A Sicilian Romance

Near a fortnight had elapsed without producing any appearance of

hostility from the marquis, when one night, long after the hour of

repose, Julia was awakened by the bell of the monastery. She knew it

was not the hour customary for prayer, and she listened to the sounds,

which rolled through the deep silence of the fabric, with strong

surprise and terror. Presently she heard the doors of several cells

creak on their hinges, and the sound of quick footsteps in the

passages--and through the crevices of her door she distinguished

passing lights.

The whispering noise of steps increased, and every

person of the monastery seemed to have awakened. Her terror

heightened; it occurred to her that the marquis had surrounded the

abbey with his people, in the design of forcing her from her retreat;

and she arose in haste, with an intention of going to the chamber of

Madame de Menon, when she heard a gentle tap at the door. Her enquiry

of who was there, was answered in the voice of madame, and her fears

were quickly dissipated, for she learned the bell was a summons to

attend a dying nun, who was going to the high altar, there to receive

extreme unction.

She quitted the chamber with madame. In her way to the church, the

gleam of tapers on the walls, and the glimpse which her eye often

caught of the friars in their long black habits, descending silently

through the narrow winding passages, with the solemn toll of the bell,

conspired to kindle imagination, and to impress her heart with sacred

awe. But the church exhibited a scene of solemnity, such as she had

never before witnessed. Its gloomy aisles were imperfectly seen by the

rays of tapers from the high altar, which shed a solitary gleam over

the remote parts of the fabric, and produced large masses of light and

shade, striking and sublime in their effect.

While she gazed, she heard a distant chanting rise through the aisles;

the sounds swelled in low murmurs on the ear, and drew nearer and

nearer, till a sudden blaze of light issued from one of the portals,

and the procession entered. The organ instantly sounded a high and

solemn peal, and the voices rising altogether swelled the sacred

strain. In front appeared the Padre Abate, with slow and measured

steps, bearing the holy cross. Immediately followed a litter, on which

lay the dying person covered with a white veil, borne along and

surrounded by nuns veiled in white, each carrying in her hand a

lighted taper. Last came the friars, two and two, cloathed in black,

and each bearing a light.