The Bronze Statue, or, The Virgin's Kiss — page 350: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

348 THE BRONZE STATUE. | safe to retrace their way to the apart- ments which they inhabit! | Nevertheless they could not shut out from their ears the terrible clanging of the bell when it rang the doom of the Marquis of Schomberg, that bell whose memories at times for the remainder of their existence. For although the White Lady had been an inmate of the subterraneans during twenty years, and although, as she herself had informed the pages, |: many victims had in that interval paid|iron tongue sounded like the voice of the awful forfeit of their lives to the | fate amidst the vast subterraneans, and vengeance of the Bronze Statue; never- 'echoed through all the spacious vaults theless, she had hitherto escaped the|and stone corridors beneath the right contemplation of any portion of that} wing of Altendorf Castle ! stupendous punishment, the mere| And the Marquis of Schomberg met knowledge of whose details was suffi- | his doom with the nerve of a man who cient to harrow up the soul without the | summons all his courage to his assist- necessity of becoming a witness of the | ance when he sees that death is inevi- accursed tragedy. table; and thus, on this memorable But now, at last, accident or destiny | night, were two victims devoted to the had led her to behold the most hideous | Virgin’s Kiss! phase of that punishment from which even in imagination she had so often recoiled as if from the menacing ap- pearance of a monstrous serpent; and sick at heart, with a reeling of the brain and a film upon the eye, she stood leaning against the wall, mechanically holding the lamp and feeling like one| Ir was nine o’clock in the evening of laboring under the influence of a hor- | the day following the tremendous tra- rible nightmare. 'gedy chronicled in the previous chap- As for Lionel and Konrad, they were | ter: and the chapel of Altendorf Castle stunned, crushed, annihilated by the ap- | was blazing with light and brilliant with palling spectacle which they had just |a gorgeously-attired congregation. The CHAPTER LXXXVI. | 5 ; | THE BRIDAL CEREMONY. 2 a se "2 = . » — ~- a a gee beholden; and, with their eyes still fixed upon the infernal machinery, as it slowly revolved in the process of re- winding the cordi and drawing up the walls were hung with banners, and with 'drapery arranged in graceful festoons: | elossy velvet curtains, massively fringed 'with gold, covered the arched windows ; weight, they could not so far collect | and a carpet of the same costly material their thoughts or master their sensa-| was stretched upon the pavement.— tions as to assure themselves that they | Rows of chairs, covered with gilding were awake and not dreaming,—that | and having rich velvet cushions, were they had just gazed upon a stern reality | placed for the accommodation of the la- and were not the prey of a disordered | dies; and the nobles, the knights, and fancy ! the gentlemen stood behind the seats But, hark !--while the lady and the | thus set apart for the fair sex. youths are thus under the influence of | The altar was gorgeously decorated. all the terror, consternation, and doubt | Innumerable wax-candles blazed there- excited by the awful spectacle which | on, and tapers were arranged in branch- they have just witnessed, the bell sends | es round all the pillars which supported forth its ominous sound again! the lofty roof. From that sculptured Almighty God! there is, theu, ano- | ceiling, too, depended three gilt chan- ther victim this night for the Bronze |! deliers, each containing twenty lights; Statue and the Virgin’s Kiss! and the plumes of the ladies were span- But, oh! not for worlds, no, not for | gled with diamonds that shone like worlds, would the Carmelite and the | myriads of stars. Nothing could sur- pages remain in that place to behold | pass the splendor of the scene; it was another representation of the hellish | dazzling, bewildering, almost everpow- tragedy! ‘The sound of that dreadful! ering; for everything was radiant and bell startled them all three into life | penetrated with light. and activity; and away, away from the! In front of the altar two thrones were cnamber of the machinery, back, back | erected upon a dais approached by five into the mighty subterranean full of | steps; and yet the altar itself stood so combs, there to conceal themselves|high it was plainly seen above the~ amidst the monuments and extinguish | backs of those royal seats. Superb va- the iamp until it shall be prudent and | ses of crystal aud porcelain, some cone a ’ a . ¥ bd ' 7 i a . ‘a »* € f ot i Ges > o a i4 Py. i oC - ¥ ; Ma ae = Fe @ ~~ -— + oe — 4 po ® . ry 4 fa *. oe ead ot, = ara Pete - = ‘ a — ~~ - Me i a ~, *- -~ - _* r. i ee : - PF at, Gl aon om ne EN eee So 2 Ags ue >< _ « 2. « ——e -— comicbooks.com