I
see the troubled flashes flung from the flaring torch over our assembly.
Alert and startled, I see Lenore listen to the names as if they summoned
the wraiths and not the bodies of men whom she had supposed to be lost
in the pampas of Paraguay, dead in the Papal prisons, sheltered in
English homes, or tossing far away on the long voyages of the Pacific
seas. I see myself at length taking the torch from its niche and
restoring it, as a hundred times before, to Pietro da Valambo, while
it glitters on some strange object looking in at the vine-clad opening
above with its breaths of air, serpent or hare, or the large face and
slow eyes of a browsing buffalo. And as I think, lo! an echo in the
house, a dull tramp in the hall, a stealthy tread in the room, a heavy
hand upon my shoulder,--I was arrested for high treason.
Do not think I surrendered then. Without a struggle I would be the
prize of Pope nor King nor Kaiser! I shook the minions' grasp from my
shoulder, I flashed my sword in their eyes; and not till the crescent
of weapons encircled me in one blinding gleam, vain grew defence, vain
honor, vain bravery. Of what use was my soul to me thenceforth? I became
but carrion prey. I fell, and the world fell from me.
Sensation, emotion, awoke from their swooning lapse only in the light
of day, the next or another, I knew not which.
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