"We have loved him," replied the second figure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Chamber of Mystery.]

"Is that a crime?" cried Ebba. "If so, I am equally culpable with you."

"You will share our doom," replied the third figure.

"Heaven have mercy upon me!" exclaimed the agonised girl, dropping upon her knees.

At this moment a terrible voice from behind the curtain exclaimed, "Sign, or Auriol is lost for ever."

"I cannot yield my soul, even to save him," cried Ebba distractedly.

"Witness his chastis.e.m.e.nt, then," cried the voice.

And as the words were uttered, a side door was opened on the opposite side, and Auriol was dragged forth from it by two masked personages, who looked like familiars of the Inquisition.

"Do not yield to the demands of this fiend, Ebba!" cried Auriol, gazing at her distractedly.

"Will you save him before he is cast, living, into the tomb?" cried the voice.

And at the words, a heavy slab of marble rose slowly from the floor near where Ebba sat, and disclosed a dark pit beneath.

Ebba gazed into the abyss with indescribable terror.

"There he will be immured, unless you sign," cried the voice; "and, as he is immortal, he will endure an eternity of torture."

"I cannot save him so, but I may precede him," cried Ebba. And throwing her hands aloft, she flung herself into the pit.

A fearful cry resounded through the chamber. It broke from Auriol, who vainly strove to burst from those who held him, and precipitate himself after Ebba.

Soon after this, and while Auriol was gazing into the abyss, a tongue of blue flame arose from it, danced for a moment in the air, and then vanished. No sooner was it gone than a figure, shrouded in black habiliments, and hooded and m.u.f.fled up like the three other female forms, slowly ascended from the vault, apparently without support, and remained motionless at its brink.

"Ebba!" exclaimed Auriol, in a voice of despair. "Is it you?"

The figure bowed its head, but spoke not.

"Sign!" thundered the voice. "Your attempt at self-destruction has placed you wholly in my power. Sign!"

At this injunction, the figure moved slowly towards the table, and to his unspeakable horror, Auriol beheld it take up the pen and write upon the parchment. He bent forward, and saw that the name inscribed thereon was EBBA THORNEYCROFT.

The groan to which he gave utterance was echoed by a roar of diabolical laughter.

The figure then moved slowly away, and ranged itself with the other veiled forms.

"All is accomplished," cried the voice. "Away with him!"

On this, a terrible clangour was heard; the lights were extinguished; and Auriol was dragged through the doorway from which he had been brought forth.

END OF THE FIRST BOOK

INTERMEAN

1800

CHAPTER I

THE TOMB OF THE ROSICRUCIAN

On the night of the 1st of March 1800, and at a late hour, a man, wrapped in a large horseman's cloak, and of strange and sinister appearance, entered an old deserted house in the neighbourhood of Stepney Green. He was tall, carried himself very erect, and seemed in the full vigour of early manhood; but his features had a worn and ghastly look, as if bearing the stamp of long-indulged and frightful excesses, while his dark gleaming eyes gave him an expression almost diabolical.

This person had gained the house from a garden behind it, and now stood in a large dismantled hall, from which a broad oaken staircase, with curiously-carved banisters, led to a gallery, and thence to the upper chambers of the habitation. Nothing could be more dreary than the aspect of the place. The richly-moulded ceiling was festooned with spiders'

webs, and in some places had fallen in heaps upon the floor; the glories of the tapestry upon the walls were obliterated by damps; the squares of black and white marble, with which the hall was paved, were loosened, and quaked beneath the footsteps; the wide and empty fireplace yawned like the mouth of a cavern; the bolts of the closed windows were rusted in their sockets; and the heaps of dust before the outer door proved that long years had elapsed since any one had pa.s.sed through it.

Taking a dark lantern from beneath his cloak, the individual in question gazed for a moment around him, and then, with a sardonic smile playing upon his features, directed his steps towards a room on the right, the door of which stood open.

This chamber, which was large and cased with oak, was wholly unfurnished, like the hall, and in an equally dilapidated condition. The only decoration remaining on its walls was the portrait of a venerable personage in the cap and gown of Henry the Eighth's time, painted against a panel--a circ.u.mstance which had probably saved it from destruction--and beneath it, fixed in another panel, a plate of bra.s.s, covered with mystical characters and symbols, and inscribed with the name "Cypria.n.u.s de Rougemont, Fra. R.C." The same name likewise appeared upon a label beneath the portrait, with the date 1550.

Pausing before the portrait, the young man threw the light of the lantern full upon it, and revealed features somewhat resembling his own in form, but of a severe and philosophic cast. In the eyes alone could be discerned the peculiar and terrible glimmer which distinguished his own glances.

After regarding the portrait for some time fixedly, he thus addressed it:

"Dost hear me, old ancestor?" he cried. "I, thy descendant, Cyprian de Rougemont, call upon thee to point out where thy gold is hidden? I know that thou wert a brother of the Rosy Cross--one of the illuminati--and didst penetrate the mysteries of nature, and enter the region of light.

I know, also, that thou wert buried in this house with a vast treasure; but though I have made diligent search for it, and others have searched before me, thy grave has never yet been discovered! Listen to me!

Methought Satan appeared to me in a dream last night, and bade me come hither, and I should find what I sought. The conditions he proposed were, that I should either give him my own soul, or win him that of Auriol Darcy. I a.s.sented. I am here. Where is thy treasure?"

After a pause, he struck the portrait with his clenched hand, exclaiming in a loud voice:

"Dost hear me, I say, old ancestor? I call on thee to give me thy treasure. Dost hear, I say?"

And he repeated the blow with greater violence.

Disturbed by the shock, the bra.s.s plate beneath the picture started from its place, and fell to the ground.

"What is this?" cried Rougemont, gazing into the aperture left by the plate. "Ha!--my invocation has been heard!"

And, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the lantern, he discovered, at the bottom of a little recess, about two feet deep, a stone, with an iron ring in the centre of it. Uttering a joyful cry, he seized the ring, and drew the stone forward without difficulty, disclosing an open s.p.a.ce beyond it.

"This, then, is the entrance to my ancestor's tomb," cried Rougemont; "there can be no doubt of it. The old Rosicrucian has kept his secret well; but the devil has helped me to wrest it from him. And now to procure the necessary implements, in case, as is not unlikely, I should experience further difficulty."

With this he hastily quitted the room, but returned almost immediately with a mallet, a lever, and a pitchfork; armed with which and the lantern, he crept through the aperture. This done, he found himself at the head of a stone staircase, which he descended, and came to the arched entrance of a vault. The door, which was of stout oak, was locked, but holding up the light towards it, he read the following inscription: