint John was turned half round listening to Saint Thomas; Judas was clutching the bag; Saint James was pointing to Heaven; Saint Mark was gazing thoughtfully on Saint Luke; Saint Luke was regarding Saint Peter with the intensest veneration. Three apostles alone at the lower end of the table were in shadow, for the lights at that end of the table had blown out.

The mind of the guilty duchess was rapt in awe at the sight of these august figures, which strongly stirred her imagination. She cast herself at the feet of Saint Peter.

"Holy Saint Peter," she exclaimed, "intercede for me at the golden gates, I pray thee, intercede for one who has done evil, it is true, but only that good might come. I struck down my chief enemy only that the people might be the more wisely governed and the town be saved from the tyranny of heresy. To-morrow a traitor dies upon the wheel, and an ambitious wanton will be found dead in her cell. Pardon, Holy Saint! Pardon! Let a miraculous voice, I pray thee, answer the penitent who now lies at thy feet. He does not answer. Is Heaven silent? Ye lesser apostles hear me then. Spare a guilty woman! Spare me! Spare"

As she uttered these incoherent prayers, the wretched woman, casting off her jewels and dishevelling her powdered hair, crept round from figure to figure in an agony of the most abject and superstitious fear.

Suddenly, as she burst into hysterical tears of passionate supplication, and crept on her knees from figure to figure, the first apostle in shadow, at whose feet she knelt and whose robe she at that moment clasped, sprang to his feet, held her down and seized her throat before she could utter a cry for help; a second and a third figure rose, and the three struck her to the ground with three fierce, swift, and simultaneous stabs. Then the three men disguised as apostles strode into the outer chapel.

"Woman!" they said to the terrified attendant of the duchess, "your mistress needs your help. Tell her the Sealed Knots planned this vengeance for her crimes. In the palace where it had long awaited her the vengeance might have been less sure and deadly." In a moment they had disappeared in the darkness.

It was afterwards said that on the frozen painted cruel face of that detestable dying woman, a Death's Head Moth was found resting. The omen had been accomplished. As