ing me, till you have settled when you will marry
Carlota."
" Marry Carlota ! " gasped the Major in an
agonised whisper.
" Why, you don't mean to say you're not going
A LEGEND OF GIBRALTAR. 63
to marry her ! " exclaimed the Ensign, throwing a
vast quantity of surprise into his expressive coun-
tenance.
"Why — why, what should I marry her for?"
stammered the Major.
" Oh, Lord ! " said Garry, " here will be pleasant
news for her ! Curse me if I break it to her."
" But really now, Frank," the Major repeated —
" marriage, you know — why, I never thought of
such a thing."
" You're the only person that hasn't, then," re-
joined Owen. " Why, what can the garrison think,
after the way you smuggled her in ; what can she
herself think, after all your attentions ? "
"Attentions, my dear boy ; — the merest civility."
" Oh, — ah ! 'twas civility, I suppose, to squeeze
her hand in the inn at Algeciras, in the way she
told Juana of — and heaven knows what else you
may have done during the flight. Juana is out-
rageous against you — actually called you a vile
deceiver ; but Carlota's feeling is more of sorrow
than of anger. She is persuaded that nothing but
your ignorance of Spanish has prevented your tongue
from confirming what your looks have so faithfully
promised. I was really quite affected to-day at the
appealing look she cast on me after you left the
room ; she evidently expected me to communicate
her destiny."
My grandfather smoked hard.
64 TALES FROM " BLACKWOOD."
" Lots of fellows would give their ears for such
a wife," pursued the Ensign. " Lovelace, the Gov-
ernor's aide-de-camp, bribed the waiter of the hotel
to lend him his apron to-day, at dinner, that he
might come in and look at her — swears she's a
splendid woman, and that he'd run away with such
another to-morrow."
Still my grandfather smoked hard, but said
nothing, though there was a slight gleam of pride
in his countenance.
" Poor thing ! " sighed Garry. " All her pro-
spects blighted for ever. Swears she never can
love another."
At this my grandfather's eyes grew moist, and
he coughed as if he had swallowed some tobacco-
smoke.
" And as for me, to have Juana at my lips, as it
were, and yet not mine — for she's as inflexible as if
she'd been born a Mede or Persian — to know that*
you are coming between me and happiness as
surely as if you w T ere an inexorable father or a
cruel guardian — worse, indeed ; for those might be
evaded. Major, major, have you no compassion! —
two days of this will drive me crazy."
The Major changed his pipe from his right hand
to his left, and, stretching the former across the table,
sympathetically pressed that of the Ensign.
" Do, Major," quoth Garry, changing his flank
movement for a direct attack — " do consent to make
A LEGEND OF GIBRALTAR. 65
yourself and ine happy ; do empower me to nego-
tiate for our all going to church, to-morrow." (My
grandfather gave a little jump in his chair at this,
as if he were sitting on a pin.) " I'll manage it all ;
you shan't have the least trouble in the matter."
My grandfather spoke not.
" Silence gives consent," said the Ensign, rising.
" Come, now, if you don't forbid me, I'll depart on
my embassy at once ; you needn't speak, I'll spare
your blushes. I see this delay has only been from
modesty, or perhaps a little ruse on your part.
Once, twice, thrice, — I go." And he vanished.
The Major remained in his chair, in the same
posture. His pipe was smoked out, but he con-
tinued to suck absently at the empty tube. His
bewilderment and perturbation were so great that,
though he sat up till two in the morning, during
which time he smoked eleven pipes, and increased
the two glasses of grog with which he was accus-
tomed to prepare for his pillow to four, he was still,
when he went to bed, as agitated as ever.
In this state of mind he went to the altar, for
next day a double ceremony was performed, making
Owen happy with Juana, and giving Carlota a
husband and me a grandfather. The Major was
more like a proxy than a principal in the affair ; for
Owen, taking the entire management upon himself,
left him little more to do than to make the necessary
responses.
s
65 TALES FEOM " BLACKWOOD."
Carlota made a very good-tempered, quiet, in-
obtrusive helpmate, and continued to be fond of her
spouse even after he was a grey-headed colonel.
My grandfather, though credulous in most matters,
could with difficulty be brought to consider himself
married. He would sometimes seem to forget the
circumstance for a whole day together, till it came
to be forced on his recollection at bed-time. And
when, about a year after his marriage, a new-born
female Flinders (now my venerable aunt) was'
brought one morning by the nurse for his inspection
and approval, he gazed at it with a puzzled air, and
could not be convinced that he was actually in the
presence of his own flesh and blood, till he had
touched the cheek of his first-born with the point of
his tobacco-pipe, removed from his mouth for that
purpose, making on the infant's countenance a small
indentation.
The little Governor, Don Pablo, was subsequently
induced to forgive his relatives, and frequent visits
and attentions were interchanged, till the commence-
ment of the siege put a stop to all intercourse
between Gibraltar and Spain.
I have often, on a summer's evening, sat looking
across the bay at a gorgeous sunset, and retracing
in imagination the incidents I have related. My
grandfather's establishment was broken up during
the siege by the enemy's shells, but a similar one
now stands on what I think must have been about
A LEGEND OF GIBRALTAR. 67
the site of it. The world has changed since then ;
but Spain is no land of change ; and, looking on
the imperishable outline of the Andalucian hills,
unaltered, probably, since a time to which the period
of my # tale is but as yesterday, it is easy for me to
" daff aside " the noisy world without, and, dropping
quietly behind the age, to picture to myself my old-
fashioned grandfather issuing forth from yonder
white-walled town of Algeciras with his future
bride.
THE IRON SHROUD.
BY WILLIAM MUDFORD.
[MAGA. August 1830. J
THE castle of the Prince of Tolfi was built on the
summit of the towering and precipitous rock of
Scylla, and commanded a magnificent view of Sicily
in all its grandeur. Here, during the wars of the
middle ages, when the fertile plains of Italy were
devastated by hostile factions, those prisoners were
confined, for whose ransom a costly price was de-
manded. Here, too, in a dungeon, excavated deep
in the solid rock, the miserable victim w r as immured,
whom revenge pursued, — the dark, fierce, and un-
pitying revenge of an Italian heart.
Vivenzio — the noble and the generous, the fear-
less in battle, and the pride of Naples in her sunny
hours of peace — the young, the brave, the proud
Vivenzio, fell beneath this subtle and remorseless
spirit. He was the prisoner of Tolfi, and he lan-
guished in that rock-encircled dungeon, which
stood alone, and whose portals never opened twice
upon a living captive.
THE IRON SHROUD. 69
It had the semblance of a vast cage, for the roof,
and floor, and sides, were of iron, solidly wrought,
and spaciously constructed. High above there ran
a range of seven grated windows, guarded with
massy bars of the same metal, which admitted light
and air. Save these, and the tall folding- doors
beneath them which occupied the centre, no chink,
or chasm, or projection, broke the smooth black
surface of the walls. An iron bedstead, littered
with straw, stood in one corner : and beside it, a
vessel with water, and a coarse dish filled with
coarser food.
Even the intrepid soul of Vivenzio shrunk with
dismay as he entered this abode, and heard the pon-
derous doors triple-locked by the silent ruffians
who conducted him to it. Their silence seemed
prophetic of his fate, of the living grave that had
been prepared for him. His menaces and his en-
treaties, his indignant appeals for justice, and his
impatient questioning of their intentions, were alike
vain. They listened, but spoke not. Fit ministers
of a crime that should have no tongue !
How dismal was the sound of their retiring steps I
And, as their faint echoes died along the winding
passages, a fearful presage grew within him, that
never more the face, or voice, or tread, of man,
would greet his senses. He had seen human beings
for the last time ! And he had looked his last upon
the bright sky, and upon the smiling earth, and
<< r>T » /-crrTrr/-\/-\T-v "
70 TALES FROM "BLACKWOOD
upon a beautiful world be loved, and whose minion
be bad been ! Here be was to end bis life — a life
he had just begun to revel in ! And by what means ?
By secret poison? or by murderous assault? No
— fof then it bad been needless to bring him thither.
Famine perhaps — a thousand deaths in one ! It was
terrible to think of it ; but it was yet more terrible to
picture long, long years of captivity, in a solitude
so appalling, a lonebness so dreary, that thought,
for want of fellowship, would lose itself in madness,
or stagnate into idiocy.
He could not hope to escape, unless he had the
power, with his bare bands, of rending asunder the
solid iron walls of his prison. He could not hope
for liberty from the relenting mercies of his enemy.
His instant death, under any form of refined cruelty,
was not the object of Tolfi, for he might have in-
flicted it, and he bad not. It was too evident,
therefore, he was reserved for some premeditated
scheme of subtle vengeance ; and what vengeance
could transcend in fiendish malice, either the slow
death of famine, or the still slower one of solitary
incarceration, till the last lingering spark of life ex-
pired, or till reason fled, and nothing should remain
to perish but the brute functions of the body ?
It was evening when Vivenzio entered his dun-
geon, and the approaching shades of night wrapped
it in total darkness, as he paced up and down,
revolving in his mind these horrible forebodings.
THE IRON SHROUD. 71
No tolling bell from the castle, or from any neigh-
bouring church or convent, struck upon his ear to
tell how the hours passed. Frequently he would
stop and listen for some sound that might betoken
the vicinity of man ; but the solitude of the desert,
the silence of the tomb, are not so still and deep
as the oppressive desolation by which he was
encompassed. His heart sank within him, and
he threw himself dejectedly down upon his couch
of straw. Here sleep gradually obhterated the
consciousness of misery, and bland dreams wafted
his delighted spirit to scenes which were once
glowing realities for him, in whose ravishing illu-
sions he soon lost the remembrance that he was
Tolfi's prisoner.
When he awoke, it was daylight ; but how long
he had slept he knew not. It might be early
morning, or it might be sultry noon, for he could
measure time by no other note of its progress than
light and darkness. He had been so happy in
Iris sleep, amid friends who loved him, and the
sweeter endearments of those who loved him as
friends could not, that in the first moments of
waking, his startled mind seemed to admit the
knowledge of his situation, as if it had burst upon
it for the first time, fresh in all its appalling horrors.
He gazed round with an air of doubt and amazement,
and took up a handful of the straw upon which he
lay, as though he would ask himself what it meant.
" r>T A nj7-\tTnr\T\ "
72 TALES FROM " BLACKWOOD.
But memory, too faithful to her office, soon unveiled
the melancholy past, while reason, shuddering at
the task, flashed before his eyes the tremendous
future. The contrast overpowered him. He remained
for some time lamenting 1 , like a truth, the bright
visions that had vanished ; and recoiling from the
present, which clung to him as a poisoned garment.
When he grew more calm, lie surveyed his
gloomy dungeon. Alas ! the stronger light of day
only served to confirm what the gloomy indis-
tinctness of the preceding evening had partially
disclosed, the utter impossibility of escape. As,
however, his eyes wandered round and round, and
from place to place, he noticed two circumstances
which excited his surprise and curiosity. The one,
he thought, might be fancy; but the other was
positive. His pitcher of water, and the dish which
contained his food, had been removed from his side
while he slept, and now stood near the door. Were
he even inclined to doubt this, by supposing he had
mistaken the spot where he saw them over-night,
he could not, for the pitcher now in his dungeon
was neither of the same form nor colour as the other,
while the food was changed for some other of better
quality. He had been visited, therefore, during the
night. But how had the person obtained entrance?
Could he have slept so soundly, that the unlocking
and opening of those ponderous portals were effected
without waking him? He would have said this
THE IRON SHROUD. 73
was not possible, but that in doing so, he must
admit a greater difficulty, an entrance by other
means, of which he was convinced there existed
none. It was not intended, then, that he should be
left to perish from hunger. But the secret and
mysterious mode of supplying him with food, seemed
to indicate he was to have no opportunity of com-
municating with a human being.
The other circumstance which had attracted his
notice, was the disappearance, as he believed, of
one of the seven grated windows that ran along the
top of his prison. He felt confident that he had
observed and counted them ; for he was rather sur-
prised at their number, and there was something
peculiar in their form, as well as in the manner of
their arrangement, at unequal distances. It was so
much easier, however, to suppose he was mistaken,
than that a portion of the solid iron, which formed
the walls, could have escaped from its position, that
he soon dismissed the thought from his mind.
Vivenzio partook of the food that was before him,
without apprehension. It might be poisoned ; but
if it were he knew he could not escape death, should
such be the design of Tolfi, and the quickest death
would be the speediest release.
The day passed wearily and gloomily ; though
not without a faint hope that, by keeping watch at
night, he might observe when the person came
again to bring him food, which he supposed he
74 TALES FROM " BLACKWOOD."
would do in the same way as before. The mere
thought of being approached by a living creature,
and the opportunity it might present of learning the
doom prepared, or preparing, for hiiri, imparted some
comfort. Besides, if he came alone, might he not
in a furious onset overpower him ? Or he might be
accessible to pity, or the influence of such munificent
rewards as he could bestow, if once more at liberty
and master of himself. Say he were armed. The
worst that could befaU, if nor bribe, nor prayers, nor
force prevailed, was a friendly blow, which, though
dealt in a damned cause, might work a desired end.
There was no chance so desperate, but it looked
lovely in Vivenzio's eyes, compared with the idea
of being totally abandoned.
The night came, and Vivenzio watched. Morning
came, and Vivenzio was confounded ! He must have
slumbered without knowing it. Sleep must have
stolen over him when exhausted by fatigue, and in
that interval of feverish repose, he had been baffled :
for there stood his replenished pitcher of water, and
there his day's meal ! Nor was this all. Casting
his looks towards the windows of his dungeon, he
counted but five ! Here was no deception ; and
he was now convinced there had been none the day
before. But what did all this portend ? Into what
strange and mysterious den had he been cast? He
gazed till his eyes ached ; he could discover no-
thing to explain the mystery. That it was so, he
THE IRON SHROUD. 75
knew. Why it was so, lie racked his imagination
in vain to conjecture. He examined the doors. A
simple circumstance convinced him they had not
been opened.
A wisp of straw, which he had carelessly thrown
against them the preceding day, as he paced to and
fro, remained where he had cast it, though it must
have been displaced by the slightest motion of either
of the doors. This was evidence that could not be
disputed ; and it followed there must be some secret
machinery in the walls by which a person could
enter. He inspected them closely. They appeared
to him one solid and compact mass of iron ; or
joined, if joined they were, with such nice art, that no
mark of division was perceptible. Again and again
he surveyed them — and the floor — and the roof—
— and that range of visionary windows, as he was
now almost tempted to consider them : he could
discover nothing, absolutely nothing, to relieve his
doubts or satisfy his curiosity. Sometimes he
fancied that altogether the dungeon had a more
contracted appearance — that it looked smaller ; but
this he ascribed to fancy, and the impression natu-
rally produced upon his mind by the undeniable
disappearance of two of the windows.
With intense anxiety, Vivenzio looked forward
to the return of night ; and as it approached, he
resolved that no treacherous sleep should again
betray him. Instead of seeking his bed of straw,
76 TALES FROM " BLACKWOOD."
lie continued to walk up and down his dungeon
till daylight, straining his eyes in every direction
through the darkness, to watch for any appearances
that might explain these mysteries. While thus
engaged, and as nearly as he could judge (by the
time that afterwards elapsed before the morning
came in), about two o'clock, there was a slight
tremulous motion of the floors. He stooped. The
motion lasted nearly a minute ; but it was so ex-
tremely gentle, that he almost doubted whether it
was real, or only imaginary. He listened. Not a
sound could be heard. Presently, however, he felt
a rush of cold air blow upon him ; and dashing
towards the quarter whence it seemed to proceed,
he stumbled over something wliich he judged to be
the water ewer. The rush of cold air was no longer
perceptible ; and as Vivenzio stretched out his
hands, he found himself close to the Avails. He
remained motionless for a considerable time ; but
nothing occurred during the remainder of the night
to excite his attention, though he continued to watch
with unabated vigilance.
The first approaches of the morning were visible
through the grated windows, breaking, with faint
divisions of light, the darkness that still pervaded
every other part, long before Vivenzio was enabled
to distinguish any object in his dungeon. Instinc-
tively and fearfully he turned his eyes, hot and
inflamed with watching, towards them. There were
THE IRON SHROUD. 77
four ! He could see only four : but it might be
that some intervening object prevented the fifth
from becoming perceptible ; and he waited im-
patiently to ascertain if it were so. As the light
strengthened, however, and penetrated every corner
of the cell, other objects of amazement struck his
sight. On the ground lay the broken fragments of
the pitcher he had used the day before, and at a
small distance from them, nearer to the wall, stood
the one he had noticed the first night. It was filled
with water, and beside it was his food. He was now
certain that, by some mechanical contrivance, an
opening was obtained through the iron wall, and that
through this opening the current of air had found
entrance. But how noiseless ! For had a feather
almost waved at the time, he must have heard it.
Again he examined that part of the wall ; but both
to sight and touch it appeared one even and uniform
surface, while to repeated and violent blows there
was no reverberating sound indicative of hollowness.
This perplexing mystery had for a time with-
drawn his thoughts from the windows ; but now,
directing his eyes again towards them, he saw that
the fifth had disappeared in the same manner as
the preceding two, without the least distinguishable
alteration of external appearances. The remaining
four looked as the seven had originally looked ; that
is, occupying, at irregular distances, the top of the
wall on that side of the dungeon. The tall folding-
78 TALES FROM " BLACKWOOD."
door, too, still seemed to stand beneath, in the centre
of these four, as it had at first stood in the centre of
the seven. But he could no longer doubt, what, on
the preceding day, he fancied might be the effect of
visual deception. The dungeon was smaller. The
roof had lowered — and the opposite ends had con-
tracted the intermediate distance by a space equal,
he thought, to that over which the three windows
had extended. He was bewildered in vain imagin-
ings to account for these things. Some frightful
purpose — some devilish torture of mind or body —
some unheard-of device for producing exquisite
misery, lurked, he was sure, in what had taken
place.
Oppressed with this belief, and distracted more
by the dreadful uncertainty of whatever fate im-
pended, than he could be dismayed, he thought, by
the knowledge of the worst, he sat ruminating,
hour after hour, yielding his fears in succession to
every haggard fancy. At last a horrible suspicion
flashed suddenly across his mind, and he started up
with a frantic air. " Yes !" he exclaimed, looking
wildly round his dungeon, and shuddering as he
spoke — " Yes ! it must be so ! I see it ! — I feel the
maddening truth like scorching flames upon my
brain ! Eternal God ! — support me ! it must be
so! — Yes, yes, that is to be my fate! Yon roof
will descend! — these walls will hem me round —
and slowly, slowly, crush me in their iron arms !
THE IRON SHROUD. 79
Lord God ! look down upon me, and in mercy strike
me with instant death ! Oh, fiend — oh, devil — is
this your revenge ?"
He dashed liimself upon the ground in agony ; —
tears burst from him, and the sweat stood in large
drops upon his face — he sobbed aloud — he tore his
hair — he rolled about like one suffering intolerable
anguish of body, and would have bitten the iron
floor beneath him ; he breathed fearful curses upon
Tolfi, and the next moment passionate prayers to
heaven for immediate death. Then the violence of
his grief became exhausted, and he lay still, weep-
ing as a child would weep. The twilight of depart-
ing day shed its gloom around him ere he arose
from that posture of utter and hopeless sorrow.
Ho had taken no food. Not one drop of water had
cooled the fever of bis parched lips. Sleep had not
visited his eyes for six-and-thirty hours. He was
faint with hunger ; weary with watching, and with
the excess of his emotions. He tasted of his food ;
he drank with avidity of the water; and reeling
like a drunken man to his straw, cast himself upon
it to brood again over the appalling image that had
fastened itself upon his almost frenzied thoughts.
He slept. But his slumbers were not tranquil.
He resisted, as long as he could, their approach ;
and when, at last, enfeebled nature yielded to their
influence, he found no oblivion from his cares.
Terrible dreams haunted him — ghastly visions har-
80 TALES FROM " BLACKWOOD."
rowechiphis imagination — he shouted and screamed,
as if he already felt the dungeon's ponderous roof
descending on him — he breathed hard and thick,
as though writhing between its iron walls. Then
would he spring up — stare wildly about him —
stretch forth his hands, to be sure he yet had space
enough to live — and, muttering some incoherent
words, sink down again, to pass through the same
fierce vicissitudes of delirious sleep.
The morning of the fourth day dawned upon
Vivenzio. But it was high noon before his mind
shook off its stupor, or he awoke to a full conscious-
ness of his situation. And what a fixed energy of
despair sat upon his pale features, as he cast his
eyes upwards, and gazed upon the three windows
that now alone remained ! The three ! — there were
no more ! — and they seemed to number his own
allotted days. Slowly and calmly he next surveyed
the top and sides, and comprehended all the mean-
ing of the diminished height of the former, as well
as of the gradual approximation of the latter. The
contracted dimensions of his mysterious prison were
now too gross and palpable to be the juggle of his
heated imagination. Still lost in wonder at the
means, Vivenzio could put no cheat upon his reason,
as to the end. By what horrible ingenuity it was