"Polidori_The Vampyre" - читать интересную книгу автора (Polidori John William)

around him -- his guards having, upon Lord Ruthven's being wounded,
immediately thrown up their arms and surrendered.

By promises of great reward, Aubrey soon induced them to convey his wounded
friend to a neighbouring cabin; and having agreed upon a ransom, he was no
more disturbed by their presence -- they being content merely to guard the
entrance till their comrade should return with the promised sum, for which
he had an order. Lord Ruthven's strength rapidly decreased; in two days
mortification ensued, and death seemed advancing with hasty steps. His
conduct and appearance had not changed; he seemed as unconscious of pain as
he had been of the objects about him: but towards the close of the last
evening, his mind became apparently uneasy, and his eye often fixed upon
Aubrey, who was induced to offer his assistance with more than usual
earnestness -- "Assist me! you may save me -- you may do more than that -- I
mean not life, I heed the death of my existence as little as that of the
passing day; but you may save my honour, your friend's honour." -- "How?
tell me how? I would do any thing," replied Aubrey. -- "I need but little,
my life ebbs apace -- I cannot explain the whole -- but if you would conceal
all you know of me, my honour were free from stain in the world's mouth --
and if my death were unknown for some time in England -- I -- I -- but
life." -- "It shall not be known." -- "Swear!" cried the dying man raising
himself with exultant violence. "Swear by all your soul reveres, by all your
nature fears, swear that for a year and a day you will not impart your
knowledge of my crimes or death to any living being in any way, whatever may
happen, or whatever you may see." -- His eyes seemed bursting from their
sockets; "I swear!" said Aubrey; he sunk laughing upon his pillow, and
breathed no more.

Aubrey retired to rest, but did not sleep; the many circumstances attending
his acquaintance with this man rose upon his mind, and he knew not why; when
he remembered his oath a cold shivering came over him, as if from the
presentiment of something horrible awaiting him. Rising early in the
morning, he was about to enter the hovel in which he had left the corpse,
when a robber met him, and informed him that it was no longer there, having
been conveyed by himself and comrades, upon his retiring, to the pinnacle of
a neighbouring mount, according to a promise they had given his lordship,
that it should be exposed to the first cold ray of the moon that rose after
his death. Aubrey astonished, and taking several of the men, determined to
go and bury it upon the spot where it lay. But, when he had mounted to the
summit he found no trace of either the corpse or the clothes, though the
robbers swore they pointed out the identical rock on which they had laid the
body. For a time his mind was bewildered in conjectures, but he at last
returned, convinced that they had buried the corpse for the sake of the
clothes.

Weary of a country in which he had met with such terrible misfortunes, and
in which all apparently conspired to heighten that superstitious melancholy
that had seized upon his mind, he resolved to leave it, and soon arrived at
Smyrna. While waiting for a vessel to convey him to Otranto, or to Naples,
he occupied himself in arranging those effects he had with him belonging to