A Creature of the Night: An Italian Enigma. Fergus Hume
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dense as the darkness of Egypt--I viewed the mournful scene before me, with mingled feelings of curiosity and dread.
It was evidently very old, for even under the softening light of the moon, the near tombs looked discoloured and time-worn. I saw the soft swell of the green turf, betokening graves, upon which grew the grass long and rank; the milky gleam of slender white columns, broken at the top to typify the short lives of those who slept below; and while yonder, in frowning grey stone, stood a solemn pyramid, built in imitation of those Egyptian monsters by the Nile, here, near at hand, a miniature temple of white marble, delicate and fragile in construction, hinted at the graceful architecture of Greece. Among these myriad tombs arose the slender, lance-shaped cypress-trees, and their dark forms alternating with gleaming crosses of white marble, sombre pyramids, classic temples, and innumerable lines of tall columns, gave to this singular scene the aspect of a visionary city of the dead, which had become visible to mortal eyes by the enchantments of the moon.
Fascinated by the weirdness of this solitude, I let my cigar fall to the ground, and, hidden in the gloom of the cypress-trees, stared long and earnestly at this last abode of the old Veronese, when suddenly my hair bristled at the roots, a cold sweat broke out on my forehead, and a nervous shudder made my frame tremble as if with ague.
The cause of this sudden fear was that, while wrapt in contemplation of this desolate necropolis, I heard a laugh, a low, wicked laugh, which seemed to come from the bowels of the earth. It was now nearly midnight, that hour when the dead are said to come forth and wander among the living, whose nightly sleep so strangely mocks the semblance of that still repose which chains these spectres to their tombs during the day. This idea pierced my brain like a knife, and for the moment, under the influence of the hour, the ghastly scene, the evil laugh, I believed that I was about to witness this terrible resurrection. I tried to turn and fly, but my limbs were paralyzed, and like a statue of stone I stood there rooted to the earth, feeling as if I were under the influence of some horrible nightmare.
Again I heard that wicked laugh, and this time it seemed to come from a tomb near me, a square block of gray stone, in the centre of which was an iron door, evidently the entrance to some vault. Beside this portal stood a life-sized figure in white marble of the Angel of Death, guarding the entrance with a flaming sword, the undulating blade of which seemed, to my startled eye, to waver against the blackness of the door. All round this strange tomb the grass grew long and thick, but, half veiled by the tangled herbage, star-shaped flowers glimmered in the moonlight.
In another moment I would have fled, when for the third time I heard the evil laugh, the iron door of the tomb slowly opened, and a dark figure appeared on the threshold. The sight was so terrifying that I tried to mutter a prayer, feeling at the time as firm a belief in the visitation of the dead as any old woman; but my throat was so dry that I could do nothing but remain silent in my hiding-place and stare at this ghoul, vampire, wraith, or whatever it was, leaving its tomb.
To add to the horror of the situation, the moon had obscured herself behind a thick cloud, and there was now a deep darkness over all the graveyard, a darkness in which I could see nothing, and only hear the faint sigh of the wind, the rustle of the dry grasses, and the loud beating of my heart.
Suddenly I felt that this creature of the night was passing near me, and in abject terror I shrank back against the rough trunk of the tree under which I was standing. I heard nothing in the still night, I saw nothing in the thick darkness; but I felt it pass, by that sixth sense which is possessed by those who have highly strung nerves. In another moment the moon emerged from behind the clouds in all her splendour, and the burst of light gave me courage, for without considering the danger, either material or immaterial, I rushed quickly towards the broken wall, in which direction I judged this unseen ghoul had gone.
The white moonlight flooded the whole space between the burial-ground and the river, so that I saw clearly this figure walking quickly away in the direction of the Ponte Aleardi. It was draped in a long black cloak with a monkish hood, and with its trailing, noiseless garments it seemed to glide along in the moonlight like a shadow.
I had been so quick in my pursuit that it was only a little distance away, and as I peered cautiously over the broken wall it paused for a moment, and, throwing back its hood, looked towards the place where I was hiding. The space between us was so small and the moonlight so lustrous that I could see the face and head plainly rising from amid the dark drapery.
The face was that of a woman, a beautiful woman with full crimson lips, large dark eyes, and great masses of reddish-coloured hair, for even in the cold moonlight I could see the warm, bronze glint of her tresses. One hand, slender and white, clasped the dark robe to her breast, and she looked towards the darkness of the broken wall as if she knew that some one had seen her terrible resurrection. On her delicate features there was a cold, stern look, like that of the ancient Medusa, and truly I felt as if I were turning into stone before the cruel glare of those eyes which seemed to pierce the gloom in which I lay hid. It will be said that I describe somewhat minutely the appearance of this ghoul, seeing that I only beheld her for a moment in the pale, uncertain gleam of the moon; but so close was she to the wall, and so highly strung were my nerves by the weirdness of the situation, that the sudden apparition of this creature of the night photographed itself indelibly on my brain.
At last she seemed satisfied with her gazing at the burial-ground from whence she had emerged, and, again drawing her hood over her face, glided rapidly away towards the Ponte Aleardi. Moved by curiosity and supernatural fear, I determined to follow this spectre and find out where she was going, so without a moment's hesitation I jumped down, and, keeping in the shadow of the wall, stole after her noiselessly and swiftly.
Who was she? Some unhappy ghost of antique Verona, who had committed one of those terrible crimes invented by Lucrezia Borgia, and who was condemned by God to nightly revisit the scene of her former splendour as a punishment for her evil life? Some ghoul who left the feast of the dead in order to prey upon the living? Some vampire, lusting for blood, hastening towards the sleeping city to select her victim and drain him of his life-blood? All the wild, weird tales which I had heard recurred to my memory; all the terrible legends of Brittany, of the East, of Spain, and of the savage North. The memories of witches rifling the dead for their unholy needs, of wizards holding orgies in lonely churchyards, of magicians evoking the silent tenants of the grave by powerful spells, and of demons entering the bodies of the newly dead in order to roam the midnight world--all these gruesome ideas surged in my brain like the delirium of fever.
My fear had passed away. I felt intensely curious to know the errand upon which this woman was bent, and, with all my faculties sharpened by danger, I sped swiftly after this flying spectre, which, looking neither to right nor left, glided rapidly onward towards the sleeping city of Verona.
CHAPTER II.
A BOCCACCIAN ADVENTURE
Italian towns are very perplexing to strangers. Keep to the principal thoroughfares built in modern days, and you may have a reasonable hope of finding your way about; but once get enmeshed in the crooked, narrow, winding streets of the period of the middle ages and you are lost. The Italians, like Nature, delight in curves, and these narrow alleys, with cobble-stone pavements and no side-walks, dignified by the name of streets, twist in and out, and here and there, between forbidding houses, seven or eight stories in height, under heavy archways, which threaten to fall and crush the unwary stranger, and down steep flights of worn steps, until you become quite bewildered by the labyrinthian windings. Then these houses are built high in order to exclude the burning sun from the alleys, and a cold, humid feeling pervades the entire network of streets; so that what with the gloom, the twistings, and the treacherous pitfalls in dark corners, one feels like Orpheus going down to Hades in search of lost Eurydice.
Having been warned of the difficulty of exploring these unknown depths, I had mostly confined my wanderings to the broad, modern streets and the populous piazzas; therefore as long as my spectre guide kept to the Via Pallone, which begins at the Ponte Aleardi and ends at the Piazza Vittoria Emanuele, I felt quite safe. When, however, after leaving the Piazza she plunged into the narrow streets of the medieval period,