Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf Part 38

"The world has heard strange reports relative to Faust," said the chief judge, in a cold voice and with unchanged manner, although the mention of that name had produced a thrill of horror on the part of his brother judges and the audience. "Art thou aware that rumor ascribes to him a compact with the Evil One?"

Wagner gazed around him in horrified amazement, for the incident of the preceding night returned with such force to his mind that he could scarcely subdue an agonizing ebullition of emotion.

The chief judge next recited the inscription on the other portrait:--"_F. W. January 7th, 1516. His last day thus._" But Wagner maintained a profound silence, and neither threats nor entreaties could induce him to give the least explanation concerning that inscription.

"Let us then proceed to examine this frame with the black cloth cover,"

said the chief judge.

"My lord," whispered one of his brother judges, "in the name of the Blessed Virgin! have naught more to do with this man. Let him go forth to execution: he is a monster of atrocity, evidently a murderer, doubtless leagued with the Evil One, as Faust, of whose acquaintance he boasts, was before him----"

"For my part, I credit not such idle tales," interrupted the chief judge, "and it is my determination to sift this matter to the very foundation. I am rather inclined to believe that the prisoner is allied with the banditti who infest the republic, than with any preterhuman powers. His absence from home during the entire night, according to his own admission, his immense wealth, without any ostensible resources, all justify my suspicion. Let the case proceed," added the chief judge aloud; for he had made the previous observations in a low tone. "Usher, remove the black cloth from the picture!"

"No! no!" exclaimed Wagner, wildly: and he was about to rush from the dock, but the sbirri held him back. The usher's hand was already on the black cloth.

"I beseech your lords.h.i.+p to pause!" whispered the a.s.sistant judge who had before spoken.

"Proceed!" exclaimed the presiding functionary in a loud authoritative tone; for he was a bold and fearless man.

And scarcely were these word uttered, when the black cloth was stripped from the frame; and the usher who had removed the covering recoiled with a cry of horror, as his eyes obtained a glimpse of the picture which was now revealed to view.

"What means this folly?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the chief judge. "Bring the picture hither."

The usher, awed by the manner of this great functionary, raised the picture in such a way that the judges and the procurator fiscal might obtain a full view of it.

"A Wehr-Wolf!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the a.s.sistant judge, who had previously remonstrated with his superior; and his countenance became pale as death.

The dreadful words were echoed by other tongues in the court; and a panic fear seized on all save the chief judge and Wagner himself. The former smiled contemptuously, the latter had summoned all his courage to aid him to pa.s.s through this terrible ordeal without confirming by his conduct the dreadful suspicion which had been excited in respect to him.

For, oh! the subject of that picture was indeed awful to contemplate! It had no inscription, but it represented, with the most painful and horrifying fidelity, the writhings and agonizing throes of the human being during the progress of transformation into the lupine monster. The countenance of the unhappy man had already elongated into one of savage and brute-like shape; and so admirably had art counterfeited nature, that the rich garments seemed changed into a rough, s.h.a.ggy, and wiry skin! The effect produced by that picture was indeed of thrilling and appalling interest!

"A Wehr-Wolf!" had exclaimed one of the a.s.sistant judges: and while the voices of several of the male spectators in the body of the court echoed the words mechanically, the ladies gave vent to screams, as they rushed toward the doors of the tribunal. In a few moments that part of the court was entirely cleared.

"Prisoner!" exclaimed the chief judge, "have you ought more to advance in your defense, relative to the charge of murder?"

"My lord, I am innocent!" said Wagner, firmly but respectfully.

"The tribunal p.r.o.nounces you guilty!" continued the chief judge: then, with a scornful smile toward his a.s.sistants and the procurator fiscal--who all three, as well as the sbirri and the officers of the court were pale and trembling with vague fear--the presiding functionary continued thus:--"The tribunal condemns you, Fernand Wagner, to death by the hand of the common headsman; and it is now my duty to name the day and fix the hour for your execution. Therefore I do ordain that the sentence just p.r.o.nounced be carried into effect precisely at the hour of sunset on the last day of the present month!"

"My lord! my lord!" exclaimed the procurator fiscal; "the belief is that on the last day of each month, and at the hour of sunset----"

"I am aware of the common superst.i.tion," interrupted the chief judge, coldly and sternly; "and it is to convince the world of the folly of putting faith in such legends that I have fixed that day and that hour in the present instance. Away with the prisoner to his dungeon."

And the chief judge waved his hand imperiously, to check any further attempts at remonstrance; but his a.s.sistant functionaries, the procurator fiscal and the officers of the court, surveyed him with mingled surprise and awe, uncertain whether they ought to applaud his courage or tremble at his rashness. Wagner had maintained a calm and dignified demeanor during the latter portion of the proceedings; and, although the sbirri who had charge of him ventured not to lay a finger upon him, he accompanied them back to the prison of the Palazzo del Podesta.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

THE s.h.i.+PWRECK.

Ten days had elapsed since the incidents related in the preceding chapter. The scene changes to an island in the Mediterranean Sea. There, seated on the strand, with garments dripping wet, and with all the silken richness of her raven hair floating wildly and disheveled over her shoulders, the Lady Nisida gazed vacantly on the ocean, now tinged with living gold by the morning sun. At a short distance, a portion of a s.h.i.+pwrecked vessel lay upon the sh.o.r.e, and seemed to tell her tale. But where were the desperate, daring crew who had manned the gallant bark?

where were those fearless freebooters who six days previously had sailed from Leghorn on their piratical voyage? where were those who hoisted the flag of peace and a.s.sumed the demeanor of honest trader when in port, but who on the broad bosom of the ocean carried the terrors of their black banner far and wide? where, too, was Stephano Verrina, who had so boldly carried off the Lady Nisida?

The gallant bark had struck upon a shoal, during the tempest and the obscurity of the night, and the pilot knew not where they were. His reckoning was lost--his calculations had all been set at naught by the confusion produced by the fearful storm which had a.s.sailed the s.h.i.+p and driven her from her course. The moment the corsair galley struck, that confusion increased to such an extent that the captain lost all control over his men; the pilot's voice was unheeded likewise.

The crew got out the long-boat and leaped into it, forcing the captain and the pilot to enter it with them. Stephano Verrina, who was on deck when the vessel struck, rushed down into the cabin appropriated to Nisida, and by signs endeavored to convey to her a sense of the danger which menaced them. Conquering her ineffable aversion for the bandit, Nisida followed him hastily to the deck. At the same instant that her eyes plunged, as it were, into the dense obscurity which prevailed around, the lightning streamed in long and vivid flashes over the turbulent waters, and with the roar of the billows suddenly mingled deafening shrieks and cries--shrieks and cries of wild despair, as the long-boat, which had been pushed away from the corsair-bark, went down at a little distance. And as the lightning played upon the raging sea, Nisida and Verrina caught hurried but frightful glimpses of many human faces, whereon was expressed the indescribable agony of the drowning.

"Perdition!" cried Verrina; "all are gone save Nisida and myself! And shall we too perish ere she has become mine? shall death separate us ere I have reveled in her charms? Fool that I was to delay my triumph hitherto! Fool that I was to be overawed by her impetuous signs, or melted by her silent though strong appeals!"

He paced the deck in an excited manner as he uttered these words aloud.

"No!" he exclaimed wildly, as the tempest seemed to increase, and the s.h.i.+p was thrown further on shoal: "she shall not escape me thus, after all I have done and dared in order to possess her! Our funeral may take place to-night--but our bridal shall be first. Ha! ha!"--and he laughed with a kind of despairing mockery, while the fragments of the vessel's sails flapped against the spars with a din as if some mighty demon were struggling with the blast. The sense of appalling danger seemed to madden Stephano only because it threatened to separate him from Nisida; and, fearfully excited, he rushed toward her, crying wildly, "You shall be mine!"

But how terrible was the yell which burst from his lips, when by the glare of a brilliant flash of lightning, he beheld Nisida cast herself over the side of the vessel!

For a single instant he fell back appalled, horror-struck; but at the next, he plunged with insensate fury after her. And the rage of the storm redoubled.

When the misty shades of morning cleared away, and the storm had pa.s.sed, Nisida was seated alone upon the strand, having miraculously escaped that eternal night of death which leads to no dawn. But where was Stephano Verrina? She knew not; although she naturally conjectured, and even hoped, that he was numbered with the dead.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

THE ISLAND IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA.

Fair and beauteous was the Mediterranean isle whereon the Lady Nisida had been thrown.

When the morning mists had dispersed, and the sunbeams tinged the ridges of the hills and the summits of the tallest trees, Nisida awoke as it were from the profound lethargic reverie in which she had been plunged for upward of an hour, since the moment when the billows had borne her safely to the sh.o.r.e.

The temperature of that island was warm and genial, for there eternal summer reigned, and thus, though her garments were still dripping wet, Nisida experienced no cold. She rose from the bank of sand whereon she had been seated, and cast anxious, rapid, and searching glances around her. Not a human being met her eyes; but in the woods that stretched, with emerald pride, almost down to the golden sands, the birds and insects--nature's free commoners--sent forth the sounds of life and welcomed the advent of the morn with that music of the groves.

The scenery which now presented itself to the contemplation of Nisida was indescribably beautiful. Richly wooded hills rose towering above each other with amphitheatrical effect; and behind the verdant panorama were the blue outlines of pinnacles of naked rocks. But not a trace of the presence of human beings was to be seen--not a hamlet, nor a cottage, nor the slightest sign of agriculture! At a short distance lay a portion of the wreck of the corsair-s.h.i.+p. The fury of the tempest of the preceding night had thrown it so high upon the shoal whereon it had struck, and the sea was now comparatively so calm, that Nisida was enabled to approach close up to it. With little difficulty she succeeded in reaching the deck,--that deck whose elastic surface lately vibrated to the tread of many daring, desperate young men--but now desolate and broken in many parts.

The cabin which had been allotted to her, or rather to which she had been confined, was in the portion of the wreck that still remained; and there she found a change of raiment, which Stephano had provided ere the vessel left Leghorn. Carefully packing up these garments in as small and portable a compa.s.s as possible, she fastened the burden upon her shoulders by the means of a cord, and, quitting the vessel, conveyed it safe and dry to the sh.o.r.e.

Then she returned again to the wreck in search of provisions, considerable quant.i.ties of which she fortunately found to be uninjured by the water; and these she was enabled to transport to the strand by means of several journeys backward and forward between the sh.o.r.e and the wreck. The occupation was not only necessary in order to provide the wherewith to sustain life, but it also abstracted her thoughts from a too painful contemplation of her position. It was long past the hour of noon when she had completed her task; and the sh.o.r.e in the immediate vicinity of the wreck was piled with a miscellaneous a.s.sortment of objects--bags of provisions, weapons of defense, articles of the toilet, clothing, pieces of canvas, cordage, and carpenter's tools. Then, wearied with her arduous toils, she laid aside her dripping garments, bathed her beauteous form in the sea, and attired herself in dry apparel.

Having partaken of some refreshment, she armed herself with weapons of defense, and quitting the sh.o.r.e, entered upon that vast amphitheater of verdure to which we have already slightly alluded. The woods were thick and tangled; but though, when seen from the sh.o.r.e, they appeared to form one dense, uninterrupted forest, yet they in reality only dotted the surface of the islands with numerous detached patches of grove and copse; and in the intervals were verdant plains or delicious valleys, exhibiting not the slightest sign of agriculture, but interspersed with shrubs and trees laden with fruits rich and tempting.

Nature had indeed profusely showered her bounties over that charming isle; for the trees glowed with their blus.h.i.+ng or golden produce, as if gems were the fruitage of every bough.

Through one of the delicious valleys which Nisida explored, a streamlet, smooth as a looking-gla.s.s, wound its way. To its sunny bank did the lady repair; and the pebbly bed of the river was seen as plainly through the limpid waters as an eyeball through a tear.

Though alone was Nisida in that vale, and though many bitter reflections, deep regrets, and vague apprehensions crowded upon her soul; yet the liveliness of the scene appeared to diminish the intenseness of the feelings of utter solitude, and its soft influence partially lulled the waves of her emotions. For never had mortal eyes beheld finer fruit upon the trees, nor lovelier flowers upon the soil; all life was rejoicing, from the gra.s.shopper at her feet to the feathered songsters in the myrtle, citron, and olive groves; and the swan glided past to the music of the stream. Above, the heavens were more clear than her own Italian clime, more blue than any color that tinges the flowers of the earth.