“Where dost thou see this vision?” demanded Alan.
“Where!” echoed Lady Rookwood, becoming for the first time sensible of the presence of a stranger. “Ha — who are you that question me? — what are you? — speak!”
“No matter who or what I am,” returned Alan, “I ask you what you behold.”
“Can you see nothing?”
“Nothing,” replied Alan.
“You knew Sir Piers Rookwood?”
“Is it he?” asked Alan, drawing near her.
“It is,” replied Lady Rookwood; “I have followed him hither, and I will follow him whithersoever he leads me, were it to ——”
“What doth he now?” asked Alan; “do you see him still?”
“The figure points to that sarcophagus,” returned Lady Rookwood —“can you raise up the lid?”
“No,” replied Alan; “my strength will not avail to lift it.”
“Yet let the trial be made,” said Lady Rookwood; “the figure points there still — my own arm shall aid you.”
Alan watched her in dumb wonder. She advanced towards the marble monument, and beckoned him to follow. He reluctantly complied. Without any expectation of being able to move the ponderous lid of the sarcophagus, at Lady Rookwood’s renewed request he applied himself to the task. What was his surprise, when, beneath their united efforts, he found the ponderous slab slowly revolve upon its vast hinges, and, with little further difficulty, it was completely elevated; though it still required the exertion of all Alan’s strength to prop it open, and prevent its falling back.
“What does it contain?” asked Lady Rookwood.
“A warrior’s ashes,” returned Alan.
“There is a rusty dagger upon a fold of faded linen,” cried Lady Rookwood, holding down the light.
“It is the weapon with which the first dame of the house of Rookwood was stabbed,” said Alan, with a grim smile:
“Which whoso findeth in the tomb
Shall clutch until the hour of doom;
And when ’tis grasped by hand of clay,
The curse of blood shall pass away.
So saith the rhyme. Have you seen enough?”
“No,” said Lady Rookwood, precipitating herself into the marble coffin. “That weapon shall be mine.”
“Come forth — come forth,” cried Alan. “My arm trembles — I cannot support the lid.”
“I will have it, though I grasp it to eternity,” shrieked Lady Rookwood, vainly endeavoring to wrest away the dagger, which was fastened, together with the linen upon which it lay, by some adhesive substance to the bottom of the shell.
Death of Lady Rookwood
At this moment Alan Rookwood happened to cast his eye upward, and he then beheld what filled him with new terror. The axe of the sable statue was poised above its head, as in the act to strike him. Some secret machinery, it was evident, existed between the sarcophagus lid and this mysterious image. But in the first impulse of his alarm Alan abandoned his hold of the slab, and it sunk slowly downwards. He uttered a loud cry as it moved. Lady Rookwood heard this cry. She raised herself at the same moment — the dagger was in her hand — she pressed it against the lid, but its downward force was too great to be withstood. The light was within the sarcophagus, and Alan could discern her features. The expression was terrible. She uttered one shriek and the lid closed for ever.
Alan was in total darkness. The light had been enclosed with Lady Rookwood. There was something so horrible in her probable fate, that even he shuddered as he thought upon it. Exerting all his remaining strength, he essayed to raise the lid, but now it was more firmly closed than ever. It defied all his power. Once, for an instant, he fancied that it yielded to his straining sinews, but it was only his hand that slided upon the surface of the marble. It was fixed — immovable. The sides and lid rang with the strokes which the unfortunate lady bestowed upon them with the dagger’s point; but those sounds were not long heard. Presently all was still; the marble ceased to vibrate with her blows. Alan struck the lid with his knuckles, but no response was returned. All was silent.
He now turned his attention to his own situation, which had become sufficiently alarming. An hour must have elapsed, yet Luke had not arrived. The door of the vault was closed — the key was in the lock, and on the outside. He was himself a prisoner within the tomb. What if Luke should not return? What if he were slain, as it might chance, in the enterprise? That thought flashed across his brain like an electric shock. None knew of his retreat but his grandson. He might perish of famine within this desolate vault.
He checked this notion as soon as it was formed — it was too dreadful to be indulged in. A thousand circumstances might conspire to detain Luke. He was sure to come. Yet the solitude — the darkness was awful, almost intolerable. The dying and the dead were around him. He dared not stir.
Another hour — an age it seemed to him — had passed. Still Luke came not. Horrible forebodings crossed him; but he would not surrender himself to them. He rose, and crawled in the direction, as he supposed, of the door — fearful, even of the stealthy sound of his own footsteps. He reached it, and his heart once more throbbed with hope. He bent his ear to the key; he drew in his breath; he listened for some sound, but nothing was to be heard. A groan would have been almost music in his ears.
Another hour was gone! He was now a prey to the most frightful apprehensions, agitated in turns by the wildest emotions of rage and terror. He at one moment imagined that Luke had abandoned him, and heaped curses upon his head; at the next, convinced that he had fallen, he bewailed with equal bitterness his grandson’s fate and his own. He paced the tomb like one distracted; he stamped upon the iron plate; he smote with his hands upon the door; he shouted, and the vault hollowly echoed his lamentations. But Time’s sand ran on, and Luke arrived not.
Alan now abandoned himself wholly to despair. He could no longer anticipate his grandson’s coming, no longer hope for deliverance. His fate was sealed. Death awaited him. He must anticipate his slow but inevitable stroke, enduring all the grinding horrors of starvation. The contemplation of such an end was madness, but he was forced to contemplate it now; and so appalling did it appear to his imagination, that he half resolved to dash out his brains against the walls of the sepulchre, and put an end at once to his tortures; and nothing, except a doubt whether he might not, by imperfectly accomplishing his purpose, increase his own suffering, prevented him from putting this dreadful idea into execution. His dagger was gone, and he had no other weapon. Terrors of a new kind now assailed him. The dead, he fancied, were bursting from their coffins, and he peopled the darkness with grisly phantoms. They were around about him on each side, whirling and rustling, gibbering, groaning, shrieking, laughing, and lamenting. He was stunned, stifled. The air seemed to grow suffocating, pestilential; the wild laughter was redoubled; the horrible troop assailed him; they dragged him along the tomb, and amid their howls he fell, and became insensible.
When he returned to himself, it was some time before he could collect his scattered faculties; and when the agonizing consciousness of his terrible situation forced itself upon his mind, he had nigh relapsed into oblivion. He arose. He rushed towards the door; he knocked against it with his knuckles till the blood streamed from them; he scratched against it with his nails till they were torn off by the roots. With insane fury he hurled himself against the iron frame; it was in vain. Again he had recourse to the trap-door. He searched for it; he found it. He laid himself upon the ground. There was no interval of space in which he could insert a finger’s point. He beat it with his clenched hand; he tore it with his teeth; he jumped upon it; he smote it with his heel. The iron returned a sullen