cloudless, the stars shone with extraordinary brilliancy. As Reginald
pursued his way he looked to the west, and saw an unusually bright
star, and knew, according to what the old man had told him, that it
was the star of his nativity. He reached the ruins in about half an
hour’s rapid walking. A weird silence seemed to pervade the place. No
light was visible. There wasn’t a sign of the old man’s existence.
Reginald told ‘Wanga’ to precede him up the mouldering stairs, but the
great hound whined and drew back and crouched at his master’s feet, and
remained unmoved even by the vigorous kick which his master gave him.
So, with a muttered oath, Reginald mounted the stairs alone. He pushed
open the door and peered in. The window of the chamber was screened by
a curtain, on a shelf burned a small lamp, at the table sat the old
man. He was dressed in a suit of black velvet embroidered with gold,
while round his waist was a massive belt of silver. He wore a skull-cap
on his head, in his thin white hand he grasped the ebony rod, while the
index finger of the right hand was fixed on a passage in an open book
that lay on the table before him.
Reginald spoke to him. There was no answer, no movement. For the first
time he felt a sense of fear. He spoke again, but still no answer came.
He advanced a few steps into the room.
‘Do you not see I am here?’ he exclaimed.
The old man rose up, not as a living being, but like a mechanical
figure. The face was the face of a corpse. The eyes were dull and
glazed, but for an instant they lighted up as they turned upon the
speaker, though the light faded immediately, and without a sound the
old man sank to the floor, dead.
The situation was so weird, so ghastly, so dramatic, that Reginald’s
fears were now fully aroused, and with a suppressed moan of horror he
turned and fled. The dog was still crouching at the foot of the stairs,
but rose with a cry of joy as his master appeared. As Reginald left
the ruins he glanced at the west. His star of nativity was burning
brilliantly, but suddenly a dull red meteor shot across it, and
remembering then the old man’s prophecy, he was so overcome that he
dropped senseless to the ground in a faint. In a few minutes, finding
that something was wrong, the faithful hound rushed back to the castle,
and by his howling and barking attracted attention. When the servants
hurried to the great gateway he indicated that something was wrong;
so torches were procured and the dog was followed to where his master
still lay insensible on the ground. He was raised up and carried back,
but when he came to his senses he was in a raging fever. He frequently
became delirious, and in the hour of his lunacy was accustomed to talk
of an evil spirit that had visited him in his slumbers. His mother was
shocked at such evident symptoms of derangement. She remembered the
fate of her husband, and implored Reginald, as the last descendant of
a great house, to recruit his health and raise his spirits by travel.
Only with great difficulty was he induced to quit the home of his
infancy. The expostulations of his mother, however, at last prevailed,
and he left the Castle di Venoni for the sunny land of Italy.
Months passed, and a constant succession of novelty had produced
so beneficial an effect, that scarcely any traces remained of the
mysterious malady which had so suddenly overtaken him. Occasionally,
however, his mind was disturbed and gloomy, but a perpetual recurrence
of amusement diverted the influence of past recollection, and rendered
him at least as tranquil as it was in the power of his nature to
permit. He continued for years abroad, during which time he wrote
frequently to his mother, who still continued at the Castle di Venoni,
and at last announced his intention of settling at Venice. He had
remained but a few months in the city, when, at the gay period of the
Carnival, he was introduced, as a foreign nobleman, to the beautiful
daughter of the Doge. She was amiable, accomplished, and endowed with
every requisite to ensure permanent felicity. Reginald was charmed
with her beauty, and infatuated with the excelling qualities of her
mind. After a time he confessed his attachment, and was informed with a
blush that the affection was mutual. Nothing, therefore, remained but
application to the Doge, who was instantly addressed on the subject,
and implored to consummate the felicity of the young couple. The
request was attended with success, and the happiness of the lovers was
complete.
On the day fixed for the wedding, a brilliant assemblage of beauty
thronged the ducal palace of St. Mark. All Venice crowded to the
festival, and, in the presence of the gayest noblemen of Italy,
Reginald Count di Venoni received the hand of Marcelia, the envied
daughter of the Doge. In the evening, a masqued festival was given at
the palace; but the young couple, anxious to be alone, escaped from the
scene of revelry, and hurried in a gondola to the old palace that had
been prepared for their reception on the grand canal.
It was a fine moonlight night. The stars were reflected in the silver
bosom of the Adriatic. The sounds of music and sweet voices singing,
mellowed and softened by distance, were wafted to them on the gentle
breeze. Venice seemed to glitter with tens of thousands of lamps, and
the gondoliers, as they passed and repassed, uttered their peculiar
cries.
The young couple felt supremely happy, and they directed their
boatman to propel the boat leisurely along, that they might enjoy the
enrapturing beauty of the scene; for Venice--the sea set jewel--had
never looked more beautiful, and the languid air of the summer night
begot a delicious sense of dreaminess and a forgetfulness of the pain
and misery of the world.
As Reginald lay back with his head pillowed in the lap of his bride
he happened to turn his eyes to the west, and there beheld his star
of nativity as brilliant as ever. Instantly his mind reverted to that
awful night when the old wizard died, and he remembered the dull red
meteor, and the weird prophecy. He became so agitated that his wife was
alarmed, and inquired the reason of it; but he only laughed, said it
was merely a passing memory that disturbed him, and soon her kisses and
caresses restored him to serenity.
The succeeding six months were uninterrupted by a single untoward
incident. He passionately loved Marcelia, and was beloved in return.
His rough, uncouth nature had been smoothed down and refined by his
wife and the society in which he moved. He felt supremely happy, and
though at times a remembrance of the awful night in the ruins of
Rudstein disturbed him, he managed to shake off the influence, and find
a soothing balm in the caresses of his young bride.
One day, however, there came to him an urgent message to repair to his
birthplace without delay, as his mother lay at the point of death.
Although he had never borne her any very strong affection, he felt it
was his duty to obey the summons, and so in company with his wife he
journeyed with all speed to the Black Forest.
On reaching the castle he found that his mother was already in the
throes of death, and delirious; as soon as he entered her presence she
rose up in her bed, without seeming to recognise him, and cursed him
for being an unnatural and unfilial son. It was an awful scene, and
affected Reginald in an appalling manner. Without recanting a word,
or, indeed, noticing him in any way, she fell back on her pillow and
expired.
For some days Reginald was prostrated, and when his gentle and loving
wife tried to soothe and comfort him he repulsed her furiously, until
she was broken-hearted. But when he recovered his senses he lavished
caresses upon her, and gave every manifestation that he loved her
devotedly. A few days later, however, he was wandering with Marcelia
through a very picturesque and beautiful part of the forest, when
they seated themselves on a bank overlooking a stream. For some little
time Reginald remained absorbed in thought, then he began to pick up
handfuls of earth and scatter them in the water, and, with a wild glare
in his eyes, he mumbled:
‘This is a hateful world. All is dust and vanity. Nothing brings joy,
or contentment, or peace. I am the last of my race. Why seek longer to
support a rotten fabric. My kindred have squandered their substance,
and destroyed the vitality of the family. Let us follow my mother
through the gates of death. Come, give me your hand, Marcelia, and we
will die together.’
His wife was horribly alarmed, and used every endeavour to soothe him;
presently he grew calmer, and rose and allowed her to lead him away.
They continued to wander further afield, at his request, until night
closed, and the stars were burning. Brilliant above all the rest shone
the fatal western planet, the star of Reginald’s nativity. He gazed
at it for some time with horror, and pointed it out to the notice of
Marcelia.
‘The hand of heaven is in it!’ he mentally exclaimed, ‘and the proud
fortunes of Venoni hasten to a close.’ At this instant the ruined tower
of Rudstein appeared in sight, with the moon shining fully upon it. ‘It
is the place,’ resumed the maniac, ‘where a deed of blood must be done,
and I am fated to perpetrate it! But fear not, my poor girl,’ he added,
in a milder tone, while the tears sprang to his eyes, ‘your husband
cannot harm you; he may be wretched, but he never shall be guilty!’
Although Marcelia was dreadfully alarmed she concealed her feelings as
much as possible, and induced him to hurry back. When he reached the
castle he looked ghastly ill, and, going to bed, sank into a sort of
coma.
Night waned, morning dawned on the upland hills of the scenery, and
with it came a renewal of Reginald’s disorder. The day was stormy, and
in unison with the troubled feeling of his mind. He rose with the dawn,
and, without a word to anyone, went off into the forest, nor did he
return until the evening. Distressed beyond measure at his absence,
she waited in dread suspense for his return, and sat at her casement
gazing across the vast expanse of forest, which the westering sun was
now flooding with a crimson light. Suddenly her door flew open, and
Reginald made his appearance. His eyes were red and seemed to blaze
with the light of madness, while his whole frame was convulsed as if he
suffered from agonising spasms of pain.
‘It was not a dream,’ he exclaimed, ‘I have seen her, and she has
beckoned us to follow.’
‘Seen her, seen who?’ asked Marcelia, alarmed at his frenzy.
‘My mother,’ replied the maniac. ‘Listen while I tell you the strange
story. I thought, as I was wandering in the forest, a sylph of heaven
approached, and revealed the countenance of my mother. I flew to join
her, but was withheld by a wizard, who pointed to the western star.
On a sudden loud shrieks were heard, and the sylph assumed the guise
of a demon. Her figure towered to an awful height, and she pointed in
scornful derision to you; yes, to you, my wife. With rage she drew you
towards me. I seized--I murdered you, and strange cries and groans
filled the air. I heard the voice of the fiendish astrologer shouting
as from a charnel house, “Your destiny is accomplished, and the victim
may retire with honour.” Then, I thought, the fair front of heaven was
obscured, and thick gouts of clotted clammy blood showered down in
torrents from the blackened clouds of the west. The star shot through
the air, and--the phantom of my mother again beckoned me to follow.’
The maniac ceased, and rushed in agony from the apartment. Marcelia
followed, and discovered him leaning in a trance against the wainscot
of the library. With gentlest motion she drew his hand in hers, and
led him into the open air. They rambled on, heedless of the gathering
storm, until they discovered themselves at the base of the tower of
Rudstein. Suddenly the maniac paused. A horrid thought seemed flashing
across his brain, as with giant grasp he seized Marcelia in his arms,
and bore her to the fatal apartment. In vain she shrieked for help,
for pity. ‘Dear Reginald, it is Marcelia who speaks, you cannot surely
harm her.’ He heard--he heeded not, nor once staid his steps till
he reached the room of death. On a sudden his countenance lost its
wildness, and assumed a more fearful, but composed look of determined
madness. He advanced to the window, dragged away the rotting curtain,
and gazed on the stormy face of heaven. Dark clouds flitted across the
horizon, and thunder echoed in the distance. To the west the fatal star
was still visible, but shone with sickly lustre. At this instant a
flash of lightning illumined the whole apartment, and threw a broad red
glare upon a skeleton that mouldered upon the floor. Reginald observed
it with affright, and remembered the unburied astrologer. He advanced
to Marcelia, and, pointing to the rising moon, ‘A dark cloud is sailing
by,’ he shudderingly exclaimed, ‘but ere the full orb again shines
forth you shall die; I will accompany you in death, and hand in hand
will we pass into the presence of our people.’
The poor girl shrieked for pity, but her voice was lost in the angry
ravings of the storm.
The cloud in the meantime sailed on--it approached--the moon was
dimmed, darkened, and finally buried in its gloom. The maniac marked
the hour, and rushed with a fearful cry towards his victim. With
murderous resolution he grasped her throat, while the helpless hand
and half-strangled articulation implored his compassion. After one
final struggle the hollow death-rattle announced that life was
extinct, and that the murderer held a corpse in his arms. An interval
of reason now occurred, and on the partial restoration of his mind
Reginald discovered himself the unconscious murderer of Marcelia.
Madness--deepest madness again took possession of his faculties. He
laughed--he shouted aloud with the unearthly yellings of a fiend, and
in the raging violence of his delirium he rushed out, climbed to the
summit of the tower, and hurled himself headlong from it.
In the morning the bodies of the young couple were discovered, and
buried in the same tomb. The fatal ruin of Rudstein still exists,
but is now commonly avoided as the residence of the spirits of the
departed. Day by day it slowly crumbles to earth, and affords a shelter
for the night raven or the wild things of the forests. Superstition
has consecrated it to herself, and the tradition of the country has
invested it with all the awful appendages of a charnel house. The
wanderer who passes at nightfall shudders while he surveys its utter
desolation, and exclaims as he travels on:
‘Surely this is a spot where guilt may thrive in safety, or bigotry
weave a spell to enthral her misguided votaries.’
XIII
THE DANCE OF THE DEAD
FOUNDED ON A WELL-KNOWN GERMAN LEGEND
Neisse is a small town in Silesia. At the period of this story it lay
somewhat out of the beaten track, and its inhabitants led a simple,
primitive sort of life, although bickerings and wranglings, cheating
and knavery were not altogether unknown among them. On the whole,
however, they were a fairly virtuous people, and the town earned an
enviable reputation for hospitality, in spite of the fact that the
mayor was far from being hospitable himself, but he did not hesitate to
dispense hospitality with a lavish hand when he could do so out of the
town funds.
This mayor, whose name was Hertzstein, was an exceedingly proud and
ambitious man. He had been born in very humble circumstances indeed,
his father having been a charcoal burner; but Rupert Hertzstein was
endowed with more than average intelligence, though even as a lad he
displayed a grasping, covetous disposition that made him many youthful
enemies. As he grew in years he by no means changed, but he managed to
make his way. Before he was fifteen he went to Saxony and apprenticed
himself to a worker in precious metals, and showed so much intelligence
that before he had completed the term of his apprenticeship he was
master of his trade.
He was twenty-two when he returned to his native town, with a little
money and a young wife. A daughter was born to him, and grew to be
the most beautiful girl in Neisse. Her father prospered, made money,
and became mayor. Indeed, he was a little king in his own way, but was
tyrannical and exacting, and while everybody adored Brunhelda, his
pretty daughter, he was far from being respected. When any of the young
men of the village tried to win his favour in the hope of gaining the
daughter’s hand, he ordered them off with a peremptoriness that left no
doubt about his determination.
‘My girl,’ he used to boast, ‘shall marry a lord. My father was a
charcoal burner, and in my youth I knew the curse of poverty. Now I
am going to be the founder of a family, and rather than let Brunhelda
marry a humble person I would carry her to her grave.’
Although he expressed himself thus forcibly and emphatically, he did
not explain how he hoped to get a lord as a son-in-law, but that was a
detail; and, being a deep, designing, and crafty man, he probably had
some matured plan in his own mind.
Now it chanced that when Brunhelda was two-and-twenty a young artist
came to Neisse, which was famed for a very ancient church and for
marvellous views, which were to be obtained from different parts of
the town, for it stood on an eminence in a very beautiful and fertile
country. It was, therefore, no uncommon thing for artists to visit the
place. This particular one became known as Robert Kuno, and he took up
his quarters at the village inn. One day he was in the ancient church
sketching a very picturesque archway, when Brunhelda entered with
a number of other girls, laden with flowers, as they were going to
decorate the church in honour of some festival.
Robert was at once attracted by Brunhelda’s beauty, and, getting into
conversation with her, he begged that she would pose for him while he
made a drawing. She was by no means loth to do this. Indeed, she felt
flattered, for she knew she was good-looking, and she would have been
a strange woman if she had had no vanity. Robert placed her in the
position he wanted near the archway, and produced a sketch, which he
promised to turn into a painting, and he asked her to favour him again
on the morrow, which she did, and the next day, and the day after that,
and as a natural result the young artist began to talk to her in a way
which by no means displeased her, although she knew that her father
would be furious if he came to hear of it. And sure enough he did hear
of it. Some envious jade went to him, and told him that Brunhelda was
going day after day to the church to meet the artist.
The day following the mayor repaired to the church, and screened
himself behind a pillar and witnessed the flirtation between Brunhelda
and the artist, until at length, losing his self-control, he suddenly
presented himself before them, and there was a scene. He used some
very harsh terms to the young man, and, seizing the sketch he had been
making of the girl, he stamped on it, and vowed if Robert did not leave
Neisse within twelve hours he would have him arrested as a vagabond and
confined in the stocks. Then he took his daughter home and lectured
her on the monstrous wickedness of her conduct in allowing a ‘vulgar,
common artist fellow’ to talk love to her.
As Robert failed to comply with the order to clear off, the mayor, true
to his word, had him arrested as a vagabond, having no visible means of
subsistence, and he was placed in the stocks which stood on the green
opposite the mayor’s house. The tyrannical magistrate thought that when
his daughter saw her admirer in such an undignified position she would
be disgusted, and think no more of him. But herein he was mistaken, for
he caught her kissing her hand to him from her window, and manifesting
every sign of sympathy. So Robert was at once set at liberty, on
condition that he immediately left the place, which he consented to do,
much to the joy and comfort of the mayor.
It was nearly a year after that an old bag-piper one day entered the
town of Neisse. He was a strange, weird-looking old man, with great
masses of white hair hanging about his shoulders, and heavy, beetling
eyebrows screening his keen, grey eyes. His pipes, which seemed older
than himself, were unlike any that had been seen before, and when
the old piper tuned them up he awoke the most marvellous melody.
Whence he came and whither he was going no one knew, and being by no
means communicative, they were left in ignorance. But one thing he
made clear--he did not lack money, and as there happened to be a very
pretty little cottage to let, whose owner had recently died, the piper
bargained for it and bought it, and soon after a young man came to live
with him, and rumour soon had it that this young man was the strange
piper’s foster-son. Apparently the son was nearly blind, for he wore
large blue goggle glasses, and always went about with a stick.
The son was very reserved and would not mix with the people, but the
old piper became such a favourite owing to the sweet music he was able
to discourse, that he was invited every evening, when the weather was
fine, to repair to the village green, where the people were wont to
dance. He was so wonderfully well-informed, too, and seemed to have
travelled so extensively, that the old citizens invited him to their
dinners, and he was petted and flattered. He played his pipes at
christenings and wedding feasts, as well as pathetic and solemn airs
when the dead were committed to the earth.
One marvellous tune that he played was known as ‘Grandfather’s Dance,’
and so inspiriting was this, such a wild, mad, rhythmical jingle, that
even the oldest of men and women who could move their limbs at all
could not resist its strains, and fell to dancing. Indeed, the strains,
it was averred, restored youth to the old, and even the paralytic and
the rheumatic threw away their crutches when they heard them.
Now, strangely enough, the effect of the old man’s art on his
foster-son was _nil_. He remained silent and mournful at the most
mirth-inspiring tunes the piper played to him; and at the balls, to
which he was often invited, he rarely mingled with the gay, but would
retire into a corner, and fix his eyes on the loveliest fair one that
graced the room, neither daring to address, nor to offer her his hand.
This one was Brunhelda, and occasionally he managed to get speech with
her, and it was noted that she was by no means averse to talk to him.
And at such times she easily read in his brightening face the eloquent
gratitude of his heart; and although she turned blushingly away, the
fire on her cheeks, and the sparkling in her eyes, kindled new flames
of love and hope in her lover’s bosom, for this young man was none
other than the artist who had resorted to this stratagem to woo her.
And he was neither blind nor near sighted, but the goggles afforded him
a disguise.
Willibald, such was the name of the piper, had for a long time promised
to assist the love-sick youth in obtaining his soul’s dearest object.
Sometimes he intended, like the wizards of yore, to torment the
mayor with an enchanted dance, and compel him by exhaustion to grant
everything; sometimes, like a second Orpheus, he proposed to carry
away, by the power of his harmony, the sweet bride from the Tartarian
abode of her father. But Robert always had objections: he never would
allow the parent of his fair one to be harmed by the slightest offence,
and hoped to win him by perseverance and complacency.
Willibald said to him one day, ‘You are an idiot, if you hope to win,
by an open and honourable sentiment, the approbation of a rich and
proud old fool. He will not surrender without some of the plagues of
Egypt are put in force against him. When once Brunhelda is yours,
and he no more can change what has happened, then you will find him
friendly and kind. He will bow to the inevitable. I blame myself for
having promised to do nothing against your will, but death acquits
every death, and still I shall help you in my own way.’