“Would to God!” cried Virginia, “That I were already safe in my mother’s embraces! How say you, señor; will it be long, ere we may leave this place? Every moment that I pass here, I pass in torture!”
“I hope, not long,” said he; “but till you can proceed with security, this sepulchre will prove an impenetrable asylum. Here you run no risk of a discovery, and I would advise your remaining quiet for the next two or three hours.”
“Two or three hours?” exclaimed Sister Helena; “If I stay another hour in these vaults, I shall expire with fear! Not the wealth of worlds should bribe me to undergo again what I have suffered since my coming hither. Blessed Virgin! To be in this melancholy place in the middle of night, surrounded by the mouldering bodies of my deceased companions, and expecting every moment to be torn in pieces by their ghosts who wander about me, and complain, and groan, and wail in accents that make my blood run cold, … Christ Jesus! It is enough to drive me to madness!”
“Excuse me,” replied Lorenzo, “if I am surprised that while menaced by real woes you are capable of yielding to imaginary dangers. These terrors are puerile and groundless: combat them, holy sister; I have promised to guard you from the rioters, but against the attacks of superstition you must depend for protection upon yourself. The idea of ghosts is ridiculous in the extreme; and if you continue to be swayed by ideal terrors …”
“Ideal?” exclaimed the nuns with one voice; “Why we heard it ourselves, señor! Every one of us heard it! It was frequently repeated, and it sounded every time more melancholy and deep. You will never persuade me that we could all have been deceived. Not we, indeed; no, no; had the noise been merely created by fancy. …”
“Hark! Hark!” interrupted Virginia in a voice of terror; “God preserve us! There it is again!”
The nuns clasped their hands together, and sank upon their knees.
Lorenzo looked round him eagerly, and was on the point of yielding to the fears which already had possessed the women. Universal silence prevailed. He examined the vault, but nothing was to be seen. He now prepared to address the nuns, and ridicule their childish apprehensions, when his attention was arrested by a deep and long-drawn groan.
“What was that?” he cried, and started.
“There, señor!” said Helena; “Now you must be convinced! You have heard the noise yourself! Now judge, whether our terrors are imaginary. Since we have been here, that groaning has been repeated almost every five minutes. Doubtless, it proceeds from some soul in pain, who wishes to be prayed out of purgatory: but none of us here dares ask it the question. As for me, were I to see an apparition, the fright, I am very certain, would kill me out of hand.”
As she said this, a second groan was heard yet more distinctly. The nuns crossed themselves, and hastened to repeat their prayers against evil spirits. Lorenzo listened attentively. He even thought that he could distinguish sounds, as of one speaking in complaint; but distance rendered them inarticulate. The noise seemed to come from the midst of the small vault in which he and the nuns then were, and which a multitude of passages branching out in various directions, formed into a sort of star. Lorenzo’s curiosity which was ever awake, made him anxious to solve this mystery. He desired that silence might be kept. The nuns obeyed him. All was hushed, till the general stillness was again disturbed by the groaning, which was repeated several times successively. He perceived it to be most audible, when upon following the sound he was conducted close to the shrine of St. Clare.
“The noise comes from hence,” said he; “Whose is this statue?”
Helena, to whom he addressed the question, paused for a moment. Suddenly she clapped her hands together.
“Aye!” cried she, “it must be so. I have discovered the meaning of these groans.”
The nuns crowded round her, and besought her eagerly to explain herself. She gravely replied that for time immemorial the statue had been famous for performing miracles: from this she inferred that the saint was concerned at the conflagration of a convent which she protected, and expressed her grief by audible lamentations. Not having equal faith in the miraculous saint, Lorenzo did not think this solution of the mystery quite so satisfactory, as the nuns, who subscribed to it without hesitation. In one point, ’tis true, that he agreed with Helena.
He suspected that the groans proceeded from the statue: the more he listened, the more was he confirmed in this idea. He drew nearer to the image, designing to inspect it more closely: but perceiving his intention, the nuns besought him for God’s sake to desist, since if he touched the statue, his death was inevitable.
“And in what consists the danger?” said he.
“Mother of God! In what?” replied Helena, ever eager to relate a miraculous adventure; “If you had only heard the hundredth part of those marvellous stories about this statue which the domina used to recount! She assured us often and often, that if we only dared to lay a finger upon it, we might expect the most fatal consequences. Among other things she told us that a robber having entered these vaults by night, he observed yonder ruby, whose value is inestimable. Do you see it, señor? It sparkles upon the third finger of the hand in which she holds a crown of thorns. This jewel naturally excited the villain’s cupidity. He resolved to make himself master of it. For this purpose he ascended the pedestal: he supported himself by grasping the saint’s right arm, and extended his own towards
