The Lady of the Shroud - Bram Stoker (phonics reader txt) 📗

that bewildering coverlet of glass, the woman

whom I love. I could see her beautiful face, her long black lashes,

her sweet mouth—which I had kissed—relaxed in the sleep of death.

I could note the voluminous shroud—a piece of which as a precious

souvenir lay even then so close to my heart—the snowy woollen

coverlet wrought over in gold with sprigs of pine, the soft dent in

the cushion on which her head must for so long have lain. I could

see myself—within my eyes the memory of that first visit—coming

once again with glad step to renew that dear sight—dear, though it

scorched my eyes and harrowed my heart—and finding the greater

sorrow, the greater desolation of the empty tomb!

 

There! I felt that I must think no more of that lest the thought

should unnerve me when I should most want all my courage. That way

madness lay! The darkness had already sufficient terrors of its own

without bringing to it such grim remembrances and imaginings …

And I had yet to go through some ordeal which, even to her who had

passed and repassed the portals of death, was full of fear.

 

It was a merciful relief to me when, in groping my way forwards

through the darkness, I struck against some portion of the furnishing

of the church. Fortunately I was all strung up to tension, else I

should never have been able to control instinctively, as I did, the

shriek which was rising to my lips.

 

I would have given anything to have been able to light even a match.

A single second of light would, I felt, have made me my own man

again. But I knew that this would be against the implied condition

of my being there at all, and might have had disastrous consequences

to her whom I had come to save. It might even frustrate my scheme,

and altogether destroy my opportunity. At that moment it was borne

upon me more strongly than ever that this was not a mere fight for

myself or my own selfish purposes—not merely an adventure or a

struggle for only life and death against unknown difficulties and

dangers. It was a fight on behalf of her I loved, not merely for her

life, but perhaps even for her soul.

 

And yet this very thinking—understanding—created a new form of

terror. For in that grim, shrouding darkness came memories of other

moments of terrible stress.

 

Of wild, mystic rites held in the deep gloom of African forests,

when, amid scenes of revolting horror, Obi and the devils of his kind

seemed to reveal themselves to reckless worshippers, surfeited with

horror, whose lives counted for naught; when even human sacrifice was

an episode, and the reek of old deviltries and recent carnage tainted

the air, till even I, who was, at the risk of my life, a privileged

spectator who had come through dangers without end to behold the

scene, rose and fled in horror.

 

Of scenes of mystery enacted in rock-cut temples beyond the

Himalayas, whose fanatic priests, cold as death and as remorseless,

in the reaction of their phrenzy of passion, foamed at the mouth and

then sank into marble quiet, as with inner eyes they beheld the

visions of the hellish powers which they had invoked.

 

Of wild, fantastic dances of the Devil-worshippers of Madagascar,

where even the very semblance of humanity disappeared in the

fantastic excesses of their orgies.

 

Of strange doings of gloom and mystery in the rock-perched

monasteries of Thibet.

 

Of awful sacrifices, all to mystic ends, in the innermost recesses of

Cathay.

 

Of weird movements with masses of poisonous snakes by the medicine-men of the Zuni and Mochi Indians in the far south-west of the

Rockies, beyond the great plains.

 

Of secret gatherings in vast temples of old Mexico, and by dim altars

of forgotten cities in the heart of great forests in South America.

 

Of rites of inconceivable horror in the fastnesses of Patagonia.

 

Of … Here I once more pulled myself up. Such thoughts were no

kind of proper preparation for what I might have to endure. My work

that night was to be based on love, on hope, on self-sacrifice for

the woman who in all the world was the closest to my heart, whose

future I was to share, whether that sharing might lead me to Hell or

Heaven. The hand which undertook such a task must have no trembling.

 

Still, those horrible memories had, I am bound to say, a useful part

in my preparation for the ordeal. They were of fact which I had

seen, of which I had myself been in part a sharer, and which I had

survived. With such experiences behind me, could there be aught

before me more dreadful? …

 

Moreover, if the coming ordeal was of supernatural or superhuman

order, could it transcend in living horror the vilest and most

desperate acts of the basest men? …

 

With renewed courage I felt my way before me, till my sense of touch

told me that I was at the screen behind which lay the stair to the

Crypt.

 

There I waited, silent, still.

 

My own part was done, so far as I knew how to do it. Beyond this,

what was to come was, so far as I knew, beyond my own control. I had

done what I could; the rest must come from others. I had exactly

obeyed my instructions, fulfilled my warranty to the utmost in my

knowledge and power. There was, therefore, left for me in the

present nothing but to wait.

 

It is a peculiarity of absolute darkness that it creates its own

reaction. The eye, wearied of the blackness, begins to imagine forms

of light. How far this is effected by imagination pure and simple I

know not. It may be that nerves have their own senses that bring

thought to the depository common to all the human functions, but,

whatever may be the mechanism or the objective, the darkness seems to

people itself with luminous entities.

 

So was it with me as I stood lonely in the dark, silent church. Here

and there seemed to flash tiny points of light.

 

In the same way the silence began to be broken now and again by

strange muffled sounds—the suggestion of sounds rather than actual

vibrations. These were all at first of the minor importance of

movement—rustlings, creakings, faint stirrings, fainter breathings.

Presently, when I had somewhat recovered from the sort of hypnotic

trance to which the darkness and stillness had during the time of

waiting reduced me, I looked around in wonder.

 

The phantoms of light and sound seemed to have become real. There

were most certainly actual little points of light in places—not

enough to see details by, but quite sufficient to relieve the utter

gloom. I thought—though it may have been a mingling of recollection

and imagination—that I could distinguish the outlines of the church;

certainly the great altar-screen was dimly visible. Instinctively I

looked up—and thrilled. There, hung high above me, was, surely

enough, a great Greek Cross, outlined by tiny points of light.

 

I lost myself in wonder, and stood still, in a purely receptive mood,

unantagonistic to aught, willing for whatever might come, ready for

all things, in rather a negative than a positive mood—a mood which

has an aspect of spiritual meekness. This is the true spirit of the

neophyte, and, though I did not think of it at the time, the proper

attitude for what is called by the Church in whose temple I stood a

“neo-nymph.”

 

As the light grew a little in power, though never increasing enough

for distinctness, I saw dimly before me a table on which rested a

great open book, whereon were laid two rings—one of sliver, the

other of gold—and two crowns wrought of flowers, bound at the

joining of their stems with tissue—one of gold, the other of silver.

I do not know much of the ritual of the old Greek Church, which is

the religion of the Blue Mountains, but the things which I saw before

me could be none other than enlightening symbols. Instinctively I

knew that I had been brought hither, though in this grim way, to be

married. The very idea of it thrilled me to the heart’s core. I

thought the best thing I could do would be to stay quite still, and

not show surprise at anything that might happen; but be sure I was

all eyes and ears.

 

I peered anxiously around me in every direction, but I could see no

sign of her whom I had come to meet.

 

Incidentally, however, I noticed that in the lighting, such as it

was, there was no flame, no “living” light. Whatever light there was

came muffled, as though through some green translucent stone. The

whole effect was terribly weird and disconcerting.

 

Presently I started, as, seemingly out of the darkness beside me, a

man’s hand stretched out and took mine. Turning, I found close to me

a tall man with shining black eyes and long black hair and beard. He

was clad in some kind of gorgeous robe of cloth of gold, rich with

variety of adornment. His head was covered with a high, over-hanging

hat draped closely with a black scarf, the ends of which formed a

long, hanging veil on either side. These veils, falling over the

magnificent robes of cloth of gold, had an extraordinarily solemn

effect.

 

I yielded myself to the guiding hand, and shortly found myself, so

far as I could see, at one side of the sanctuary.

 

In the floor close to my feet was a yawning chasm, into which, from

so high over my head that in the uncertain light I could not

distinguish its origin, hung a chain. At the sight a strange wave of

memory swept over me. I could not but remember the chain which hung

over the glass-covered tomb in the Crypt, and I had an instinctive

feeling that the grim chasm in the floor of the sanctuary was but the

other side of the opening in the roof of the crypt from which the

chain over the sarcophagus depended.

 

There was a creaking sound—the groaning of a windlass and the

clanking of a chain. There was heavy breathing close to me

somewhere. I was so intent on what was going on that I did not see

that one by one, seeming to grow out of the surrounding darkness,

several black figures in monkish garb appeared with the silence of

ghosts. Their faces were shrouded in black cowls, wherein were holes

through which I could see dark gleaming eyes. My guide held me

tightly by the hand. This gave me a feeling of security in the touch

which helped to retain within my breast some semblance of calm.

 

The strain of the creaking windlass and the clanking chain continued

for so long that the suspense became almost unendurable. At last

there came into sight an iron ring, from which as a centre depended

four lesser chains spreading wide. In a few seconds more I could see

that these were fixed to the corners of the great stone tomb with the

covering of glass, which was being dragged upward. As it arose it

filled closely the whole aperture. When its bottom had reached the

level of the floor it stopped, and remained rigid. There was no room

for oscillation. It was at once surrounded by a number of black

figures, who raised the glass covering and bore it away into the

darkness. Then there stepped forward a very tall man, black-bearded,

and with head-gear like my guide, but made in triple tiers, he also

was gorgeously arrayed in flowing robes of cloth of gold