第70章

The company were dispersed through various alleys of the garden;the bridegroom and bride wandered through one where the delicious perfume of the orange trees mingled itself with that of the myrtles in blow.On their return to the ball, both of them asked, Had the company heard the exquisite sounds that floated through the garden just before they quitted it? No one had heard them.They expressed their surprise.The Englishman had never quitted the hall; it was said he smiled with a most particular and extraordinary expression as the remark was made.His silence had been noticed before, but it was ascribed to his ignorance of the Spanish language, an ignorance that Spaniards are not anxious either to expose or remove by speaking to a stranger.The subject of the music was not again reverted to till the guests were seated at supper, when Donna Ines and her young husband, exchanging a smile of delighted surprise, exclaimed they heard the same delicious sounds floating round them.The guests listened, but no one else could hear it;--everyone felt there was something extraordinary in this.Hush! was uttered by every voice almost at the same moment.A dead silence followed,--you would think, from their intent looks, that they listened with their very eyes.This deep silence, contrasted with the splendor of the feast, and the light effused from torches held by the domestics, produced a singular effect,--it seemed for some moments like an assembly of the dead.The silence was interrupted, though the cause of wonder had not ceased, by the entrance of Father Olavida, the Confessor of Donna Isabella, who had been called away previous to the feast, to administer extreme unction to a dying man in the neighborhood.He was a priest of uncommon sanctity, beloved in the family, and respected in the neighborhood, where he had displayed uncommon taste and talents for exorcism;--in fact, this was the good Father's forte, and he piqued himself on it accordingly.The devil never fell into worse hands than Father Olavida's, for when he was so contumacious as to resist Latin, and even the first verses of the Gospel of St.John in Greek, which the good Father never had recourse to but in cases of extreme stubbornness and difficulty,--(here Stanton recollected the English story of the Boy of Bilson, and blushed even in Spain for his countrymen),--then he always applied to the Inquisition; and if the devils were ever so obstinate before, they were always seen to fly out of the possessed, just as, in the midst of their cries (no doubt of blasphemy), they were tied to the stake.Some held out even till the flames surrounded them; but even the most stubborn must have been dislodged when the operation was over, for the devil himself could no longer tenant a crisp and glutinous lump of cinders.Thus Father Olavida's fame spread far and wide, and the Cardoza family had made uncommon interest to procure him for a Confessor, and happily succeeded.The ceremony he had just been performing had cast a shade over the good Father's countenance, but it dispersed as he mingled among the guests, and was introduced to them.Room was soon made for him, and he happened accidentally to be seated opposite the Englishman.As the wine was presented to him, Father Olavida (who, as I observed, was a man of singular sanctity)prepared to utter a short internal prayer.He hesitated,--trembled,--desisted; and, putting down the wine, wiped the drops from his forehead with the sleeve of his habit.Donna Isabella gave a sign to a domestic, and other wine of a higher quality was offered to him.His lips moved, as if in the effort to pronounce a benediction on it and the company, but the effort again failed; and the change in his countenance was so extraordinary, that it was perceived by all the guests.He felt the sensation that his extraordinary appearance excited, and attempted to remove it by again endeavoring to lift the cup to his lips.So strong was the anxiety with which the company watched him, that the only sound heard in that spacious and crowded hall was the rustling of his habit as he attempted to lift the cup to his lips once more--in vain.The guests sat in astonished silence.Father Olavida alone remained standing; but at that moment the Englishman rose, and appeared determined to fix Olavida's regards by a gaze like that of fascination.Olavida rocked, reeled, grasped the arm of a page, and at last, closing his eyes for a moment, as if to escape the horrible fascination of that unearthly glare (the Englishman's eyes were observed by all the guests, from the moment of his entrance, to effuse a most fearful and preternatural luster), exclaimed, "Who is among us?--Who?--I cannot utter a blessing while he is here.Icannot feel one.Where he treads, the earth is parched!--Where he breathes, the air is fire!--Where he feeds, the food is poison!--Where he turns his glance is lightning!--WHO IS AMONG US?--WHO?"repeated the priest in the agony of adjuration, while his cowl fallen back, his few thin hairs around the scalp instinct and alive with terrible emotion, his outspread arms protruded from the sleeves of his habit, and extended toward the awful stranger, suggested the idea of an inspired being in the dreadful rapture of prophetic denunciation.He stood--still stood, and the Englishman stood calmly opposite to him.There was an agitated irregularity in the attitudes of those around them, which contrasted strongly the fixed and stern postures of those two, who remained gazing silently at each other."Who knows him?" exclaimed Olavida, starting apparently from a trance; "who knows him? who brought him here?"The guests severally disclaimed all knowledge of the Englishman, and each asked the other in whispers, "who HAD brought him there?"Father Olavida then pointed his arm to each of the company, and asked each individually, "Do you know him?" No! no! no!" was uttered with vehement emphasis by every individual."But I know him," said Olavida, "by these cold drops!" and he wiped them off;--"by these convulsed joints!" and he attempted to sign the cross, but could not.He raised his voice, and evidently speaking with increased difficulty,--"By this bread and wine, which the faithful receive as the body and blood of Christ, but which HIS presence converts into matter as viperous as the suicide foam of the dying Judas,--by all these--I know him, and command him to be gone!--He is--he is--" and he bent forward as he spoke, and gazed on the Englishman with an expression which the mixture of rage, hatred, and fear rendered terrible.All the guests rose at these words,--the whole company now presented two singular groups, that of the amazed guests all collected together, and repeating, "Who, what is he?" and that of the Englishman, who stood unmoved, and Olavida, who dropped dead in the attitude of pointing to him.