IT mattered little to me to what port the vessel was bound. Go where I
might, I knew that I was on my way to Mrs. Van Brandt. She had need
of me again; she had claimed me again. Where the visionary hand of the
child had pointed, thither I was destined to go. Abroad or at home,
it mattered nothing: when I next set my foot on the land, I should be
further directed on the journey which lay before me. I believed this as
firmly as I believed that I had been guided, thus far, by the vision of
the child.
For two nights I had not slept--my weariness overpowered me. I descended
to the cabin, and found an unoccupied corner in which I could lie down
to rest. When I awoke, it was night already, and the vessel was at sea.
I went on deck to breathe the fresh air. Before long the sensation of
drowsiness returned; I slept again for hours together. My friend, the
physician, would no doubt have attributed this prolonged need of repose
to the exhausted condition of my brain, previously excited by delusions
which had lasted uninterruptedly for many hours together. Let the cause
be what it might, during the greater part of the voyage I was awake at
intervals only. The rest of the time I lay like a weary animal, lost in
sleep.
When I stepped on shore at Rotterdam, my first proceeding was to ask my
way to the English Consulate. I had but a small sum of money with me;
and, for all I knew to the contrary, it might be well, before I did
anything else, to take the necessary measures for replenishing my purse.
I had my traveling-bag with me. On the journey to Greenwater Broad I had
left it at the inn in the market-town, and the waiter had placed it in
the carriage when I started on my return to London. The bag contained my
checkbook, and certain letters which assisted me in proving my identity
to the consul. He kindly gave me the necessary introduction to the
correspondents at Rotterdam of my bankers in London.
Having obtained my money, and having purchased certain necessaries of
which I stood in need, I walked slowly along the street, knowing nothing
of what my next proceeding was to be, and waiting confidently for the
event which was to guide me. I had not walked a hundred yards before
I noticed the name of "Van Brandt" inscribed on the window-blinds of a
house which appeared to be devoted to mercantile purposes.
The street door stood open. A second door, on one side of the passage,
led into the office. I entered the room and inquired for Mr. Van Brandt.
A clerk who spoke English was sent for to communicate with me. He told
me there were three partners of that name in the business, and inquired
which of them I wished to see. I remembered Van Brandt's Christian name,
and mentioned it. No such person as "Mr. Ernest Van Brandt" was known at
the office.
"We are only the branch house of the firm of Van Brandt here," the clerk
explained. "The head office is at Amsterdam. They may know where Mr.
Ernest Van Brandt is to be found, if you inquire there."
It mattered nothing to me where I went, so long as I was on my way to
Mrs. Van Brandt. It was too late to travel that day; I slept at a hotel.
The night passed quietly and uneventfully. The next morning I set forth
by the public conveyance for Amsterdam.
Repeating my inquiries at the head office on my arrival, I was referred
to one of the partners in the firm. He spoke English perfectly; and
he received me with an appearance of interest which I was at a loss to
account for at first.
"Mr. Ernest Van Brandt is well known to me," he said. "May I ask if you
are a relative or friend of the English lady who has been introduced
here as his wife?"
I answered in the affirmative; adding, "I am here to give any assistance
to the lady of which she may stand in need."
The merchant's next words explained the appearance of interest with
which he had received me.
"You are most welcome," he said. "You relieve my partners and myself
of a great anxiety. I can only explain what I mean by referring for
a moment to the business affairs of my firm. We have a fishing
establishment in the ancient city of Enkhuizen, on the shores of the
Zuyder Zee. Mr. Ernest Van Brandt had a share in it at one time, which
he afterward sold. Of late years our profits from this source have been
diminishing; and we think of giving up the fishery, unless our prospects
in that quarter improve after a further trial. In the meantime, having
a vacant situation in the counting-house at Enkhuizen, we thought of
Mr. Ernest Van Brandt, and offered him the opportunity of renewing his
connection with us, in the capacity of a clerk. He is related to one of
my partners; but I am bound in truth to tell you that he is a very bad
man. He has awarded us for our kindness to him by embezzling our
money; and he has taken to flight--in what direction we have not
yet discovered. The English lady and her child are left deserted at
Enkhuizen; and until you came here to-day we were quite at a loss to
know what to do with them. I don't know whether you are already aware
of it, sir; but the lady's position is made doubly distressing by doubts
which we entertain of her being really Mr. Ernest Van Brandt's wife. To
our certain knowledge, he was privately married to another woman some
years since; and we have no evidence whatever that the first wife
is dead. If we can help you in any way to assist your unfortunate
country-woman, pray believe that our services are at your disposal."
With what breathless interest I listened to these words it is needless
to say. Van Brandt had deserted her! Surely (as my poor mother had once
said) "she must turn to me now." The hopes that had abandoned me filled
my heart once more; the future which I had so long feared to contemplate
showed itself again bright with the promise of coming happiness to my
view. I thanked the good merchant with a fervor that surprised him.
"Only help me to find my way to Enkhuizen," I said, "and I will answer
for the rest."
"The journey will put you to some expense," the merchant replied.
"Pardon me if I ask the question bluntly. Have you money?"
"Plenty of money."
"Very good. The rest will be easy enough. I will place you under the
care of a countryman of yours, who has been employed in our office for
many years. The easiest way for you, as a stranger, will be to go by
sea; and the Englishman will show you where to hire a boat."
In a few minutes more the clerk and I were on our way to the harbor.
Difficulties which I had not anticipated occurred in finding the boat
and in engaging a crew. This done, it was next necessary to purchase
provisions for the voyage. Thanks to the experience of my companion, and
to the hearty good-will with which he exerted it, my preparations were
completed before night-fall. I was able to set sail for my destination
on the next day.
The boat had the double advantage, in navigating the Zuyder Zee, of
being large, and of drawing very little water; the captain's cabin was
at the stern; and the two or three men who formed his crew were berthed
forward, in the bows. The whole middle of the boat, partitioned off
on the one side and on the other from the captain and the crew, was
assigned to me for my cabin. Under these circumstances, I had no reason
to complain of want of space; the vessel measuring between fifty and
sixty tons. I had a comfortable bed, a table, and chairs. The kitchen
was well away from me, in the forward part of the boat. At my own
request, I set forth on the voyage without servant or interpreter. I
preferred being alone. The Dutch captain had been employed, at a former
period of his life, in the mercantile navy of France; and we could
communicate, whenever it was necessary or desirable, in the French
language.
We left the spires of Amsterdam behind us, and sailed over the smooth
waters of the lake on our way to the Zuyder Zee.
The history of this remarkable sea is a romance in itself. In the days
when Rome was mistress of the world, it had no existence. Where the
waves now roll, vast tracts of forest surrounded a great inland lake,
with but one river to serve it as an outlet to the sea. Swelled by a
succession of tempests, the lake overflowed its boundaries: its furious
waters, destroying every obstacle in their course, rested only when they
reached the furthest limits of the land.
The Northern Ocean beyond burst its way in through the gaps of ruin;
and from that time the Zuyder Zee existed as we know it now. The years
advanced, the generations of man succeeded each other; and on the shores
of the new ocean there rose great and populous cities, rich in commerce,
renowned in history. For centuries their prosperity lasted, before
the next in this mighty series of changes ripened and revealed itself.
Isolated from the rest of the world, vain of themselves and their good
fortune, careless of the march of progress in the nations round them,
the inhabitants of the Zuyder Zee cities sunk into the fatal torpor of
a secluded people. The few members of the population who still preserved
the relics of their old energy emigrated, while the mass left behind
resignedly witnessed the diminution of their commerce and the decay of
their institutions. As the years advanced to the nineteenth century, the
population was reckoned by hundreds where it had once been numbered by
thousands. Trade disappeared; whole streets were left desolate. Harbors,
once filled with shipping, were destroyed by the unresisted accumulation
of sand. In our own times the decay of these once flourishing cities is
so completely beyond remedy, that the next great change in contemplation
is the draining of the now dangerous and useless tract of water, and
the profitable cultivation of the reclaimed land by generations that are
still to come. Such, briefly told, is the strange story of the Zuyder
Zee.
As we advanced on our voyage, and left the river, I noticed the tawny
hue of the sea, caused by sand-banks which color the shallow water, and
which make the navigation dangerous to inexperienced seamen. We found
our moorings for the night at the fishing island of Marken--a low,
lost, desolate-looking place, as I saw it under the last gleams of the
twilight. Here and there, the gabled cottages, perched on hillocks, rose
black against the dim gray sky. Here and there, a human figure appeared
at the waterside, standing, fixed in contemplation of the strange boat.
And that was all I saw of the island of Marken.
Lying awake in the still night, alone on a strange sea, there were
moments when I found myself beginning to doubt the reality of my own
position.
Was it all a dream? My thoughts of suicide; my vision of the mother and
daughter; my journey back to the metropolis, led by the apparition
of the child; my voyage to Holland; my night anchorage in the unknown
sea--were these, so to speak, all pieces of the same morbid mental
puzzle, all delusions from which I might wake at any moment, and find
myself restored to my senses again in the hotel at London? Bewildered by
doubts which led me further and further from any definite conclusion,
I left my bed and went on deck to change the scene. It was a still and
cloudy night. In the black void around me, the island was a blacker
shadow yet, and nothing more. The one sound that reached my ears was the
heavy breathing of the captain and his crew sleeping on either side of
me. I waited, looking round and round the circle of darkness in which I
stood. No new vision showed itself. When I returned again to the cabin,
and slumbered at last, no dreams came to me. All that was mysterious,
all that was marvelous, in the later events of my life seemed to have
been left behind me in England. Once in Holland, my course had been
influenced by circumstances which were perfectly natural, by commonplace
discoveries which might have revealed themselves to any man in my
position. What did this mean? Had my gifts as a seer of visions departed
from me in the new land and among the strange people? Or had my destiny
led me to the place at which the troubles of my mortal pilgrimage were
to find their end? Who could say?
Early the next morning we set sail once more.
Our course was nearly northward. On one side of me was the tawny sea,
changing under certain conditions of the weather to a dull pearl-gray.
On the other side was the flat, winding coast, composed alternately of
yellow sand and bright-green meadow-lands; diversified at intervals by
towns and villages, whose red-tiled roofs and quaint church-steeples
rose gayly against the clear blue sky. The captain suggested to me
to visit the famous towns of Edam and Hoorn; but I declined to go on
shore. My one desire was to reach the ancient city in which Mrs. Van
Brandt had been left deserted. As we altered our course, to make for the
promontory on which Enkhuizen is situated, the wind fell, then shifted
to another quarter, and blew with a force which greatly increased the
difficulties of navigation. I still insisted, as long as it was possible
to do so, on holding on our course. After sunset, the strength of the
wind abated. The night came without a cloud, and the starry firmament
gave us its pale and glittering light. In an hour more the capricious
wind shifted back again in our favor. Toward ten o'clock we sailed into
the desolate harbor of Enkhuizen.
The captain and crew, fatigued by their exertions, ate their frugal
suppers and went to their beds. In a few minutes more, I was the only
person left awake in the boat.
I ascended to the deck, and looked about me.
Our boat was moored to a deserted quay. Excepting a few fishing vessels
visible near us, the harbor of this once prosperous place was a vast
solitude of water, varied here and there by dreary banks of sand.
Looking inland, I saw the lonely buildings of the Dead City--black,
grim, and dreadful under the mysterious starlight. Not a human creature,
not even a stray animal, was to be seen anywhere. The place might have
been desolated by a pestilence, so empty and so lifeless did it
now appear. Little more than a hundred years ago, the record of its
population reached sixty thousand. The inhabitants had dwindled to a
tenth of that number when I looked at Enkhuizen now!
I considered with myself what my next course of proceeding was to be.
The chances were certainly against my discovering Mrs. Van Brandt if I
ventured alone and unguided into the city at night. On the other hand,
now that I had reached the place in which she and her child were living,
friendless and deserted, could I patiently wait through the weary
interval that must elapse before the morning came and the town was
astir? I knew my own self-tormenting disposition too well to accept this
latter alternative. Whatever came of it, I determined to walk through
Enkhuizen on the bare chance of meeting some one who might inform me of
Mrs. Van Brandt's address.
First taking the precaution of locking my cabin door, I stepped from the
bulwark of the vessel to the lonely quay, and set forth upon my night
wanderings through the Dead City.