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

strain which such a

proceeding would involve. At first we men could not believe that any

woman could go through with such a task, and some of us did not

hesitate to voice our doubts—our disbelief. But she stood to her

guns, and actually down-faced us. At the last we, remembering things

that had been done, though long ages ago, by others of her race, came

to believe not merely in her self-belief and intention, but even in

the feasibility of her plan. She took the most solemn oaths not to

betray the secret under any possible stress.

 

The priesthood undertook through the Vladika and myself to further a

ghostly belief amongst the mountaineers which would tend to prevent a

too close or too persistent observation. The Vampire legend was

spread as a protection against partial discovery by any mischance,

and other weird beliefs were set afoot and fostered. Arrangements

were made that only on certain days were the mountaineers to be

admitted to the Crypt, she agreeing that for these occasions she was

to take opiates or carry out any other aid to the preservation of the

secret. She was willing, she impressed upon us, to make any personal

sacrifice which might be deemed necessary for the carrying out her

father’s task for the good of the nation.

 

Of course, she had at first terrible frights lying alone in the

horror of the Crypt. But after a time the terrors of the situation,

if they did not cease, were mitigated. There are secret caverns off

the Crypt, wherein in troublous times the priests and others of high

place have found safe retreat. One of these was prepared for the

Voivodin, and there she remained, except for such times as she was on

show—and certain other times of which I shall tell you. Provision

was made for the possibility of any accidental visit to the church.

At such times, warned by an automatic signal from the opening door,

she was to take her place in the tomb. The mechanism was so arranged

that the means to replace the glass cover, and to take the opiate,

were there ready to her hand. There was to be always a watch of

priests at night in the church, to guard her from ghostly fears as

well as from more physical dangers; and if she was actually in her

tomb, it was to be visited at certain intervals. Even the draperies

which covered her in the sarcophagus were rested on a bridge placed

from side to side just above her, so as to hide the rising and

falling of her bosom as she slept under the narcotic.

 

After a while the prolonged strain began to tell so much on her that

it was decided that she should take now and again exercise out of

doors. This was not difficult, for when the Vampire story which we

had spread began to be widely known, her being seen would be accepted

as a proof of its truth. Still, as there was a certain danger in her

being seen at all, we thought it necessary to exact from her a solemn

oath that so long as her sad task lasted she should under no

circumstances ever wear any dress but her shroud—this being the only

way to insure secrecy and to prevail against accident.

 

There is a secret way from the Crypt to a sea cavern, whose entrance

is at high-tide under the water-line at the base of the cliff on

which the church is built. A boat, shaped like a coffin, was

provided for her; and in this she was accustomed to pass across the

creek whenever she wished to make excursion. It was an excellent

device, and most efficacious in disseminating the Vampire belief.

 

This state of things had now lasted from before the time when the

Gospodar Rupert came to Vissarion up to the day of the arrival of the

armoured yacht.

 

That night the priest on duty, on going his round of the Crypt just

before dawn, found the tomb empty. He called the others, and they

made full search. The boat was gone from the cavern, but on making

search they found it on the farther side of the creek, close to the

garden stairs. Beyond this they could discover nothing. She seemed

to have disappeared without leaving a trace.

 

Straightway they went to the Vladika, and signalled to me by the

fire-signal at the monastery at Astrag, where I then was. I took a

band of mountaineers with me, and set out to scour the country. But

before going I sent an urgent message to the Gospodar Rupert, asking

him, who showed so much interest and love to our Land, to help us in

our trouble. He, of course, knew nothing then of all have now told

you. Nevertheless, he devoted himself whole-heartedly to our needs—

as doubtless you know.

 

But the time had now come close when the Voivode Vissarion was about

to return from his mission; and we of the council of his daughter’s

guardianship were beginning to arrange matters so that at his return

the good news of her being still alive could be made public. With

her father present to vouch for her, no question as to truth could

arise.

 

But by some means the Turkish “Bureau of Spies” must have got

knowledge of the fact already. To steal a dead body for the purpose

of later establishing a fictitious claim would have been an

enterprise even more desperate than that already undertaken. We

inferred from many signs, made known to us in an investigation, that

a daring party of the Sultan’s emissaries had made a secret incursion

with the object of kidnapping the Voivodin. They must have been bold

of heart and strong of resource to enter the Land of the Blue

Mountains on any errand, let alone such a desperate one as this. For

centuries we have been teaching the Turk through bitter lessons that

it is neither a safe task nor an easy one to make incursion here.

 

How they did it we know not—at present; but enter they did, and,

after waiting in some secret hiding-place for a favourable

opportunity, secured their prey. We know not even now whether they

had found entrance to the Crypt and stole, as they thought, the dead

body, or whether, by some dire mischance, they found her abroad—

under her disguise as a ghost. At any rate, they had captured her,

and through devious ways amongst the mountains were bearing her back

to Turkey. It was manifest that when she was on Turkish soil the

Sultan would force a marriage on her so as eventually to secure for

himself or his successors as against all other nations a claim for

the suzerainty or guardianship of the Blue Mountains.

 

Such was the state of affairs when the Gospodar Rupert threw himself

into the pursuit with fiery zeal and the Berserk passion which he

inherited from Viking ancestors, whence of old came “The Sword of

Freedom” himself.

 

But at that very time was another possibility which the Gospodar was

himself the first to realize. Failing the getting the Voivodin safe

to Turkish soil, the ravishers might kill her! This would be

entirely in accord with the base traditions and history of the

Moslems. So, too, it would accord with Turkish customs and the

Sultan’s present desires. It would, in its way, benefit the ultimate

strategetic ends of Turkey. For were once the Vissarion race at an

end, the subjection of the Land of the Blue Mountains might, in their

view, be an easier task than it had yet been found to be.

 

Such, illustrious lady, were the conditions of affairs when the

Gospodar Rupert first drew his handjar for the Blue Mountains and

what it held most dear.

 

PALEALOGUE,

Archbishop of the Eastern Church, in the Land of the Blue Mountains.

 

RUPERT’S JOURNAL—Continued.

July 8, 1907.

 

I wonder if ever in the long, strange history of the world had there

come to any other such glad tidings as came to me—and even then

rather inferentially than directly—from the Archimandrite’s answers

to my questioning. Happily I was able to restrain myself, or I

should have created some strange confusion which might have evoked

distrust, and would certainly have hampered us in our pursuit. For a

little I could hardly accept the truth which wove itself through my

brain as the true inwardness of each fact came home to me and took

its place in the whole fabric. But even the most welcome truth has

to be accepted some time by even a doubting heart. My heart,

whatever it may have been, was not then a doubting heart, but a very,

very grateful one. It was only the splendid magnitude of the truth

which forbade its immediate acceptance. I could have shouted for

joy, and only stilled myself by keeping my thoughts fixed on the

danger which my wife was in. My wife! My wife! Not a Vampire; not

a poor harassed creature doomed to terrible woe, but a splendid

woman, brave beyond belief, patriotic in a way which has but few

peers even in the wide history of bravery! I began to understand the

true meaning of the strange occurrences that have come into my life.

Even the origin and purpose of that first strange visit to my room

became clear. No wonder that the girl could move about the Castle in

so mysterious a manner. She had lived there all her life, and was

familiar with the secret ways of entrance and exit. I had always

believed that the place must have been honeycombed with secret

passages. No wonder that she could find a way to the battlements,

mysterious to everybody else. No wonder that she could meet me at

the Flagstaff when she so desired.

 

To say that I was in a tumult would be to but faintly express my

condition. I was rapt into a heaven of delight which had no measure

in all my adventurous life—the lifting of the veil which showed that

my wife—mine—won in all sincerity in the very teeth of appalling

difficulties and dangers—was no Vampire, no corpse, no ghost or

phantom, but a real woman of flesh and blood, of affection, and love,

and passion. Now at last would my love be crowned indeed when,

having rescued her from the marauders, I should bear her to my own

home, where she would live and reign in peace and comfort and honour,

and in love and wifely happiness if I could achieve such a blessing

for her—and for myself.

 

But here a dreadful thought flashed across me, which in an instant

turned my joy to despair, my throbbing heart to ice:

 

“As she is a real woman, she is in greater danger than ever in the

hands of Turkish ruffians. To them a woman is in any case no more

than a sheep; and if they cannot bring her to the harem of the

Sultan, they may deem it the next wisest step to kill her. In that

way, too, they might find a better chance of escape. Once rid of her

the party could separate, and there might be a chance of some of them

finding escape as individuals that would not exist for a party. But

even if they did not kill her, to escape with her would be to condemn

her to the worst fate of all the harem of the Turk! Lifelong misery

and despair—however long that life might be—must be the lot of a

Christian woman doomed to such a lot. And to her, just happily

wedded, and after she had served her country in such a noble way as

she had done, that dreadful life of shameful slavery would be a

misery beyond belief.

 

“She must be