ts. The terraced gardens with their walks
and perfumed shrubs lie so silently in the bright moonlight, they seem
dreaming of the bridal bliss, the echo of the wedding music cradling
them to sweeter sleep. The flying footsteps of the chieftain are
suddenly arrested--he thinks he hears the opening chant of the
bridesmaids' song, though so distant it seems rather dream than reality.
He listens. He knows the ancient custom; he certainly hears the chorused
strophes, the fresh, clear female voices, He rushes forward now, he
buries his nails in the fissures of the walls, he clambers up,
suspending himself in the air, his feet cling to the moss-grown stones,
he seizes a vine, swings himself forward, gains the top of the wall, and
the crushed grasses groan as he leaps down upon them. Having touched the
earth within the enclosure, he rises up with triple power, and bounds
into the leafy labyrinth. Oaks, ashes, pines, and firs, the remains of
the great forest, are around him. Thickets, vineyards, and meadows lie
in the moonlight, brooks and fountains murmur, nightingales sing; he
reaches the trailing willows where the long branches droop into the blue
waters of the lake, from whose depths the stars of heaven smile upon
him. He had played under these trees as a happy boy, swum in these clear
waves--but the memories of the past must not detain him now. He reaches
the bower where the jessamines bloom at the foot of the lower terrace.
This was the spot in which the maiden had revealed her soul to her
exiled brother; here had her holy promise kindled her blue eyes, and the
high resolve of its keeping rested on her pure brow;--he groans aloud,
but stops not, keeping his face steadily turned to the gray wall of the
castle. Certain of his course, whether in light or shadow, he still
hurries on. Winding among orange trees and fountains, he enters the
vaulted archway which leads to the castle. Ascending with every step, he
stands at last upon a level with its pillared portico. Taking the long
plume from his cap, he glides from beneath the vault of the archway. No
one is near. Songs and shouts are on his left; there then must be the
hall of festival. Silence reigns on his right, and the long ranges of
windows glitter only with the light of the moon. At the end of the long
gallery and near the angle of the western tower, lamps are still
burning; a wide glass door stands partly open--it seems to him he hears
a low moan, but so light, so inaudibl