Page images
PDF
EPUB

to steal unheard towards the sound. A gleam of light presently fell, although only for an instant, upon one of the rocks before me; and I conjectured that he was provided with a dark lantern. It had revealed enough of the locality to enable me to gain, without noise, a spot from which I could see the bearer.

The

Rusen was not alone. Two female figures stood near him; in one of which-notwithstanding that the only light was a reflection from the rock, of the flame of the dark lantern-I recognised Dorathen. whole three preserved a profound silence for more than a minute; during while, they might have seemed to be a group of statuary.

"Hear me!" cried Rusen, at length, in a stern and almost fierce voice, "let us understand one another. I am no Tyrolese; I have no interest, real or sentimental, in setting this unhappy country in a blaze; but on the contrary, such peaceable schemes as mine can only flourish where public tranquillity is maintained under the safeguard of the laws. I well know the reason why your Association pitches upon me for this service. It is necessary for your success that I should be pledged beyond recall-that the weight of money, influence, and mercantile credit and solidity should be thrown into the scale. Be it so-I consent. But, if I this night set in jeopardy my character-my fortune-my life-it is for your sake Dorathen, in your cause and no other; and it is to you I shall

look for my reward! Say but the word, not equivocally as you have hitherto done, for I will not be trifled with here, but openly, distinctly-say that tomorrow you will be my wife; and that instant I shall scale the rock and do-what is to be done."

It was some moments before Dorathen replied; but when she did so, her voice was so low and tremulous, that I could not catch a single word.

"She consents!" cried her female companion: "away if you be a man!"

"I did not hear her," remarked Rusen, sulkily and suspiciously.

"I tell you she has consented-I am your witness." A stir took place among the speakers, but as the flame of the lamp suddenly disappeared, I could not see of what nature. My feelings were by this time excited to a pitch of frenzy. Every thing that had seemed strange in the conduct of Dorathen was now accounted for. Her love-her hopes-her happiness-all were to be offered up with a blind but beautiful piety on the altar of her country. This was the high-place of the terrible superstition—this the moment of sacrifice! I rushed round the point of the cliff, hardly thinking of caution, and only anxious to interpose, I knew not in what way, between her and her fate. Her name was just about to escape my lips, as I groped for her in vain, when I felt my hand seized by some one in the dark. It was Dorathen herself!

"Forgive me!" said she, speaking quickly but distinctly, "in such moments it is only your sex that can be calm and resolute. I do not hesitate! At a time like this, love and hate are alike to me. The first man who reaches the Castle of Salurn is Dorathen's husband! Away!" I looked up involuntarily, and saw the lantern gleaming like a star far above our head.

[ocr errors]

Agreed!" said I in a whisper; and pressing her hand, I sprang upon the stair. The steps were steep and rugged, being roughly hewn out of the rock; but, like a man walking in his sleep, I seemed to hit by instinct the proper place for my feet, and ascended with rapidity and safety. I neared the light, and my strength seemed doubled by the common tiger-feeling of our nature when within spring of a deadly foe. The path, however, became more difficult; all trace of hewn steps disappeared, and I imagined that I must have wandered in my excitation, from the track. The light, however, seemed to be stationary, not many feet above my head; and, although a considerable distance from the surface of the earth, as I knew that it could not have reached the earth wall, I conjectured that the steps in this place had really disappeared, through the efforts of time and war, and that the climber was obliged to make one of the projecting points of the rock assist him in his ascent.

This I thought was rather fortunate than otherwise; for if the stair had been the only means of access,

the struggle for I knew that a struggle must come, would take place on the bare side of the steep. Endeavouring therefore to get round my enemy, and reach the brink before him, I pursued my way more slowly and more cautiously than before. When I approached near enough to the light to see the dim figure of the Italian, and gain some idea of the localities around him, I found that he was standing on a tabular piece of rock, which seemed to have been one of the landing-places of the ancient stairs. He was occupied in scraping out with his knife a hole in the side of the cliff that was choked up with sand and This apparently was a place for the foot; for a very short distance above, the stair recommenced with greater regularity than ever, and ascended till it was lost in the darkness.

moss.

The tabular rock proved to be indeed a landingplace, and the only point at which further passage could be effected. The cliff was properly smoothed all round it in a manner that, before the invention of gunpowder changed the art of war, must have made the place defencible by a single man against a thousand. The operations of Rusen were just completed, and he was in the act of raising his foot to the hole, from which a slight effort would lift him to the stair above. I felt that I grew pale. The next instant I sprang upon the: rock, and caught him by the throat.

"Jesus Maria!" cried he, returning the grapple, "Is it time?"

"Yes, it is time!" said I; and as the light of the lantern revealed my features to him, I could see a gleam of mingled joy and terror light up his swarthy

countenance.

"I arrest you as a traitor," said I, "in the name of the Bavarian government! Do you yield?"

"Yes! take your prize!" replied he, with a grin of mockery and a gripe like that of death.

Do you

"I arrest you as an intended assassin! yield?" "No!" "Down then-first to earth, and then to hell! Die, dog, in your guilt!"—and with a painful effort, I bent him down over the abyss, and at the same instant caught by the rock with one

hand, to save

He yielded to

myself from perishing with my victim. the force which perhaps he could not at any time have withstood; and I thought for an instant that I held him suspended over the gulf, into which I could spurn him with my foot. In a moment, however, the wily serpent twined his arms round my legs, and dragged me down with him, upon the edge of the cliff. No situation could be more helpless than mine. Victory indeed was easy, but only in union with death; and it appeared, from the frantic efforts of my enemy, that he himself was content to die, so that we died together.

I was deceived. The next moment he loosed his hold of my legs, and threw himself on the rock, only clinging by the hands to the edge, till he had secured a footing below. This was instantaneously effected ;

D

« PreviousContinue »