The Bronze Statue, or, The Virgin's Kiss — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

A oe LE A LL TT. » *. ae Se te » C7 -—s~ = + ——— ee © - f . pe 94 THE BRONZE STATUE. bi CHAPTER XXV. and disappearing through that of “Me another. = o~ . Without entertaining any definite or positive idea of the purposes which this machinery was made to serve, @ petri- 'fying horror sprang up in the mind of Ar the bottom of the granite staircase | the maiden, the blood ran cold in her : there was a narrow passage, vaulted! veins, the flesh crept upon her bones, like all the others which the maiden had | and a glacial sensation of indescribable threaded this night, and the rugged | dread seized like a numbness upon her walls of which bespoke a massiveness| limbs, her heart, and her brain, as the that gave the idea of a living sepulchre. | various features, combinations, and de The White Lady held the lamp high | tails of the mechanism slowly developed up, so as to afford the maiden the full| themselves to her view. For, even as benefit of its rays; and as she thus car- the child recoils with intuitive dread ried the flickering pensile flame, a dis-| from the presence of the snake which turbed fancy might have assimilated it| starts up in its path, and which it be- to.a will-o’-the-wisp borne by the hand| holds for the first time—even, also, as of a spectral figure through an atmos-| the hair would bristle upon the head of phere which seemed one solid mass of | a savage were he shown a rack, an iron darkness. For there was something | boot, a thumb-screw, or any other in- awfully solemn in the spectacle of that|strument of fiendish torture. though lady clothed in garments of such gleam-| none of their uses should be precisely ing white, moving slowly through the | comprehended by him at the moment; deep subterranean of a castle to which! so was it with the affrighted Angela, as . Tumor had so long attributed supernatu-| she shrank in horrified amazement from ral terrors; and having already said the presence of the tremendous ma- enough with her own lips to convince | chinery, which she knew to be some- the maiden that some tremendous mys- | thing dreadful, but the infernal nature - tery enveloped all the circumstances of | of which she could not precisely under- her existence. | stand. But Angela had not-many minutes to! « Angela,’ said the White Lady, in a make these reflections, for the rippling | tone indicative of a profound affliction, the expression of which she evidently of water soon began to murmur gently upon her ears, and almost immediately | attempted to subdue as much as possi- afterwards she was conducted by the| ble; «I would fuin have spared you the White Lady into a vaulted chamber, necessity—the painful necessity—-of sinall but lofty, and where a spectacle gazing on this appalling proof of that ingenuity which Man, alas! so often as strange as it was terrible slowly de- veloped all its hideous details to her| exercises for the most fiendish of pur- view. poses. But there was no other way by THE CHAMBER OF THE MACHINERY— THE VAULTS. —- base SA yy * od tb a . Sivan = - ‘eorer bertce> fe” oP ees es Es ee — e + ~s > - — ‘ . 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' > ' ‘ ‘wri » re f 4 ' > ¥ be 4 4 e ‘he ‘| : Hj ae he: ts ° yo ‘ Me pee 11 Ob ears bd « a? a + ; ih : tte’ * ~ 4 ~ 4 Pia sf mY ' § - 7 . - hy Spee ~ Ams Amazed and horrified, bewildered| which I couldhave conducted you forth with all the most startling feelings of| from the Castle: it was therefore im- wonder, and all the keenest emotions of perative upon us to pass through this alarm, Angela’s looks were rivetted and subterranean vault of terrors.’ her senses were absorbed in the con-| ‘0, lady!’ exclaimed Angela, whose templation of that frightful mechanism, | cheeks had been rendered by cold hor- which has already been so minutely de-| ror almost as devoid of coloring as those scribed in an early chapter, and which! of her mysterious guide; ‘a secret stood slowly out from the obscurity as| voice appears to whisper in my souk the White Lady approached nearer | that, although this machinery is still and with the lamp, and as the maiden’s eyes noiseless, yet there is death in its grew accustomed to the gloom that was| mighty wheels were they setin motion thus lighted up. and the rending shrieks of human ago- Yes, there were the six vast wooden ny in the sounds that its creaking axles cylinders, covered with innumerable! would send forth ! : iron blades, and furnished with the coils} ‘Merciful heaven !? ejaculated the of rope, and one huge heavy weight, be- | lady, her white garments shaking with longing to the motive-power of the di-| the effects of the cold shiedder ‘wittele abolical machinery! Above was the! passed thus visibly over her form: trap-door set in the vaulted roof, and | ‘ question me not, I implore you! On beneath flowed the deep stream, rip- the concrary, Angela, dear An ela ’ sho pling from under an arch in one wall, continued, with more foueedl excite- comicbooks.com