prison to work on the roads in Calabria, his rival visited him in his
dungeon. For some moments both looked at the other in silence. The
impostor gazed on the prisoner with mingled pride and compassion: there
was evidently a struggle in his heart. The answering glance of Ferdinand
was calm, free, and dignified. He was not resigned to his hard fate, but
he disdained to make any exhibition of despair to his cruel and
successful foe. A spasm of pain seemed to wrench the bosom of the false
one; and he turned aside, striving to recover the hardness of heart
which had hitherto supported him in the prosecution of his guilty
enterprise. Ferdinand spoke first.
“What would the triumphant criminal with his innocent victim?”
His visitant replied haughtily, “Do not address such epithets to me, or
I leave you to your fate: I am that which I say I am.”
“To me this boast!” cried Ferdinand scornfully; “but perhaps these walls
have ears.”
“Heaven, at least, is not deaf,” said the deceiver; “favouring Heaven,
which knows and admits my claim. But a truce to this idle discussion.
Compassion—a distaste to see one so very like myself in such ill
condition—a foolish whim, perhaps, on which you may congratulate
yourself—has led me hither. The bolts of your dungeon are drawn; here is
a purse of gold; fulfil one easy condition, and you are free.”
“And that condition?”
“Sign this paper.”
He gave to Ferdinand a writing, containing a confession of his imputed
crimes. The hand of the guilty youth trembled as he gave it; there was
confusion in his mien, and a restless uneasy rolling of his eye.
Ferdinand wished in one mighty word, potent as lightning, loud as
thunder, to convey his burning disdain of this proposal: but expression
is weak, and calm is more full of power than storm. Without a word, he
tore the paper in two pieces and threw them at the feet of his enemy.
With a sudden change of manner, his visitant conjured him, in voluble
and impetuous terms, to comply. Ferdinand answered only by requesting to
be left alone. Now and then a half word broke uncontrollably from his
lips; but he curbed himself. Yet he could not hide his agitation when,
as an argument to make him yield, the false Count assured him that he
was already married to Adalinda. Bitter agony thrilled poor Ferdinand’s
frame; but he preserved a calm mien, and an unaltered resolution. Having
exhausted every menace and every persuasion, his rival left him, the
purpose for which he came unaccomplished. On the morrow, with many
others, the refuse of mankind, Count Ferdinando Eboli was led in chains
to the unwholesome plains of Calabria, to work there at the roads.
I must hurry over some of the subsequent events, for a detailed account
of them would fill volumes. The assertion of the usurper of Ferdinand’s
right, that he was already married to Adalinda, was, like all else he
said, false. The day was, however, fixed for their union, when the
illness and the subsequent death of the Marchese Spina delayed its
celebration. Adalinda retired during the first months of mourning to a
castle belonging to her father not far from Arpino, a town of the
kingdom of Naples, in the midst of the Apennines, about 50 miles from
the capital. Before she went, the deceiver tried to persuade her to
consent to a private marriage. He was probably afraid that, in the long
interval that was about to ensue before he could secure her, she would
discover his imposture. Besides, a rumour had gone abroad that one of
the fellow-prisoners of Ferdinand, a noted bandit, had escaped, and that
the young count was his companion in flight. Adalinda, however, refused
to comply with her lover’s entreaties, and retired to her seclusion with
an old aunt, who was blind and deaf, but an excellent duenna. The false
Eboli seldom visited his mistress; but he was a master in his art, and
subsequent events showed that he must have spent all his time,
disguised, in the vicinity of the castle. He contrived by various means,
unsuspected at the moment, to have all Adalinda’s servants changed for
creatures of his own; so that, without her being aware of the restraint,
she was, in fact, a prisoner in her own house. It is impossible to say
what first awakened her suspicions concerning the deception put upon
her. She was an Italian, with all the habitual quiescence and lassitude
of her countrywomen in the ordinary routine of life, and with all their
energy and passion when roused. The moment the doubt darted into her
mind she resolved to be assured. A few questions relative to scenes that
had passed between poor Ferdinand and herself sufficed for this. They
were asked so suddenly and pointedly that the pretender was thrown off
his guard; he looked confused, and stammered in his replies. Their eyes
met; he felt that he was detected, and she saw that he perceived her now
confirmed suspicions. A look such as is peculiar to an impostor—a glance
that deformed his beauty, and filled his usually noble countenance with
the hideous lines of cunning and cruel triumph—completed her faith in
her own discernment. “How,” she thought, “could I have mistaken this man
for my own gentle Eboli?” Again their eyes met. The peculiar expression
of his terrified her, and she hastily quitted the apartment.
Her resolution was quickly formed. It was of no use to attempt to
explain her situation to her old aunt. She determined to depart
immediately for Naples, throw herself at the feet of Gioacchino, and to
relate and obtain credit for her strange history. But the time was
already lost when she could have executed this design. The contrivances
of the deceiver were complete—she found herself a prisoner. Excess of
fear gave her boldness, if not courage. She sought her jailor. A few
minutes before she had been a young and thoughtless girl, docile as a
child, and as unsuspecting; now she felt as if she had suddenly grown
old in wisdom, and that the experience of years had been gained in that
of a few seconds.
During their interview she was wary and firm, while the instinctive
power of innocence over guilt gave majesty to her demeanour. The
contriver of her ills for a moment cowered beneath her eye. At first he
would by no means allow that he was not the person he pretended to be,
but the energy and eloquence of truth bore down his artifice, so that,
at length driven into a corner, he turned—a stag at bay. Then it was her
turn to quail, for the superior energy of a man gave him the mastery. He
declared the truth: he was the elder brother of Ferdinand, a natural son
of the old Count Eboli. His mother, who had been wronged, never forgave
her injurer, and bred her son in deadly hate for his parent, and a
belief that the advantages enjoyed by his more fortunate brother were
rightfully his own. His education was rude; but he had an Italian’s
subtle talents, swiftness of perception, and guileful arts.
“It would blanch your cheek,” he said to his trembling auditress, “could
I describe all that I have suffered to achieve my purpose. I would trust
to none—I executed all myself. It was a glorious triumph, but due to my
perseverance and my fortitude, when I and my usurping brother stood—I,
the noble, he, the degraded outcast—before our sovereign.”
Having rapidly detailed his history, he now sought to win the favourable
ear of Adalinda, who stood with averted and angry looks. He tried by the
varied shows of passion and tenderness to move her heart. Was he not, in
truth, the object of her love? Was it not he who scaled her balcony at
Villa Spina? He recalled scenes of mutual overflow of feeling to her
mind, thus urging arguments the most potent with a delicate woman. Pure
blushes tinged her cheek, but horror of the deceiver predominated over
every other sentiment. He swore that as soon as they should be united he
would free Ferdinand, and bestow competency, nay, if so she willed it,
half his possessions on him. She coldly replied, that she would rather
share the chains of the innocent, and misery, than link herself with
imposture and crime. She demanded her liberty; but the untamed and even
ferocious nature that had borne the deceiver through his career of crime
now broke forth, and he invoked fearful imprecations on his head if she
ever quitted the castle except as his wife. His look of conscious power
and unbridled wickedness terrified her; her flashing eyes spoke
abhorrence. It would have been far easier for her to have died than have
yielded the smallest point to a man who had made her feel for one moment
his irresistible power, arising from her being an unprotected woman,
wholly in his hands. She left him, feeling as if she had just escaped
from the impending sword of an assassin.
One hour’s deliberation suggested to her a method of escape from her
terrible situation. In a wardrobe at the castle lay, in their pristine
gloss, the habiliments of a page of her mother, who had died suddenly,
leaving these unworn relics of his station. Dressing herself in these,
she tied up her dark shining hair, and even, with a somewhat bitter
feeling, girded on the slight sword that appertained to the costume.
Then, through a private passage leading from her own apartment to the
chapel of the castle, she glided with noiseless steps, long after the
Ave Maria, sounded at four o’clock, had, on a November night, given
token that half an hour had passed since the setting of the sun. She
possessed the key of the chapel door—it opened at her touch; she closed
it behind her, and she was free. The pathless hills were around her, the
starry heavens above, and a cold wintry breeze murmured around the
castle walls; but fear of her enemy conquered every other fear, and she
tripped lightly on in a kind of ecstasy for many a long hour over the
stony mountain path—she, who had never before walked more than a mile or
two from home at any time in her life—till her feet were blistered, her
slight shoes cut through, her way utterly lost. At morning’s dawn she
found herself in the midst of the wild ilex-covered Apennines, and
neither habitation nor human being apparent.
She was hungry and weary. She had brought gold and jewels with her; but
here were no means of exchanging these for food. She remembered stories
of banditti, but none could be so ruffian-like and cruel as him from
whom she fled. This thought, a little rest, and a draught of water from
a pure mountain-spring, restored her to some portion of courage, and she
continued her journey. Noonday approached; and, in the south of Italy,
the noonday sun, when unclouded, even in November, is oppressively warm,
especially to an Italian woman, who never exposes herself to its beams.
Faintness came over her. There appeared recesses in the mountain sides
along which she was travelling, grown over with bay and arbutus: she
entered one of these, there to repose. It was deep, and led to another
that opened into a spacious cavern lighted from above: there were cates,
grapes, and a flagon of wine on a rough-hewn table. She looked fearfully
around, but no inhabitant appeared. She placed herself at the table,
and, half in dread, ate of the food presented to her; and then sat, her
elbow on the table, her head resting on her little snow-white hand, her
dark hair shading her brow and clustering round her throat. An
appearance of languor and fatigue was diffused through her attitude,
while her soft black eyes filled at intervals with large tears as,
pitying herself, she recurred to the cruel circumstances of her lot. Her
fanciful but elegant dress, her feminine form, her beauty and her grace,
as she sat pensive and alone in the rough unhewn cavern, formed a
picture a poet would describe with delight, an artist love to paint.
“She seemed a being of another world; a seraph, all light and beauty: a
Ganymede, escaped from his thrall above to his natal Ida. It was long
before I recognised, looking down on her from the opening hill, my lost
Adalinda.” Thus spoke the young Count Eboli, when he related this story;
for its end was as romantic as its commencement.
When Ferdinando had arrived, a galley-slave in Calabria, he found
himself coupled with a bandit, a brave fellow, who abhorred his chains,
from love of freedom, as much as his fellow-prisoner did, from all the
combination of disgrace and misery they brought upon him. Together they
devised a plan of escape, and succeeded in effecting it. On their road,
Ferdinand related his story to the outlaw, who encouraged him to hope
for a favourable turn of fate; and meanwhile invited and persuaded the
desperate man to share his fortunes as a robber among the wild hills of
Calabria.
The cavern where Adalinda had taken refuge was one of their fastnesses,
whither they betook themselves at periods of imminent danger for safety
only, as no booty could be collected in that unpeopled solitude; and
there, one afternoon, returning from the chase, they found the
wandering, fearful, solitary, fugitive girl; and never was lighthouse
more welcome to tempest-tossed sailor than was her own Ferdinand to his
lady-love.
Fortune, now tired of persecuting the young noble, favoured him still
further. The story of the lovers interested the bandit chief, and
promise of reward secured him. Ferdinand persuaded Adalinda to remain
one night in the cave, and on the following morning they prepared to
proceed to Naples; but at the moment of their departure they were
surprised by an unexpected visitant: the robbers brought in a
prisoner—it was the impostor. Missing on the morrow her who was the
pledge of his safety and success, but assured that she could not have
wandered far, he despatched emissaries in all directions to seek her;
and himself, joining in the pursuit, followed the road she had taken,
and was captured by these lawless men, who expected rich ransom from one
whose appearance denoted rank and wealth. When they discovered who their
prisoner was, they generously delivered him up into his brother’s hands.
Ferdinand and Adalinda proceeded to Naples. On their arrival, she
presented herself to Queen Caroline; and, through her, Murat heard with
astonishment the device that had been practised on him. The young Count
was restored to his honours and possessions, and within a few months
afterwards was united to his betrothed bride.
The compassionate nature of the Count and Countess led them to interest
themselves warmly in the fate of Ludovico, whose subsequent career was
more honourable but less fortunate. At the intercession of his relative,
Gioacchino permitted him to enter the army, where he distinguished
himself, and obtained promotion. The brothers were at Moscow together,
and mutually assisted each other during the horrors of the retreat. At
one time overcome by drowsiness, the mortal symptom resulting from
excessive cold, Ferdinand lingered behind his comrades; but Ludovico,
refusing to leave him, dragged him on in spite of himself, till,
entering a village, food and fire restored him, and his life was saved.
On another evening, when wind and sleet added to the horror of their
situation, Ludovico, after many ineffective struggles, slid from his
horse lifeless; Ferdinand was at his side, and, dismounting, endeavoured
by every means in his power to bring back pulsation to his stagnant
blood. His comrades went forward, and the young Count was left alone
with his dying brother in the white boundless waste. Once Ludovico
opened his eyes and recognised him; he pressed his hand, and his lips
moved to utter a blessing as he died. At that moment the welcome sounds
of the enemy’s approach roused Ferdinand from the despair into which his
dreadful situation plunged him. He was taken prisoner, and his life was
thus saved. When Napoleon went to Elba, he, with many others of his
countrymen, was liberated, and returned to Naples.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
III.
_THE EVIL EYE._
“The wild Albanian kirtled to his knee,
With shawl-girt head, and ornamented gun,
And gold-embroider’d garments, fair to see;
The crimson-scarfed man of Macedon.”
—LORD BYRON.
THE Moreot, Katusthius Ziani, travelled wearily, and in fear of its
robber-inhabitants, through the pashalik of Yannina; yet he had no cause
for dread. Did he arrive, tired and hungry, in a solitary village,—did
he find himself in the uninhabited wilds suddenly surrounded by a band
of klephts,—or in the larger towns did he shrink at finding himself,
sole of his race, among the savage mountaineers and despotic Turk,—as
soon as he announced himself the Pobratimo[1] of Dmitri of the Evil Eye,
every hand was held out, every voice spoke welcome.
-----
Footnote 1:
In Greece, especially in Illyria and Epirus, it is no uncommon thing
for persons of the same sex to swear friendship. The Church contains a
ritual to consecrate this vow. Two men thus united are called
_pobratimi_, the women _posestrime_.
The Albanian, Dmitri, was a native of the village of Korvo. Among the
savage mountains of the district between Yannina and Terpellenè, the
deep broad stream of Argyro-Castro flows; bastioned to the west by
abrupt wood-covered precipices, shadowed to the east by elevated
mountains. The highest among these is Mount Trebucci; and in a romantic
folding of that hill, distinct with minarets, crowned by a dome rising
from out a group of pyramidal cypresses, is the picturesque village of
Korvo. Sheep and goats form the apparent treasure of its inhabitants;
their guns and yataghans, their warlike habits, and, with them, the
noble profession of robbery, are sources of still greater wealth. Among
a race renowned for dauntless courage and sanguinary enterprise, Dmitri
was distinguished.
It was said that in his youth this klepht was remarkable for a gentler
disposition and more refined taste than is usual with his countrymen. He
had been a wanderer, and had learned European arts, of which he was not
a little proud. He could read and write Greek, and a book was often
stowed beside his pistols in his girdle. He had spent several years in
Scio, the most civilised of the Greek islands, and had married a Sciote
girl. The Albanians are characterized as despisers of women; but Dmitri,
in becoming the husband of Helena, enlisted under a more chivalrous
rule, and became the proselyte of a better creed. Often he returned to
his native hills, and fought under the banner of the renowned Ali, and
then came back to his island home. The love of the tamed barbarian was
concentrated, burning, and something beyond this: it was a portion of
his living, beating heart,—the nobler part of himself,—the diviner mould
in which his rugged nature had been recast.
On his return from one of his Albanian expeditions he found his home
ravaged by the Mainotes. Helena—they pointed to her tomb, nor dared tell
him how she died; his only child, his lovely infant daughter, was
stolen; his treasure-house of love and happiness was rifled, its
gold-excelling wealth changed to blank desolation. Dmitri spent three
years in endeavours to recover his lost offspring. He was exposed to a
thousand dangers, underwent incredible hardships. He dared the wild
beast in his lair, the Mainote in his port of refuge; he attacked, and
was attacked by them. He wore the badge of his daring in a deep gash
across his eyebrow and cheek. On this occasion he had died, but that
Katusthius, seeing a scuffle on shore and a man left for dead,
disembarked from a Moreot sacovela, carried him away, tended and cured
him. They exchanged vows of friendship, and for some time the Albanian
shared his brother’s toils; but they were too pacific to suit his taste,
and he returned to Korvo.
Who in the mutilated savage could recognise the handsomest amongst the
Arnaoots? His habits kept pace with his change of physiognomy: he grew
ferocious and hardhearted; he only smiled when engaged in dangerous
enterprise. He had arrived at that worst state of ruffian feeling, the
taking delight in blood. He grew old in these occupations; his mind
became reckless, his countenance more dark; men trembled before his
glance, women and children exclaimed in terror, “The Evil Eye!” The
opinion became prevalent; he shared it himself; he gloried in the dread
privilege; and when his victim shivered and withered beneath the mortal
influence, the fiendish laugh with which he hailed this demonstration of
his power struck with worse dismay the failing heart of the fascinated
person. But Dmitri could command the arrows of his sight; and his
comrades respected him the more for his supernatural attribute since
they did not fear the exercise of it on themselves.
Dmitri had just returned from an expedition beyond Prevesa. He and his
comrades were laden with spoil. They killed and roasted a goat whole for
their repast; they drank dry several wine skins; then, round the fire in
the court, they abandoned themselves to the delights of the kerchief
dance, roaring out the chorus as they dropped upon and then rebounded
from their knees, and whirled round and round with an activity all their
own. The heart of Dmitri was heavy; he refused to dance, and sat apart,
at first joining in the song with his voice and lute, till the air
changed to one that reminded him of better days. His voice died away,
his instrument dropped from his hands, and his head sank upon his
breast.
At the sound of stranger footsteps he started up; in the form before him
he surely recognised a friend—he was not mistaken. With a joyful
exclamation he welcomed Katusthius Ziani, clasping his hand and kissing
him on the cheek. The traveller was weary, so they retired to Dmitri’s
own home,—a neatly plastered, white-washed cottage, whose earthen floor
was perfectly dry and clean, and the walls hung with arms—some richly
ornamented—and other trophies of his klephtic triumphs. A fire was
kindled by his aged female attendant; the friends reposed on mats of
white rushes while she prepared the pilaf and seethed flesh of kid. She
placed a bright tin-tray on a block of wood before them, and heaped upon
it cakes of Indian corn, goat’s-milk cheese, eggs, and olives; a jar of
water from their purest spring, and skin of wine, served to refresh and
cheer the thirsty traveller.
After supper the guest spoke of the object of his visit.
“I come to my pobratimo,” he said, “to claim the performance of his vow.
When I rescued you from the savage Kakovougnis of Boularias, you pledged
to me your gratitude and faith; do you disclaim the debt?”
Dmitri’s brow darkened. “My brother,” he cried, “need not remind me of
what I owe. Command my life; in what can the mountain klepht aid the son
of the wealthy Ziani!”
“The son of Ziani is a beggar,” rejoined Katusthius, “and must perish if
his brother deny his assistance.”