"Is it thou, indeed?" she murmured, under her breath. "Then thou hast
no right to scowl upon me so! But art thou real, or a vision?" She bent
down over the dead monk, till one of her rich curls brushed against his
forehead. She touched one of his folded hands with her finger.
"It is he," said Miriam. "There is the scar, that I know so well, on his
brow. And it is no vision; he is palpable to my touch! I will question
the fact no longer, but deal with it as I best can."
It was wonderful to see how the crisis developed in Miriam its own
proper strength, and the faculty of sustaining the demands which it made
upon her fortitude. She ceased to tremble; the beautiful woman gazed
sternly at her dead enemy, endeavoring to meet and quell the look of
accusation that he threw from between his half-closed eyelids.
"No; thou shalt not scowl me down!" said she. "Neither now, nor when
we stand together at the judgment-seat. I fear not to meet thee there.
Farewell, till that next encounter!"
Haughtily waving her hand, Miriam rejoined her friends, who were
awaiting her at the door of the church. As they went out, the sacristan
stopped them, and proposed to show the cemetery of the convent, where
the deceased members of the fraternity are laid to rest in sacred earth,
brought long ago from Jerusalem.
"And will yonder monk be buried there?" she asked.
"Brother Antonio?" exclaimed the sacristan.
"Surely, our good brother will be put to bed there! His grave is already
dug, and the last occupant has made room for him. Will you look at it,
signorina?"
"I will!" said Miriam.
"Then excuse me," observed Kenyon; "for I shall leave you. One dead monk
has more than sufficed me; and I am not bold enough to face the whole
mortality of the convent."
It was easy to see, by Donatello's looks, that he, as well as the
sculptor, would gladly have escaped a visit to the famous cemetery of
the Cappuccini. But Miriam's nerves were strained to such a pitch, that
she anticipated a certain solace and absolute relief in passing from
one ghastly spectacle to another of long-accumulated ugliness; and there
was, besides, a singular sense of duty which impelled her to look at
the final resting-place of the being whose fate had been so disastrously
involved with her own. She therefore followed the sacristan's guidance,
and drew her companion along with her, whispering encouragement as they
went.
The cemetery is beneath the church, but entirely above ground, and
lighted by a row of iron-grated windows without glass. A corridor runs
along beside these windows, and gives access to three or four vaulted
recesses, or chapels, of considerable breadth and height, the floor of
which consists of the consecrated earth of Jerusalem. It is smoothed
decorously over the deceased brethren of the convent, and is kept
quite free from grass or weeds, such as would grow even in these gloomy
recesses, if pains were not bestowed to root them up. But, as the
cemetery is small, and it is a precious privilege to sleep in holy
ground, the brotherhood are immemorially accustomed, when one of their
number dies, to take the longest buried skeleton out of the oldest
grave, and lay the new slumberer there instead. Thus, each of the good
friars, in his turn, enjoys the luxury of a consecrated bed, attended
with the slight drawback of being forced to get up long before daybreak,
as it were, and make room for another lodger.