“Thou, thou, Nisida?” almost shrieked Wagner wildly; “oh, no, no! Recall that dreadful avowal! And yet—oh! yes—I see it all—my former suspicions are confirmed. Wretched woman. What harm did the unfortunate Agnes do to thee?”
“I saw in her a rival, Fernand—or fancied that she was so,” answered Nisida; “I overheard your conversation with her that morning in the garden—I saw her embrace thee tenderly—mine ears drank in her words; oh, I remember them even now! She said, ‘Oh, what a night of uneasiness have I passed! But at length thou art restored to me; thou whom I have ever loved so fondly; although I abandoned thee for so long a time!’ Were not those her very words? And thou didst speak to her in a tone equally tender. Ah! I have ever suspected that she was thy mistress; although thou didst swear upon the cross, in thy dungeon, that she was not. But so great was my love for thee, that I smothered the dread suspicion——”
“Suspicion,” repeated Wagner, in the penetrating tone of heart-rending anguish,—an anguish so intense that his brain whirled, and he knew not what he said or did. “Oh, wretched woman, and thou didst slay Agnes on a mere suspicion?”
“I hated her—even before I entertained that suspicion,” exclaimed Nisida, impatiently; “for she was the mistress of my father! Thinkest thou that my quick ears had not gleaned the mysterious whisperings which frequently passed between my sire and his valet Antonio, relative to the lady who dwelt in seclusion at the abode of that menial’s mother? or thinkest thou that when I once obtained a clew to my father’s degrading passion, I scrupled to watch him, to follow him, to learn all his proceedings? No; for it was the more easily to enact the spy upon my own father that originally simulated the doom of the deaf and dumb. A purse of gold induced Dame Margaretha, Antonio’s mother, to give me admission into her house; though she also believed that I was really deprived of the faculties of hearing and of speech. But often and often was I concealed in the chamber adjacent to that where my father passed hours with his mistress; and it was not without advantage that I so acted. For I discovered that amongst the presents which he had given her, were the jewels which had belonged to my sainted mother—that mother whose wrongs were so manifold, and whose sufferings were so great. Yes: and I possessed myself of those jewels, leaving the girl the other gifts which she had received from my sire.
“And now, since I am involved in relations of such import, I shall do well to inform thee, Fernand, that I had seen and loved thee before thou didst come as a visitor to our mansion in Florence. For it was my habit to proceed occasionally to the dwelling of the good Dr. Duras, the depositary of my grand secret of the feigned loss of faculties; and while wandering alone in his garden I once beheld thee! And the moment I beheld I loved thee. Often—often after that would I visit the kind physician’s grounds, whereof I possessed a pass-key; and my admiration of thee led me to pass the slight boundary which separated his garden from thine. Then I would approach the windows of thy dwelling and contemplate thee as thou wast seated in thy favorite apartment. On the night of my father’s funeral, although so very late when all the subsequent business connected with the reading of the will was concluded, my mind was so perturbed and restless that I could not sleep; and quitting the Riverola mansion by a private door, I sought the fresh air with the hope that it would calm me. Some vague and indescribable sentiment of curiosity, or else something that I heard on the return of the mourners, relative to the strange scene enacted in the church, I know not which, led me to the vicinity of your abode; and there, in your favorite room, I beheld you seated, listening attentively to some sweet words, doubtless, which Agnes was breathing into your ear. But she caught a glimpse of my countenance by the light of the lamps——”
“Enough! enough!” exclaimed Wagner; “thou hast indeed cleared up innumerable mysteries! But, oh! Nisida—would that thou hadst remained silent—that thou hadst not drawn aside the veil which my elevated opinion of thee had thrown over the suspicions that, I admit, from time to time——”
“And if I have told thee all this, Fernand,” interrupted Nisida, impatiently, “it is that thou may’st be convinced not only of the natural energy of my mind, but also of the deep love which I bear thee. And now, now that thou seest me in my true character, a murderess if thou wilt,” she added with an emphasis of bitter scorn, “now canst thou refuse that sacrifice——”
“Nisida! Nisida! enough crime has been perpetrated by both us, Heaven knows!” ejaculated Wagner, still writhing with the anguish produced by the avowal which had so lately met his ears. “Oh! accursed be the day, blotted from the annals of Time be the hour, Nisida, when thy hand struck the fatal dagger into the heart of Agnes.”
“What! this to my face?” said Nisida, her countenance becoming crimson with indignation, and not her face only, but her swan-like neck, her shoulders, and her bosom. “Then she was thy mistress, Fernand! And thou didst love her, while I fancied, false one that thou art, thine affections to be wholly and solely mine.”
“Nisida,” exclaimed Fernand, cruelly bewildered, “you drive me to despair. I know not whether to loathe thee for this avowal which thou hast made, or to snatch thee to my arms, abandon all hope of salvation, and sacrifice myself entirely for one so transcendently beautiful as thou art. But thy suspicions relative to Agnes are ridiculous, monstrous, absurd. For, as surely as thou art there, Nisida—as the heaven is above us and the earth beneath us—as surely as that I love thee so well as to be unable to reproach thee more for the deed which thou hast confessed—so surely, Nisida, was Agnes my own granddaughter, and I—I, Fernand Wagner—young, strong, and healthy as thou beholdest me, am fourscore and fifteen years of age.”
Nisida started in affright, and then fixed a scrutinizing glance upon Fernand’s countenance; for she feared that his reason was abandoning him—that he was raving.
“Ah! Nisida, I see that you do not credit my words,” he exclaimed; “and yet I have told thee the solemn, sacred truth. But mine is a sad history and a dreadful fate; and if I thought that thou would’st soothe my wounded spirit, console, and not revile me, pity, and not loathe me, I would tell thee all.”
“Speak, Fernand, speak!” she cried; “and do me not so much wrong as to suppose that I could forget my love for thee—that love which made me the murderer of Agnes. Besides,” she added, enthusiastically, “I see that we are destined for each other; that the dark mysteries attached to both our lives engender the closest sympathies; that we shall flourish in power, and glory, and love, and happiness together.”
Wagner threw his arms around Nisida’s neck, and clasped her to his breast. He saw not in her the woman who had dealt death to his granddaughter; he beheld in her only a being of ravishing beauty and wondrous mind, so intoxicated was he with his passion, and so great was the magic influence which she wielded o’er his yielding spirit. Then, as her head reclined upon his breast, he whispered to her, in a few hurried, but awfully significant words, the nature of his doom, the dread conditions on which he had obtained resuscitated youth, an almost superhuman beauty, a glorious intellect, and power of converting the very clods of the earth into gold and precious stones at will.
“And now, dearest,” he added, in a plaintive and appealing tone, “and now thou may’st divine wherefore on the last day of every month I have crossed these mountains; thou may’st divine, too, how my escape from the prison of Florence was accomplished; and, though no mortal power can abridge my days—though the sword of the executioner would fall harmless on my neck, and the deadly poison curdle not in my veins—still, man can bind me in chains, and my disgrace is known to all Florence.”
“But thou shalt return thither, Fernand,” exclaimed Nisida, raising her countenance and gazing upon him, not with horror and amazement, but in pride and triumph; “thou shalt return thither, Fernand, armed with a power that may crush all thine enemies, and blast with destructive lightning the wretches who would look slightingly on thee. Already thou art dearer, far dearer to me than ever thou wast before; for I love the marve
lous—I glory in the supernatural—and thou art a being whom such women as myself can worship and adore. And thou repinest at thy destiny? thou shudderest at the idea of that monthly transformation which makes thy fate so grand, because it is so terrible? Oh, thou art wrong, thou art wrong, my Fernand. Consider all thou hast gained, how many, many years of glorious youth and magnificent beauty await thee! Think of the power with which thy boundless command of wealth may invest thee. Oh, thou art happy, enviable, blest. But I—I,” she added, the impassioned excitement of her tone suddenly sinking into subdued plaintiveness as her charming head once more fell upon his breast—“I am doomed to fade and wither like the other human flowers of the earth. Oh, that thought is now maddening. While thou remainest as thou art now, vested with that fine, manly beauty which won my heart when first I saw thee, and before I knew thee: I shall grow old, wrinkled, and thou wilt loathe me. I shall be like a corpse by the side of one endowed with vigorous life. Oh, Fernand; this may not be; and thou canst purchase the power to bestow unperishing youth, unchanging beauty upon me; the power, moreover, to transport us hence, and render us happy in inseparable companionship for long, long years to come.”
“Merciful heavens! Nisida,” exclaimed Fernand, profoundly touched by the urgent, earnest appeal of the lovely siren whose persuasive eloquence besought him to seal his own eternal damnation—“would’st thou have me yield up my soul to the enemy of mankind?”
“Do you hesitate? Can you even pause to reflect?” cried Nisida, with whose tongue the demon himself was as it were speaking. “Oh, Fernand, you love me not, you have never, never loved me.” And she burst into a flood of tears. Wagner was painfully moved by this spectacle, which constituted so powerful an argument to support the persuasive eloquence of her late appeal. His resolution gave way rapidly—the more agonizing became her sobs the weaker grew his self-command; and his lips were about to murmur the fatal assent to her prayer—about to announce his readiness to summon the enemy of mankind and conclude the awful compact—when suddenly there passed before his eyes the image of the guardian angel whom he had seen in his vision, dim and transparent as the thinnest vapor, yet still perceptible and with an expression of countenance profoundly mournful. The apparition vanished in a moment; but its evanescent presence was fraught with salvation. Tearing himself wildly and abruptly from Nisida’s embrace, Wagner exclaimed in a tone indicative of the horror produced by the revulsion of feeling in his mind, “No—never—never!” and, fleet as the startled deer he ran—he flew toward the mountains. Frightened and amazed by his sudden cry and simultaneous flight, Nisida cast her eyes rapidly around to ascertain the cause of his alarm, thinking that some dreadful spectacle had stricken terror to his soul. But ah—what sees she? Why do her glances settle fixedly in one direction? What beholds she in the horizon? For a few moments she is motionless, speechless, she cannot believe her eyes. Then her countenance, which has already experienced the transition from an expression of grief and alarm to one of suspense and mingled hope and fear, becomes animated with the wildest joy; and forgetting the late exciting scene as completely as if it had never taken place, but with all her thoughts and feelings absorbed in the new—the one idea which now engrosses her—she turns her eyes rapidly round toward the mountains, exclaiming, “Fernand, dearest Fernand! a sail—a sail.”
But Wagner hears her not: she stamps her foot with impatient rage upon the sand; and in another moment the groves conceal her lover from view.
Yes; Wagner looked not round; heard not the voice of Nisida invoking him to return, but continued his rapid flight toward the mountains, as if hurrying in anguish and in horror from the meshes which had been spread to ensnare his mortal soul. And now Nisida became all selfishness; there was at length a hope, a sudden hope that she should be speedily enabled to quit the hated monotonous island, and her fine, large dark eyes were fixed intently upon the white sails which gradually grew more and more palpable in the azure horizon. She was not deceived; there was no doubt, no uncertainty, as to the nature of the object which now engrossed all her thoughts, and filled her heart with the wildest joy. It was indeed a ship, and its course was toward the island; for, as she gazed with fixed and longing eyes, it by degrees assumed a more defined shape; and that which had at first appeared to be but one small white piece of canvas, gradually developed the outlines of many sails, and showed the tapering spars, until at last the black hull appeared, completing the form of a large and noble vessel. Joy! joy—she should yet be saved from the island. And, ah—do the chances of that hoped-for safety multiply? Is it indeed another ship which has caught her eye in the far-off horizon? Yes; and not one only, but another, and another, and another, until she can count seven vessels, all emerging from the mighty distance, and spreading their snow-white canvas to the breeze which wafts them toward the isle.
Crowds of conflicting thoughts now rush to the mind of Nisida; and she seats herself upon the strand to deliberate as calmly as she may upon the course which she should adopt. Alas, Fernand: thou wast not then uppermost in the imagination of thy Nisida, although she had not entirely forgotten thee. But the principal topic of her meditations, the grand question which demanded the most serious weighing and balancing in her mind, was whether she should again simulate the deafness and dumbness which she had now for many months been accustomed to affect. Grave and important interests and a deeply-rooted attachment to her brother on the one side urged the necessity of so doing; but on the other, a fearful disinclination to resume that awful duplicity—that dreadful self-sacrifice, an apprehension lest the enjoyment of the faculties of hearing and speech for so long a period should have unfitted her for the successful revival and efficient maintenance of the deceit; these were the arguments on the negative side. But Nisida’s was not a mind to shrink from any peril or revolt from any sacrifice which her interests or her aims might urge her to encounter; and it was with fire-flashing eyes and a neck proudly arching, that she raised her head in a determined manner, exclaiming aloud, “Yes, it must be so. But the period of this renewed self-martyrdom will not last long. So soon as thine interests shall have been duly cared for, Francisco, I will quit Florence forever, I will return to this island, and here will I pass the remainder of my days with thee, my beloved Fernand! And that I do love thee still, Fernand, although thou hast fled from my presence as if I were suddenly transformed into a loathsome monster, that I must ever continue to love thee, Fernand, and that I shall anxiously long to return to thine arms, are truths as firmly based as the foundations of the island. Thine, then, shall be the last name, thy name shall be the last word that I will suffer my lips to pronounce ere I once more place the seal upon them. Yes, I love thee, Fernand; oh! would to God that thou could’st hear me proclaim how much I love thee, my beauteous, my strangely-fated Fernand!”
It was almost in a despairing tone that Nisida gave utterance to these last words; for as the chance of escape from the island grew every moment less equivocal, by the nearer approach of the fleet, which was, however, still far from the shore, the intensity of her sensual passion for Wagner, that passion which she believed to be the purest and most firmly rooted love, revived; and her heart smote her for her readiness to abandon him to the solitude of that island. But as she was now acquainted with all the mysteries of his fate, as she knew that he could not die for many, many years to come, nor lose that glorious beauty which had proved alike her pleasure and her pride, her remorse and her alarms were to a considerable degree mitigated: for she thought within herself, although she now spoke aloud no more; “Death will not snatch him from me, disease will not impair his godlike features and elegant form, and he loves me too well not to receive me with open arms when I shall be enabled to return to him.” These were her thoughts: and starting upon her feet, she compressed her lips tightly, as if to remind herself that she had once more placed a seal there, a seal not to be broken for some time. An hour had now passed since Fernand Wagner and Nisida separated on the seashore; and he did not come back. Meantime the
fleet of ships had drawn nearer, and though she more than once entertained the idea of hastening after Wagner to implore him to accompany her whithersoever those vessels were bound, or at least to part with the embrace of tenderness, yet her fear lest the ships might sail past without touching at the island, predominated over her softer feelings. And now, having settled in her mind the course she was to adopt, she hastened to the stores which she had saved from the wreck of the corsair vessel, and which had been piled up on the strand the day after she was first thrown on that Mediterranean isle.
It will be remembered that amongst the articles thus saved were changes of apparel, which Stephano Verrina had procured for her use at Leghorn ere the corsair-bark set sail on that voyage from which it never returned, and during Nisida’s long sojourn on the island, she had frequently examined those garments, and had been careful to secure them from the effects of rain or damp, in the hope that the day would sooner or later come when she might assume them for the purpose of bidding adieu to that lovely but monotonous island. And now that day has come; and the moment so anxiously longed for appeared to be rapidly approaching. Nisida accordingly commenced her toilet, as if she had only just risen from her couch and was preparing to dress to go abroad amongst the busy haunts of human beings.
Her dark luxuriant hair, which so long had floated negligently upon her ivory shoulders, was now gathered up in broad massive bands at the sides, and artistically plaited and confined at the back of her well-shaped head. The tight bodice was next laced over the swelling bosom: hose and light boots imprisoned the limbs which had so often borne her glancing along in their nudity to the soft music of the stream in the vale or of the wavelets of the sea; broidery set off the fine form of Nisida in all the advantage of its glowing, full and voluptuous proportions. Then the large black veil was fastened to the plaits of her hair, whence its ample folds swept over that admirable symmetry of person, endowing her once more with the queen-like air which became so well her splendid, yet haughty style of beauty! Yes: no longer subdued by simplicity of attire—no longer tender and soft, was the loveliness of Nisida; but grand, imperious, and dazzling did she now seem again, as erst she seemed ere her foot trod that island-shore.
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