The Bronze Statue, or, The Virgin's Kiss — page 172: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

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It was clear, then, that wretch, bewildered by the misfortunes | whatever meaning might be attached to that appear to be closing in around him, | that doom, Father C yprian was econnect- s0 as to exclude all hope of self-extrica a ed with some secret tribunal which pro- tion,—and the unhappy being condemn- | nounced and executed it. That he was ed to death for a crime of which he is | the individual who had denounced Glo- innocent, and whose dungeon is so well | ria in the church, Sir Ernest had Jong guarded, and whose hour of doom is so| been convinced; and that there was near, that no possibility of flight can be | such a tribunal as that of the Bronze imagined,—even such men as these| Statue, was proved by the discourse have found an avenue of safety, the for | which Angela had overheard between mer from ruin and the latter from the | the Carthusian and Dame Martha. gibbet, at the very moment when their| And this Bronze Statue—was it not positions assumed the most blank, hope- | in Altendorf Castle? and had not the less, and desperate aspect. | knight beheld it there—yes, and the And thus was it that wlien Sir Ernest | hideous m: ichinery which was no doubt de Colmar’s soul was ‘tortured beyond | /connected in some way with that co- all endurance, with the suspense he ex- | lossal image? And wasit not therefore perienced on account ef Lionel and| reasonable to suppose that the rumor Konrad, and the harrowing excitement | was strictly correct which alleged that he suffered in consequence of the appa- | the. brothers Schwartz were seen and went impracticability of adopting any | recognised in the neighborhood of Al- plan to discover their fate, eithe to | tendorf Castle? Oh! wherefore should succor or to avenge them—at this raids | they have been in that dread vicinage, of his feelings was it that a thought/| unless they were on their way to meet struck him with the vividness of an in-| the doom of the Bronze Statue and the spiration. | Virgin’s Kiss? And now, as De Col- And that idea was fecund in conjec- | mar reflected that he himself was being tures and fertilising in surmises, all of | hurried along the road leading in the which speedily took a collected shape in|/same direction, when he was saved Sir Ernest de Colmar’s imagination, as| from his masked guards by the sudden we will hasten to explain to our rea-| appearance of Count de Rosenberg’s ders. party—as he thought of all this, we Going back to the conversation which | say, he shuddered despite his natural he had with Master ‘l'emplin on the dauntlessness ; tor the conviction was first evening of his arrival at Prague, borne in unto his soul that he also was he a well upon the legend nar-| en that occasion on the way to Alten- rated in respect to the three brothers | dort Castle to undergo the doom which Schwartz. It was reported by some/|the brothers Schwartz had doubtless persons that those brethren had been| suffered twelve years previously ! recognized in the charge of men mount All these reflections, however, were ed on fleet steeds and wearing black | but the mere preface to the conclusion masks; and the party of prisoners and | to which his chain of reasoning brought custodians had been seen, as rumor de- | the knight. For he argued within clared, not only in the vicinity of Prague, | himself that inasmuch as ‘the brothers —, a but likewise in the immediate neighbor- | Schwartz were working at Hamelen hood of Aliendorf Castle. Now Sir Er- | Castle when they disappeared so sud- nest de Colmar himself had been in the | denly, it was tin EN that his own ad- custody of men mounted on fleet steeds | venture with the Carthusian and the and wearing black masks; and on that| black masks had commenced in the occasion he was hurried by them along | same place. And if not there, perhaps the high road stretching towards the] in the White Mansion which the Ba- Austrian frontier, and consequently pas- | roness: had built for the reception of sing close by Altendorf Castle. 'widows, orphans, and friendless. wo- The next step which his chainof rea-|men? Yes; this supposition was soning took was important. When the | borne out by many circumstances. The iron gratings fell in the subterranean of | beautiful _court-yard surrounded by that unknown mansion where the Prin- | white marble structures—the subter- cess Elizubetha dwelt,—and when Sir! ranean passages extending to such a { 4, / comicbooks.com