Calderon, the Courtier; A Tale - Livro de bolso

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VIII. THE ESCAPE. It was midnight, in the chapel of the convent. The moonlight shone with exceeding lustre through the tall casements, and lit into a ghastly semblance of life the marble images of saint and martyr, that threw their long shadows over the consecrated floor. Nothing could well be conceived more dreary, solemn, and sepulchral, than that holy place: its distained and time-hallowed walls; the impenetrable mass of darkness that gathered into those recesses which the moonlight failed to reach; its antique and massive tombs,above which reclined the sculptured effigies of some departed patroness or abbess, who had exchanged a living grave for the Mansions of the Blest. But there?oh, wonderful human heart!? even there, in that spot, the very homily and warning against earthly affections, and mortal hopes?even there, couldst thou beat with as wild, as bright, and as pure a passion as ever heaved the breast, and shone in the eyes of Beauty, in the free air that ripples the Guadiana, or amidst the twilight dance of Castilian maids! A tall figure, wrapped from head to foot in a cloak, passed slowly up the aisle. But light and cautious though the footstep, it woke a low, hollow, ominous echo, that seemed more than the step itself to disturb the sanctity of the place. It paused opposite to a confessional, which was but dimly visible through the shadows around it. And then there emerged timidly a female form; and a soft voice whispered?" It is thou, Ponseca 1" "Hist!" was the answer; "he waits without. Be quick; speak not?come." Beatriz recoiled in surprise and alarm at the voice of a stranger; but the man, seizing her by the hand, drew her hastily from the chapel, and hurried her across the garden, through a small postern door, which stood ajar, into an o...