The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales | Page 6

Magdalena, in the same calm tone she had before employed, "see you now for the first time."
"Beautiful girl!" cried the stranger; "no! I have for months haunted you like your shadow. Your fair face threw the first gleams of sunshine into my heart that have visited it from early manhood. I love you, Magdalena!"
"This is no hour and no place for words like these," replied the captive, coldly.
"Nay!" cried the stranger, with sudden energy. "Beautiful girl, I come to save you!"
"To save me!" cried Magdalena, a sudden, wild hope springing in her breast,"--to save me! It is well done. Believe me, I am innocent. You have bribed the jailer to open my prison doors; you have contrived some means of evasion. I know not--I care not what. I shall be freed! I shall clasp my father's knees once more. I shall go forth into the blessed air and light of heaven. God bless you, whoever you are, for your words of hope!"
"You shall go forth, if you will," replied the stranger; "but openly, in the face and eyes of man. At my word the prison bars will fall, the keys will turn, the gates will be unbarred. I have a royal pardon!"
"Give it me! give it me!" almost shrieked Magdalena.
"It is bestowed on one condition: that you become my wife."
"That I become your wife!" repeated Magdalena, as if she but half comprehended the words. "Forsake poor Julio! And yet the bribe, to escape a death of infamy, to save my father's gray hairs from going down to a dishonored grave! Speak! who are you, with power to save me on these terms?"
The stranger tossed aside his sable hat and plume, and dropped his cloak, and stood before her in a rich dress of black velvet, trimmed with point lace, a broadsword belted to his waist. He was a man of middle age, of a fine, athletic figure, and handsome face, but there was an indescribable expression in his dark eyes, in the stern lines about his handsome mouth, that affected the gazer with a strange, shuddering horror.
"Peruse me well, maiden," said the stranger. "I am not deformed. I am as other men. If there be no glow in my cheek, still the blood that flows through my veins is healthy and untainted. Moreover, though I be not noble, my character is stainless. If to be the wife of an honest man is not too dear a purchase for your life, accept my hand, and you are saved."
"Who are you?" cried Magdalena, intense curiosity mastering her even in that moment.
"I am the executioner of Madrid!" replied the stranger.
Magdalena covered her face with her hands, and uttered a low cry of horror.
"I am the executioner of Madrid!" repeated he. "I have never committed crime in my life, though my blade has been reddened with the blood of my fellow-creatures. Yet no man takes my hand,--no man breaks bread or drinks wine with me. I, the dread minister of justice, a necessity of society, like the soldier on the rampart, or the priest at the altar, am a being lonely, abhorred, accursed. Yet I have the feelings, the passions of other men. But what maiden would listen to the suit of one like me? What father would give his daughter to my arms? None, none! And, therefore, the state decrees that when the executioner would wed, he must take to his arms a woman doomed to death. I loved you, Magdalena, hopelessly, ere I dreamed the hour would ever arrive when I might hope to claim you. That hour has now come. I offer you your life and my hand. You must be my bride, or my victim!"
"Your victim! your victim!" cried Magdalena. "Death a thousand times, though a thousand times undeserved, rather than your foul embrace!"
"You have chosen. Your blood be on your own head!" cried the executioner, stamping his foot. "You die unshriven and unblessed!"
"At least, abhorred ruffian," cried Magdalena, "I have some little time for preparation! The hour has not yet arrived."
"Has it not?" cried the executioner. "Behold yon clock!"
And as her eyes were strained upon the dial, he strode out of the cell, and seizing the hands, advanced them to the hour of noon. Then, at a signal from his hand, the prison bell began to toll.
"Mercy; mercy!" cried Magdalena, as he rejoined her. "Slay me not before my time!"
But the hand of the ruffian already grasped her arm, and he dragged her forth into the corridor.
At that moment, however, a loud shout arose, and a group of officials, escorting the goldsmith and Julio, waving a paper in his hand, rushed breathlessly along the passage.
"Saved, saved!" cried Magdalena. "Hither, hither, father, Julio!"
The executioner had wreathed his hand in her dark, flowing tresses; already his dreadful weapon was brandished in