Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1893-06-16

The castle of the Prince of Tolfi was
built on the summit of the towering
and precipitous rock of Scylla, and
commanded a magnificent view of
Sicily in all its grandeur Here during
the wars of the middle ages, when the
fertile plains OF Italy were devastated
by hostile factions, those prisoners were
confined, for whose ransom a costly
price was demanded. Here, too, in q
dungeon, excavated deep in the solid
rock, the miserable victim was i'm
mured whom revenge larsued-the
dark, fierce, and Implying revenge of
an Italian heart
Vivenzio-the noble and the gener-
ous, the fearless in battle, and the
pride. of Naples in her sunny hours of
peacS-the young, the brave, the proud
Vivenzio, fell beneath this subtle and
remorseless spirit. He was the prisoner
of Tolf. and he languished in that
rock-encircled dungeon, which stood
alone, and whose portals never opened
twice upon living captive.
1t had ne sem b ance of vast cage,
for the roof and floor and sides We're of
iron, solidly wrought, and spaciously
constructed High above there ran a
range of seven grated windows,
guarded with massy bars of the same
metal, which admitted light and air.
Save these, and the tall folding-doors
beneath them which occupied the CEN
ter, no chink or chasm or projection
broke the smooth black surface of the
walls. An iron bedstead, Uttered with
straw, stood in one corner; and beside
it, vessel with water, and a coarse
dish filed with coarser food.
Even the intrepid soul of Vivenzio
shrunl1 with dismay as he entered this
abode, and heard the ponderous door
triple locked by the silent rufians who
conducted him to it. Their silence
seemed prophetic of his fate, of the liv-
ing grave that had been prepared for
him. His menaces and his entreaties,
his indignant appeals for justice, and
his questioning OF their intentions were
alike in vain. They listened, but spoke
not. Fit ministers of a crime that
should have no tongue!
How dismal was the sound of their
retiring steps! And, as their faint
echoes died along the winding passages,
a f'arful presage grew within him,
that never more the face or voice or
tread of man would greet his senses
He had seen human beings for the last
timel And he had looked his last upon
the bright sky, and upon the smiling
earth, and upon a beautiful world he
loved and whose minion he had BEEN!
Here he was to end his life-a life he
had just begun to revel in! And by
what means? BY secret poison or by
murderous assault? No-for then it
had been needless to bring him hither
Famine .perhaps-a thousand deaths in
one! 1t was terrible to think of it; but
it was yet more terrible to picture long,
long years of captivity, in a solitude so
appalling, loneliness so dreary,
that thought, for want of fellowship,
would lose itself in madness or stagnate
into idiocy.
He could not hope to escape, unless
he had the power of rendering asunder,
with his bare hands, the solid iron
walls of his prison. He could not hope
for liberty from the relenting mercies
of his enemy His instant death, under
any form of refined cruelty, was not
the object of Tolf, for he might have
inflicted it, and he had not. 1t was too
evident, therefore, he was reserved for
some premeditated scheme of subtle
vengea-ce, and what vengeance could
trarsc n6 ~ fiendish malice either the
slow dcat of famine, or the still slower
one OF 50 tary incarceration, till the
last linrcrif spark of life expired or
till reason fed, and nothing should re-
main TO perish but the brute functions
of the body?
1t was evening when Vivenzio en-
tered his dungeon, and the approach
ing shades of night wrapped it in total
darkness, as he paced up and down, re-
volving in his mind these horrible fore
bodings. No tolling bell from the
castle, or from any neighboring church
or convent, struck upon his ear to tell
how the hours passed frequently he
would stop and listen for some sound
that might betoken the vicinity of
man. but the solitude of the desert, the
silence of the tomb, are not so still and
deep as the oppressive desolation by
which he was encompassed. His heart
sank within him, and he threw himself
dejectedly down upon his couch of straw.
Here sleep gradually obliterated the
consciousness of misery, and bland
dreams waited his delighted spirit to
scenes which were once glowing reali-
ties for him, in whose ravishing illu-
sions he soon lost the remembrance
that he was Tolfi's prisoner
When he awoke, it was daylight; but
how long he had slept he knew not II
might be early morning, or it might be
sultry noop, for he could measure time