of apartments, the pride of Spanish palaces, all furnished in a style
of obsolete magnificence. In a vast saloon, blazing with tapers, was
assembled all the aristocracy and fashion of the city,--stately dames
and cavaliers, the very counterpart of the figures in the tapestry
which decorated the walls. Fernando gazed in silent marvel. It was a
reflex of the proud aristocracy of Spain in the time of Roderick the
Goth.
The festivities of the evening were all in the style of solemn and
antiquated ceremonial. There was a dance, but it was as if the old
tapestry were put in motion, and all the figures moving in stately
measure about the floor. There was one exception, and one that
told powerfully upon the susceptible Adalantado. The alcayde’s
daughter--such a ripe, melting beauty! Her dress, it is true, like
the dresses of her neighbors, might have been worn before the flood,
but she had the black Andalusian eye, a glance of which, through its
long dark lashes, is irresistible. Her voice, too, her manner, her
undulating movements, all smacked of Andalusia, and showed how female
charms may be transmitted from age to age, and clime to clime, without
ever going out of fashion.
Don Fernando sat beside her at the banquet! such an old-world feast!
such obsolete dainties! At the head of the table the peacock, that
bird of state and ceremony, was served up in full plumage on a golden
dish. As Don Fernando cast his eyes down the glittering board, what a
vista presented itself of odd heads and head-dresses; of formal bearded
dignitaries, and stately dames, with castellated locks and towering
plumes! Is it to be wondered at that he should turn with delight from
these antiquated figures to the alcayde’s daughter, all smiles and
dimples, and melting looks and melting accents? Besides, he was in a
particularly excitable mood from the novelty of the scene before him,
from this realization of all his hopes and fancies, and from frequent
draughts of the wine-cup, presented to him at every moment by officious
pages during the banquet.
In a word--there is no concealing the matter--before the evening was
over, Don Fernando was making love outright to the alcayde’s daughter.
They had wandered together to a moon-lit balcony of the palace, and he
was charming her ear with one of those love-ditties with which, in a
like balcony, he had serenaded the beautiful Serafina.
The damsel hung her head coyly. “Ah! Señor, these are flattering words;
but you cavaliers, who roam the seas, are unsteady as its waves.
To-morrow you will be throned in state, Adelantado of the Seven
Cities; and will think no more of the alcayde’s daughter.”
Don Fernando in the intoxication of the moment called the moon to
witness his sincerity. As he raised his hand in adjuration, the chaste
moon cast a ray upon the ring that sparkled on his finger. It caught
the damsel’s eye. “Signor Adelantado,” said she archly, “I have no
great faith in the moon, but give me that ring upon your finger in
pledge of the truth of what you profess.”
The gallant Adelantado was taken by surprise; there was no parrying
this sudden appeal; before he had time to reflect, the ring of the
beautiful Serafina glittered on the finger of the alcayde’s daughter.
At this eventful moment the chamberlain approached with lofty demeanor,
and announced that the barge was waiting to bear him back to the
caravel. I forbear to relate the ceremonious partings with the alcayde
and his dignitaries, and the tender farewell of the alcayde’s daughter.
He took his seat in the barge opposite the grand chamberlain. The
rowers plied their crimson oars in the same slow and stately manner,
to the cadence of the same mournful old ditty. His brain was in a
whirl with all that he had seen, and his heart now and then gave him
a twinge as he thought of his temporary infidelity to the beautiful
Serafina. The barge sallied out into the sea, but no caravel was to be
seen; doubtless she had been carried to a distance by the current of
the river. The oarsmen rowed on; their monotonous chant had a lulling
effect. A drowsy influence crept over Don Fernando. Objects swam before
his eyes. The oarsmen assumed odd shapes as in a dream. The grand
chamberlain grew larger and larger, and taller and taller. He took off
his huge sombrero, and held it over the head of Don Fernando, like an
extinguisher over a candle. The latter cowered beneath it; he felt
himself sinking in the socket.
“Good night! Señor Adelantado of the Seven Cities!” said the grand
chamberlain.
The sombrero slowly descended--Don Fernando was extinguished!
How long he remained extinct no mortal man can tell. When he returned
to consciousness, he found himself in a strange cabin, surrounded by
strangers. He rubbed his eyes, and looked round him wildly. Where
was he?--On board a Portuguese ship, bound to Lisbon. How came he
there?--He had been taken senseless from a wreck drifting about the
ocean.
Don Fernando was more and more confounded and perplexed. He recalled,
one by one, everything that had happened to him in the Island of the
Seven Cities, until he had been extinguished by the sombrero of the
grand chamberlain. But what had happened to him since? What had become
of his caravel? Was it the wreck of her on which he had been found
floating?
The people about him could give no information on the subject. He
entreated them to take him to the Island of the Seven Cities, which
could not be far off; told them all that had befallen him there; that
he had but to land to be received as Adelantado; when he would reward
them magnificently for their services.
They regarded his words as the ravings of delirium, and in their honest
solicitude for the restoration of his reason, administered such rough
remedies that he was fain to drop the subject and observe a cautious
taciturnity.
At length they arrived in the Tagus, and anchored before the famous
city of Lisbon. Don Fernando sprang joyfully on shore, and hastened
to his ancestral mansion. A strange porter opened the door, who knew
nothing of him or his family; no people of the name had inhabited the
house for many a year.
He sought the mansion of Don Ramiro. He approached the balcony beneath
which he had bidden farewell to Serafina. Did his eyes deceive him? No!
There was Serafina herself among the flowers in the balcony. He raised
his arms toward her with an exclamation of rapture. She cast upon him a
look of indignation, and hastily retiring, closed the casement with a
slam that testified her displeasure.
Could she have heard of his flirtation with the alcayde’s daughter? But
that was mere transient gallantry. A moment’s interview would dispel
every doubt of his constancy.
He rang at the door; as it was opened by the porter he rushed
up-stairs; sought the well-known chamber, and threw himself at the feet
of Serafina. She started back with affright, and took refuge in the
arms of a youthful cavalier.
“What mean you, Señor,” cried the latter, “by this intrusion?”
“What right have you to ask the question?” demanded Don Fernando
fiercely.
“The right of an affianced suitor!”
Don Fernando started and turned pale. “Oh, Serafina! Serafina!” cried
he, in a tone of agony; “is this thy plighted constancy?”
“Serafina? What mean you by Serafina, Señor? If this be the lady you
intend, her name is Maria.”
“May I not believe my senses? May I not believe my heart?” cried Don
Fernando. “Is not this Serafina Alvarez, the original of yon portrait,
which, less fickle than herself, still smiles on me from the wall?”
“Holy Virgin!” cried the young lady, casting her eyes upon the
portrait. “He is talking of my great-grand-mother!”
An explanation ensued, if that could be called an explanation which
plunged the unfortunate Fernando into tenfold perplexity. If he might
believe his eyes, he saw before him his beloved Serafina; if he might
believe his ears, it was merely her hereditary form and features,
perpetuated in the person of her great-granddaughter.
His brain began to spin. He sought the office of the Minister of
Marine, and made a report of his expedition, and of the Island of the
Seven Cities, which he had so fortunately discovered. Nobody knew
anything of such an expedition, or such an island. He declared that he
had undertaken the enterprise under a formal contract with the crown,
and had received a regular commission, constituting him Adelantado.
This must be matter of record, and he insisted loudly that the books
of the department should be consulted. The wordy strife at length
attracted the attention of an old gray-headed clerk, who sat perched
on a high stool, at a high desk, with iron-rimmed spectacles on the
top of a thin, pinched nose, copying records into an enormous folio.
He had wintered and summered in the department for a great part of a
century, until he had almost grown to be a piece of the desk at which
he sat; his memory was a mere index of official facts and documents,
and his brain was little better than red tape and parchment. After
peering down for a time from his lofty perch, and ascertaining the
matter in controversy, he put his pen behind his ear, and descended.
He remembered to have heard something from his predecessor about an
expedition of the kind in question, but then it had sailed during the
reign of Don Ioam II., and he had been dead at least a hundred years.
To put the matter beyond dispute, however, the archives of the Tore
do Tombo, that sepulchre of old Portuguese documents, were diligently
searched, and a record was found of a contract between the crown and
one Fernando de Ulmo, for the discovery of the Island of the Seven
Cities, and of a commission secured to him as Adelantado of the country
he might discover.
“There!” cried Don Fernando, triumphantly, “there you have proof,
before your own eyes, of what I have said. I am the Fernando de Ulmo
specified in that record. I have discovered the Island of the Seven
Cities, and am entitled to be Adelantado, according to contract.”
The story of Don Fernando had certainly, what is pronounced the best
of historical foundation, documentary evidence; but when a man, in the
bloom of youth, talked of events that had taken place above a century
previously, as having happened to himself, it is no wonder that he was
set down for a madman.
The old clerk looked at him from above and below his spectacles,
shrugged his shoulders, stroked his chin, reascended his lofty
stool, took the pen from behind his ears, and resumed his daily and
eternal task, copying records into the fiftieth volume of a series of
gigantic folios. The other clerks winked, at each other shrewdly, and
dispersed to their several places, and poor Don Fernando, thus left to
himself, flung out of the office, almost driven wild by these repeated
perplexities.
In the confusion of his mind, he instinctively repaired to the mansion
of Alvarez, but it was barred against him. To break the delusion under
which the youth apparently labored, and to convince him that the
Serafina about whom he raved was really dead, he was conducted to her
tomb. There she lay, a stately matron, cut out in alabaster; and there
lay her husband beside her, a portly cavalier, in armor; and there
knelt on each side, the effigies of a numerous progeny. Even the very
monument gave evidence of the lapse of time; the hands of her husband,
folded as if in prayer, had lost their fingers, and the face of the
once lovely Serafina was without a nose.
Don Fernando felt a transient glow of indignation at beholding this
monumental proof of the inconstancy of his mistress; but who could
expect a mistress to remain constant during a whole century of absence?
And what right had he to rail about constancy, after what had passed
between himself and the alcayde’s daughter? The unfortunate cavalier
performed one pious act of tender devotion; he had the alabaster nose
of Serafina restored by a skillful statuary, and then tore himself from
the tomb.
He could now no longer doubt the fact that, somehow or other, he had
skipped over a whole century, during the night he had spent at the
Island of the Seven Cities; and he was now as complete a stranger in
his native city, as if he had never been there. A thousand times did he
wish himself back to that wonderful island, with its antiquated banquet
halls, where he had been so courteously received; and now that the
once young and beautiful Serafina was nothing but a great-grandmother
in marble, with generations of descendants, a thousand times would he
recall the melting black eyes of the alcayde’s daughter, who doubtless,
like himself, was still flourishing in fresh juvenility, and breathe a
secret wish that he was seated by her side.
He would at once have set on foot another expedition, at his own
expense, to cruise in search of the sainted island, but his means
were exhausted. He endeavored to rouse others to the enterprise,
setting forth the certainty of profitable results, of which his own
experience furnished such unquestionable proof. Alas! no one would
give faith to his tale; but looked upon it as the feverish dream of
a shipwrecked man. He persisted in his efforts; holding forth in all
places and all companies, until he became an object of jest and jeer
to the light-minded, who mistook his earnest enthusiasm for a proof of
insanity; and the very children in the streets bantered him with the
title of “The Adelantado of the Seven Cities.”
Finding all efforts in vain, in his native city of Lisbon, he took
shipping for the Canaries, as being nearer the latitude of his former
cruise, and inhabited by people given to nautical adventure. Here he
found ready listeners to his story; for the old pilots and mariners of
those parts were notorious island-hunters, and devout believers in all
the wonders of the seas. Indeed, one and all treated his adventure as a
common occurrence, and turning to each other, with a sagacious nod of
the head, observed, “He has been at the island of St. Brandan.”
They then went on to inform him of that great marvel and enigma of the
ocean; of its repeated appearance to the inhabitants of their islands;
and of the many but ineffectual expeditions that had been made in
search of it. They took him to a promontory of the island of Palma,
whence the shadowy St. Brandan had oftenest been descried, and they
pointed out the very tract in the west where its mountains had been
seen.
Don Fernando listened with rapt attention. He had no longer a doubt
that this mysterious and fugacious island must be the same with that of
the Seven Cities; and that some supernatural influence connected with
it had operated upon himself, and made the events of a night occupy the
space of a century.
He endeavored, but in vain, to rouse the islanders to another
attempt at discovery; they had given up the phantom island as indeed
inaccessible. Fernando, however, was not to be discouraged. The
idea wore itself deeper and deeper in his mind, until it became the
engrossing subject of his thoughts and object of his being. Every
morning he would repair to the promontory of Palma, and sit there
throughout the livelong day, in hopes of seeing the fairy mountains of
St. Brandan peering above the horizon; every evening he returned to his
home, a disappointed man, but ready to resume his post on the following
morning.
His assiduity was all in vain. He grew gray in his ineffectual attempt;
and was at length found dead at his post. His grave is still shown in
the island of Palma, and a cross is erected on the spot where he used
to sit and look out upon the sea, in hopes of the reappearance of the
phantom island.
THE PIPE
ANONYMOUS
I
“RANDOLPH CRESCENT, N. W.
“MY DEAR PUGH--I hope you will like the pipe which I send with this.
It is rather a curious example of a certain school of Indian carving.
And is a present from
“Yours truly, JOSEPH TRESS.”
It was really very handsome of Tress--very handsome! The more
especially as I was aware that to give presents was not exactly in
Tress’s line. The truth is that when I saw what manner of pipe it
was, I was amazed. It was contained in a sandalwood box, which was
itself illustrated with some remarkable specimens of carving. I use
the word “remarkable” advisedly, because, although the workmanship was
undoubtedly, in its way, artistic, the result could not be described
as beautiful. The carver had thought proper to ornament the box with
some of the ugliest figures I remember to have seen. They appeared to
me to be devils. Or perhaps they were intended to represent deities
appertaining to some mythological system with which, thank goodness,
I am unacquainted. The pipe itself was worthy of the case in which it
was contained. It was of meerschaum, with an amber mouthpiece. It was
rather too large for ordinary smoking. But then, of course, one doesn’t
smoke a pipe like that. There are pipes in my collection which I should
as soon think of smoking as I should of eating. Ask a china maniac to
let you have afternoon tea out of his Old Chelsea, and you will learn
some home truths as to the durability of human friendships. The glory
of the pipe, as Tress had suggested, lay in its carving. Not that I
claim that it was beautiful, any more than I make such a claim for the
carving on the box, but, as Tress said in his note, it was curious.
The stem and the bowl were quite plain, but on the edge of the bowl was
perched some kind of lizard. I told myself it was an octopus when I
first saw it, but I have since had reason to believe that it was some
almost unique member of the lizard tribe. The creature was represented
as climbing over the edge of the bowl down toward the stem, and its
legs, or feelers, or tentacula, or whatever the things are called,
were, if I may use a vulgarism, sprawling about “all over the place.”
For instance, two or three of them were twined about the bowl, two or
three of them were twisted round the stem, and one, a particularly
horrible one, was uplifted in the air, so that if you put the pipe in
your mouth the thing was pointing straight at your nose.
Not the least agreeable feature about the creature was that it was
hideously lifelike. It appeared to have been carved in amber, but
some coloring matter must have been introduced, for inside the amber
the creature was of a peculiarly ghastly green. The more I examined
the pipe the more amazed I was at Tress’s generosity. He and I are
rival collectors. I am not going to say, in so many words, that his
collection of pipes contains nothing but rubbish, because, as a matter
of fact, he has two or three rather decent specimens. But to compare
his collection to mine would be absurd. Tress is conscious of this,
and he resents it to such an extent that he has been known, at least
on one occasion, to declare that one single pipe of his--I believe he
alluded to the Brummagem relic preposterously attributed to Sir Walter
Raleigh--was worth the whole of my collection put together. Although
I have forgiven this, as I hope I always shall forgive remarks made
when envious passions get the better of our nobler nature, even of a
Joseph Tress, it is not to be supposed that I have forgotten it. He
was, therefore, not at all the sort of person from whom I expected to
receive a present. And such a present! I do not believe that he himself
had a finer pipe in his collection. And to have given it to me! I had
misjudged the man. I wondered where he had got it from. I had seen his
pipes; I knew them off by heart--and some nice trumpery he has among
them, too! but I had never seen _that_ pipe before. The more I looked
at it, the more my amazement grew. The beast perched upon the edge of
the bowl was so lifelike. Its two bead-like eyes seemed to gleam at me
with positively human intelligence. The pipe fascinated me to such an
extent that I actually resolved to--smoke it!
I filled it with Perique. Ordinarily I use Birdseye, but on those
very rare occasions on which I use a specimen I smoke Perique. I lit
up with quite a small sensation of excitement. As I did so I kept my
eyes perforce fixed upon the beast. The beast pointed its upraised
tentacle directly at me. As I inhaled the pungent tobacco that
tentacle impressed me with a feeling of actual uncanniness. It was
broad daylight, and I was smoking in front of the window, yet to such
an extent was I affected that it seemed to me that the tentacle was
not only vibrating, which, owing to the peculiarity of its position,
was quite within the range of probability, but actually moving,
elongating--stretching forward, that is, farther toward me, and toward
the tip of my nose. So impressed was I by this idea that I took the
pipe out of my mouth and minutely examined the beast. Really, the
delusion was excusable. So cunningly had the artist wrought that he
succeeded in producing a creature which, such was its uncanniness, I
could only hope had no original in nature.
Replacing the pipe between my lips I took several whiffs. Never had
smoking had such an effect on me before. Either the pipe, or the
creature on it, exercised some singular fascination. I seemed, without
an instant’s warning, to be passing into some land of dreams. I saw the
beast, which was perched upon the bowl, writhe and twist. I saw it lift
itself bodily from the meerschaum.
II
“Feeling better now?”
I looked up. Joseph Tress was speaking.
“What’s the matter? Have I been ill?”
“You appear to have been in some kind of swoon.”
Tress’s tone was peculiar, even a little dry.
“Swoon! I never was guilty of such a thing in my life.”
“Nor was I, until I smoked that pipe.”
I sat up. The act of sitting up made me conscious of the fact that I
had been lying down. Conscious, too, that I was feeling more than a
little dazed. It seemed as though I was waking out of some strange,
lethargic sleep--a kind of feeling which I have read of and heard
about, but never before experienced.
“Where am I?”
“You’re on the couch in your own room. You _were_ on the floor; but
I thought it would be better to pick you up and place you on the
couch--though no one performed the same kind office to me when I was on
the floor.”
Again Tress’s tone was distinctly dry.
“How came _you_ here?”
“Ah, that’s the question.” He rubbed his chin--a habit of his which has
annoyed me more than once before. “Do you think you’re sufficiently
recovered to enable you to understand a little simple explanation?” I
stared at him, amazed. He went on stroking his chin. “The truth is
that when I sent you the pipe I made a slight omission.”
“An omission?”
“I omitted to advise you not to smoke it.”
“And why?”
“Because--well, I’ve reason to believe the thing is drugged.”
“Drugged!”
“Or poisoned.”
“Poisoned!” I was wide awake enough then. I jumped off the couch with a
celerity which proved it.
“It is this way. I became its owner in rather a singular manner.” He
paused, as if for me to make a remark; but I was silent. “It is not
often that I smoke a specimen, but, for some reason, I did smoke this.
I commenced to smoke it, that is. How long I continued to smoke it is
more than I can say. It had on me the same peculiar effect which it
appears to have had on you. When I recovered consciousness I was lying
on the floor.”
“On the floor?”
“On the floor. In about as uncomfortable a position as you can easily
conceive. I was lying face downward, with my legs bent under me. I was
never so surprised in my life as I was when I found myself _where_ I
was. At first I supposed that I had had a stroke. But by degrees it
dawned upon me that I didn’t _feel_ as though I had had a stroke.”
Tress, by the way, has been an army surgeon. “I was conscious of
distinct nausea. Looking about, I saw the pipe. With me it had fallen
on to the floor. I took it for granted, considering the delicacy of the
carving, that the fall had broken it. But when I picked it up I found
it quite uninjured. While I was examining it a thought flashed to my
brain. Might it not be answerable for what had happened to me? Suppose,
for instance, it was drugged? I had heard of such things. Besides, in
my case were present all the symptoms of drug poisoning, though what
drug had been used I couldn’t in the least conceive. I resolved that I
would give the pipe another trial.”
“On yourself? or on another party, meaning me?”
“On myself, my dear Pugh--on myself! At that point of my investigations
I had not begun to think of you. I lit up and had another smoke.”
“With what result?”
“Well, that depends on the standpoint from which you regard the thing.
From one point of view the result was wholly satisfactory--I proved
that the thing was drugged, and more.”
“Did you have another fall?”
“I did. And something else besides.”