by G.P.R. James.
Originally published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine (Harper and Brothers) vol.9 #54 (Nov 1854).
It was one of the most awful nights I ever remember having seen. We had set out from St. Goar in a carriage which we had hired at Cologne, drawn by two black horses, which proved as stubborn and strange a pair of brutes as man could undertake to drive. Not that I undertook it, for I wanted to see the Rhine from the land route, and not to weary my arms and occupy my attention with an unprofitable pair of dirty reins; but my friend, Mr. Lawrence, was rather fond of pulling at horses' mouths, and he preferred driving himself, and me too, to being troubled—bored he called it—with coachman. The landlord of the "Adler" knew me well, and had no fear of trusting his horses with me, though, to say sooth, I had some fear of trusting myself with them.
They were assuredly a strange, unaccountable pair of brutes, and when the little baggage we took with us had been put in, and I went down to the carriage, I did not like the appearance of them at all. At first sight they looked merely like a heavy pair of funeral horses, accustomed to nod their heads under heavy black plumes, and walk along at solemn pace with a mute before them; but when I came to examine their eyes, there was a sort of dull, unpleasant fire in them, and the one nearest turned round his head and stared at me out of the corner of his eye with a sort of supercilious, impertinent fun that I shall not easily forget. It seemed as if he were saying, "I'll give you a dance before I've done!" Then suddenly he stamped his foot upon the pavement of the inn yard, as if losing patience at my delay, and opening his fiery nostrils gave a great snort.
I got in, however, beside my friend, and away we went. As far as Bonn all was well enough; but there the horses insisted upon stopping to eat. Lawrence tried to persuade them it would be better to go on; but it was of no use: they had been accustomed to stop at the Star, and stop they would. We made the best of it, fed the horses, and got some dinner ourselves, and then we set out again.
The landlord of the Star saw us politely to the carriage, and, addressing my friend as he took the reins in hand, observed, in no very consolatory tone, "You had better take care of that horse, sir; he is the devil himself:" and so, on my word, I believe he was. Where he took us for the first five minutes I really do not know; but I have a remembrance of careering hither and thither about the great square, and having a running view of the University and the Palace of Popplesdorff. He would go any way on earth but up the Rhine. But Lawrence, who was really a very good whip, brought him to his senses at length, and that before he had knocked the little crazy carriage all to pieces. Thus we were at length going along the high and proper road, at a speed dangerous to market men and women, and to our own necks; but even that at length was quieted down, and our further journey only suffered interruption from an occasional dart which both the horses would make at any diverging road that led away from the river, as if they had a presentiment that their course up the stream would lead to something strange and horrible. The instinct of brutes is a very curious subject of study. How far it is inferior, how far superior, to human reason—how much beyond man's keenest perception it goes—how near it approaches to the supernatural, are questions over which I have often pondered for hours.
We set out from St. Goar, then, with that same pair of horses, and the little rickety open carriage, on the 9th of October—a day ever-memorable to me. We were somewhat late, for we had been idling away our time in speculations vain enough; but it was a beautiful day. The Rhine was hurry with the vintage; all hearts seemed open as the wine gushed from the glorious clusters, and one could hardly help thinking leniently and sympathetically even of Noah and his first intemperance. Songs were breaking out from the hill-sides; the sun shone upon gay dresses and pleasant faces, and the merry laugh was often in the air. Oh! the Rhine land is a bright and pleasant land, especially in the gay season of the grape.
The horses that day seemed to have lost all their fire. It seemed as if it was their fate to go on whatever lay before them; and forward they dragged us at a slow, heavy trot, with drooping heads and heaving sides. Even the one whom the landlord of the Star had called a devil was as tame as his companion, and minded the whip no more than if he had been tickled with a straw.
About three o'clock we saw a large heavy cloud begin to rise before us, overtopping the mountains, overshadowing the Rhine. It was only in hue that it bore the look of a thunder-cloud. It had no knobs, or pillars, or writhing twists about it; but it was inky black, and kept advancing like a wall of marble, dark as night at the lower part, and leaden-gray at the superior edge. The wind had lulled away to a perfect calm, but still that cloud kept marching on over the sky, absorbing into itself some light vapors that had been floating above over the blue, and gradually hiding the more distant hills, where we had caught a sight of them, in its own dim vail.
A light wind at length fluttered in our faces, hot and unrefreshing, like the breath of fever.
*Put up the hood!" said Lawrence, "we are going to have it!"
Hardly had he spoken when a bright flash burst from the cloud, and I could see a serpent-like line of fire dart across the Rhine. It nearly blinded one, but it had no effect upon the horses; they did not even start. Then came a clap of thunder which I thought would bring the rocks and mountains on our heads. There were two or three more such flashes, and two or three other roars, and then the giant began to weep. Down came the rain like fury: it seemed as if we had got into the middle of a water-spout; and the sky, too, grew so dark that an unnatural shadow filled the whole valley of the Rhine, late so bright and smiling. I thought that we were going to have two of the plagues of Egypt at once—darkness that could be felt, and fire mingled with hail. Indeed they did come upon us at last. But no one can describe how that storm worked itself up. It was like one of those concerted pieces of music, beginning with a few instruments, and bringing in more and more, and louder and louder, till all seems one universal crash. Nor can one easily picture to imagination the change which came over the scene while all this went on. The rocks, the mountains, the castles, the towers—except those that were close by—were either shut out from sight completely, or appeared like dim spectres through the descending rain. The vineyards, with their gay population scattered, looked dank and dismal; the hills, in a thousand directions, were channeled by red turbid cascades; and the black rocks seemed slimy and foul, with the oozing waters that trickled over their dark faces amidst the lichens and the weeds.
We were wet to the skin in five minutes; but as the thunder and lightning diminished—which they did toward sunset—the wind rose and blew with terrific violence, threatening to overset the carriage. The horses would hardly drag it on; and I am sure we did not go more than three miles an hour, while the rain, which continued harder than ever, was dashed furiously in our faces, nearly blinding both man and beast. At length, to complete our discomforts, night fell; and one so black and murky I have never seen. It was in vain whipping; neither horse would go the least out of his determined pace; and, besides, the whip had become so soaked and limp that it was of little service, moving as unwillingly as the brutes themselves, and curling itself up into a thousand knots.
I got as far back in the carriage as I could, and said nothing. As for my companion he seemed at his wits' end, and I could hear mattered curses which might have well been spared, but which I was in no mood to reprove.
At length he said, "This will never do! I can not see a step before me. We shall meet with some accident. Let us get into the first place of shelter we can find. Any cottage, any roadside public-house or beer-house, is better than this."
"I do not think you will find any thing of the kind," I answered gloomily ; "if you do, I can be contented with any place to get out of this pelting—a cave in the rock if nothing better."
He drove on nearly at a walk for about two miles further, and then suddenly pulled up. I could hardly see any thing but a great black point of rock sticking out, as it seemed to me, right across the road. But Lawrence declared that he perceived a shed under the rock, and a building on the top of it, and asked me to get out and reconnoitre. I was as glad to catch at straws as he could be, and I alighted as well as I could, stumbling upon a large stone over which he had nearly driven us, and sinking deep in mud and mire. I now found that the rock which had seemed to block the way was only one of those many little points round which the river turns in its course through the mountains, and on approaching near it I discovered the shed he had seen. It was an old dilapidated timber-built hut, which might have belonged at some former period to a boatman, or perhaps a vine-dresser; but it was open at two sides, and we might as well have been in the carriage as there. By the side, however, I found a path with a step or two cut in the rock, and I judged rightly that it must lead to the building Lawrence had seen above. On returning to the side of the carriage, I clearly perceived the building too, and made it out to be one of the old castles of which such multitudes stud the banks of the frontier river. Some of these, as we all know, are in a very ruinous, some in a more perfect state; and I proposed to my companion to draw the horses and carriage under the shed, climb the path, and take our chance of what we should find above. Phaéthon himself could not have been more sick of charioteering than Lawrence was: he jumped at the proposal. We secured our vehicle and its brutes as well as we could, and I began to climb. Lawrence staid a minute behind to get the portmanteau out from under the seat where we had stowed it to keep it dry; and then came hallooing after me with it upon his shoulder.
"Do you think there is a chance of finding any one up there?" he asked, as he overtook me.
"A chance, certainly; but a poor one," I answered. "Marxburg and one or two other old castles are inhabited; but not many. However, we shall soon know; for this one is low down, thank Heaven! and here we are at some gate or barbican."
I can not say that it was very promising to the feel—for sight aided us but little—and the multitude of stones we tumbled over gave no idea of the castle itself being in a high state of repair. Lawrence thought fit to give a loud halloo; but the whistling wind drowned it—and would have drowned it, if he had shouted like Achilles from the trenches.
We next had to pick our way across what had probably been a court of the castle; that was an easy matter, for the stones in the open space were few, and the inequalities not many. The moon, I suppose, had risen by this time, for there seemed more light, though the rain ceased not; but we could now perceive several towers and walls quite plainly; and at length I found myself under a deep archway, on one side of which the drifting deluge did not reach me. Lawrence was by my side in a minute, and, thanks to what he was accustomed to jeer me for, as one of my old-bachelor habits; I was soon enabled to afford both him and myself some light. There are three things I always carry with me in traveling: a box of wax-wick matches—these are in my pocket well wrapped up in oil silk; a ball of string, and a couple of wax candles: the wax candles, I believe, once saved my life.
As soon as I got under shelter, I extracted my large box of matches and lighted one easily enough. It burned while one might count twenty, but that sufficed to show us that we were under a great gateway between two high towers. A second which I lighted Lawrence carried out into an inner court, but it was extinguished in a moment. I had perceived, however, a doorway on either side of this arch, and the spikes of a portcullis protruding through the arch above, which showed that the castle had some woodwork left about it; and as soon as he came back we lighted another match, and set out to explore what was behind the two doorways, which we managed easily by getting a new light as soon as the old one was burned out. On the right there was nothing but one small room, with no exit but the entrance, and with a roof broken in and rank weeds rising from the encumbered floor. On the left was a room of the same size, equally dilapidated, but with a second door and two steps leading to a larger room or hall, the roof of which was perfect except at one end. There were two old lozenge-shaped windows likewise, minus a few panes; but the sills were raised nearly a man's height from the floor, and thus, when one was seated on the ground, one's head was out of the draught. Comparison is a wonderful thing, and the place looked quite comfortable. Lawrence threw down the portmanteau, and while he held a lighted match, I undid it and got out a wax candle. We had now the means of light till morning, and it remained to get some dry clothing, if it could be found. We had each a dress-suit and a couple of shirts in the portmanteau; and though the rain in one spot had contrived to penetrate the solid leather and wet the shoulder of my coat and the knee of his pantaloons, it was certainly better to have but one damp place of a few inches about one than to be wet all over. We therefore dressed ourselves in what the apprentice boys would call our best clothes, and a little brandy from the flask made us feel still more comfortable. The taste for luxuries increases with marvelous rapidity under indulgence. An hour before, we should have thought a dry coat and a place of shelter formed the height of human felicity, but now we began to long for a fire on the broad stone hearth at the end of the room. Lawrence was fertile in resources and keen-sighted enough. He had remarked a quantity of fallen rafters in the first little room we had entered, and he now made sundry pilgrimages thither in the dark—for we dared not take out the candle—till he had accumulated enough wood to keep us dry all night. Some of it was wet and would not burn, but other pieces were quite dry, and we soon had a roaring fire, by which we sat down on the ground, hoping to make ourselves comfortable.
Oh the vanity of human expectations! As long as we had been busy in repairing our previous disasters we had been well enough; but as soon as we were still—no, not quite so soon as that, but by the time we had stared into the fire for ten minutes, and made out half a dozen pictures on the firebrands, miseries began to press upon us.
"I wish in heaven I had something to sit upon!" said Lawrence, "if it were but a three-legged stool. My knees get quite cramped."
"How the wind howls and mourns," said I, listening. ."It would not surprise me if one half of this old crazy place were to come down upon our heads."
"The rain is pouring on as heavily as ever," said Lawrence. "I should not wonder if that puddle at the other end were to swell into a lake and wash us out at the door."
"Those poor brutes of horses," said I, "must have a bad time of it, and the chaise will be like a full sponge."
"Come, come!" said Lawrence, "this will never do. We shall croak ourselves into a fit of the horrors. Let us forget the storm, and the horses, and the old tumble-down place, and fancy ourselves in a middling sort of inn, with a good fire, but little to eat. It is the best policy to laugh at petty evils. Come, can not you tell us a story beginning 'Once upon a time?'"
I was in no fit mood for story-telling, but there was some philosophy in his plan, and I accordingly agreed, upon the condition that when I had concluded my narrative he would tell another story.
"Once upon a time," I said, "when the late Duke of Hamilton was a young man, and traveling in Italy—making the grand tour, as it was called in those days—he came one night to a solitary inn in the mountains, where he was forced to take refuge from a storm like that which we have met with to-day—"
"Oh, I know that story," cried Lawrence, interrupting me; "I have heard it a hundred times; and besides, you do not tell it right—My God, what is that?"
As he spoke, he sprang up on his feet with a look of consternation and a face turning suddenly pale.
"What! what?" I cried, "I heard nothing."
"Listen!" he said, "it was certainly a shriek."
We were silent as death for the next minute, and then again, rising above the moaning wind and pattering rain, came one of the most piercing, agonizing shrieks I ever heard. It seemed quite close to where we sat—driven in, as it were, through the broken panes of the casement.
"There must have been some accident," I said, anxiously. "Let us go down and see."
We had contrived to fix our candle between two pieces of firewood, and, leaving it burning, we hurried out through the little ante-room to the old dark archway. The night seemed blacker than ever, and the storm no less severe.
"Stay, stay!" said Lawrence; "let us listen. We hear nothing to direct us where to search."
I stopped, and we bent our ears in vain for another sound. We heard the wind sigh, and the rustling patter of the rain, and the roaring of the mighty river as, swollen tremendously, it went roaring along through its rocky channel, but nothing like a human voice made itself heard. At length, without giving me any warning, and making me start like a guilty spirit at the crow of cock, Lawrence shouted with the full force of his powerful lungs, inquiring if there was any one there and in distress. No answer was returned, and again and again he called without obtaining a reply. It was evident that the lips which had uttered those sounds of pain or terror were either far away or still in death; and having nothing to guide us further, we returned to our place of shelter. It was long, however, ere we could shake off the impression those two shrieks had made. We had neither of us become hardened, like Macbeth, to sounds of woe, and for some time we went on speculating en the occurrence, and supposing many things, with very little to guide us to a right judgment. There was the rushing Rhine and the slippery road, on which many an accident might happen, and there were almost as many perils imminent as those which St. Paul recapitulates as having overtaken himself. But there was nothing certain. After we had tired ourselves with such fancies Lawrence proposed a little more brandy. I did not object; and then we told tales of screams and shrieks which had been heard at different times and places by various credible witnesses--ourselves among the rest--for which no natural causes have ever been assigned.
At length, quite tired out, I proposed that we should try to sleep. Lawrence ensconced himself behind the door; I took up a position in the other corner, sitting on the floor with my back supported by the two walls, and at a sufficient distance from the window. I should have said we had piled more wood on the fire, in such a way as we hoped would keep it in at least till we woke; and it flickered and flared and cast strange lights upon the walls and old windows, and upon a door at the other end of the room which we had never particularly examined, on account of the wet and decayed state of the floor in that part. It was a very common door—a great mass of planks placed perpendicularly and bound together by two great horizontal bars—but as the fire-light played upon it, there was something unpleasant to me in its aspect. I kept my eyes fixed upon it, and wondered what was beyond; and, in the sort of unpleasant fancifulness which besets one sometimes when dreary, I began to imagine all sorts of things. It seemed to me to move as if about to be opened; but it was only the shaking of the wind. It looked like a prison door, I thought—the entrance to some unhappy wretch's cell; and when I was half asleep, I asked myself if there could be any one there still—could the shrieks we heard issue thence—or could the spirit of the tortured captive still come back to mourn over the sorrows endured in life? I shut my eyes to get rid of the sight of it; but when I opened them again, there it was staring me full in the face. Sometimes when the flame subsided indeed, I lost sight of it; but that was as bad or worse than the full view, for then I could not tell whether it was open or shut, But at length, calling myself a fool, I turned away from it, and soon after dozed off to sleep.
I could not have been really in slumber more than an hour, and was dreaming that I had been carried off a road into a river, and just heard all the roaring and rushing of a torrent in my ears, when Lawrence woke me by shaking me violently by the shoulder, and exclaiming: "Listen, listen! What in the fiend's name can all that be?"
I started up bewildered; but in a moment I heard sounds such as I never heard before in my life; frantic yells and cries, and groans even—all very different from the shrieks we had heard before. Then, suddenly, there was a wild peal of laughter ringing all through the room, more terrible than the rest.
I can not bear to be woke suddenly out of my sleep; but to be woke by such sounds as that quite overcame me, and I shook like a leaf. Still, my eyes turned toward the door at the other end of the room. The fire had sunk low; the rays of our solitary candle did not reach it, but there was now another light upon it, fitful as the flickering of the flame, but paler and colder. It seemed blue almost to me. But as soon as I could recall my senses I perceived that the moon was breaking the clouds, and from time to time shining through the casement as the scattered vapors were hurried over her by the wind.
"What in Heaven's name can it be?" I exclaimed, quite aghast.
"I don't know, but we must see," answered my companion, who had been awake longer and recovered his presence of mind. "Light the other candle, and bring the one that is alight. We must find out what this is. Some poor creature may be wanting help."
"The sound comes from beyond that door," I said: "let us see what is behind it."
I acknowledge I had some trepidation in making the proposal, but my peculiar temperament urged me forward in spite of myself toward scenes which I could not doubt were fearful; and I can boldly say that if Lawrence had hesisitated to go I would have gone alone. It would seem as if Fate, in giving me this impulse toward sights painful to other men and to myself also, had prearranged the combinations which continually brought them in my way; and at this time of life I had learned to look upon it as a part of my destiny to find somewhere or other in my path at almost every step some of those events which make the heart sicken and the blood freeze.
Taking the candle in my hand, then, I advanced at once toward the door. Lawrence stopped a moment to examine by the light I had left behind a pair of pistols which he had brought in his pockets, and to put on fresh caps, although I believe they had escaped the rain. Thus I had reached the door before he came up, and had opened it, for all the iron-work but a latch had been carried off. The moment it was thrown back, the cries and groans were heard more distinctly than before; but I could see nothing before me but darkness, and it required a moment or two for the light to penetrate the darkness beyond. I had not taken two steps beyond the threshold ere Lawrence was by my side, and we found ourselves in a stone passage without windows, appearing to lead round the building. Ten paces on, however, we came to the top of a flight of steps, broken and mouldy, with grass and weeds growing up between the crevices. Part of the wall had fallen there, but it was on the side away from the wind; and although the fluttering air, diverted by some obstacles from its course, caused the flame of the candle to waver, I carried it still lighted past the aperture. It was a work of some danger to descend those steps, for they rocked and tottered under the foot, and they seemed interminable; but after the first twenty had been passed we had no more to fear from wind. The masonry ceased; the walls became the solid rock, rudely hewn out for a passage for the stairs; and the steps themselves were of the native stone, squared and flattened at one time probably, but worn by many feet, and in some places broken, by what influences I do not know.
When we were about half way down, the sounds, which had been growing louder and louder, suddenly ceased, and a deathlike stillness succeeded.
"Stay a bit," said my companion: "let us reconnoitre. We may as well look before we leap. Hold up the light."
I did as he asked, but the faint rays of the candle showed us nothing but the black irregular faces of the rock on either side, a small rill of water percolating through a crevice, and flowing over, down upon the steps, along which it poured in miniature cascades, and beyond, a black chasm where we could see nothing.
"Come on," said Lawrence, advancing; "we must see the end of it."
Forward we went—down, down, some two-and-thirty steps more, without hearing another sound; but just as we reached the bottom step something gave a wild sort of yell, and I could hear a scrambling and tumbling at a good distance in advance.
My heart beat terribly, and Lawrence stopped short. I was far more agitated than he was, but he showed what he felt more, and any one who had seen us would have said that he was frightened, I perfectly cool. He had passed me on the stairs; I now passed him, and holding the light high up gazed around.
It was very difficult to see any thing distinctly, but here and there the beams caught upon rough points of rock, and low arches rudely hewn in the dark stone, and I made out that we were in a series of vaults excavated below the castle, with massive partitions between them, and here and there a doorway or passage from one to the other. It seemed a perfect labyrinth at first sight, and now that all was silent again, we had nothing to guide us. I listened, but all was still as death; and I was advancing again, when my companion asked me to stop, and proposed that we should examine the ground on each side as we went on, marking the spot from which we started. It seemed a good plan, and I was stooping down to pile up some of the loose stones with which the ground or floor was plentifully encumbered, when a large black snake glided away, and at the same moment a bat or a small owl flitted by, and extinguished the light with its wings.
"Good Heaven, how unlucky!" cried Lawrence; "have you got the match-box?"
"No," Lanswered; "I left it on the floor near where I was sleeping. Feel your way up the steps, my good friend, and bring it and the other candle. I will remain here till you come. Be quick!"
"You go; let me stay," said Lawrence. But I was ashamed to accept his offer; and there was a something, I knew not what, that urged me to remain. "No, no," I said, "go quickly; but give me one of your pistols," and I repeated the last words in German, lest any one who understood that language should be within ear-shot.
We were so near the foot of the steps that Lawrence could make no mistake, and I soon heard his feet ascending at a rapid rate, tripping and stumbling, it is true, but still going on. As I listened, I thought I heard a light sound also from the other side, but I concluded that it was but the echo of his steps through the hollow passages, and I stood quite still, hardly breathing. I could hear my heart beat, and the arteries of the throat were very unpleasant—throb, throb, throbbing.
After a moment or two I heard Lawrence's feet as it seemed to me almost above me, and I know not what impression of having some other being near me, made me resolve to cock the pistol. I tried to do it with my thumb as I held it in my right hand, but the lock went hard, and I found it would be necessary to lay down the candle to effect it. Just as I was stooping to do so, I became suddenly conscious of having some living creature close by me; and the next instant I felt cold fingers at my throat, and an arm thrown round me. Not a word was spoken, but the grasp became tight upon my neck, and I struggled violently for breath and life. But the strength of the being that grasped me seemed gigantic, and his hand felt like a hand of iron.
Oh what a moment was that! Never, except in a terrible dream, have I felt any thing like it. I tried to cry, to shout, but I could not, his hold of my throat was so tight; power of muscle seemed to fail me; my head turned giddy; my heart felt as if stopping; flashes of light shone from my eyes.
My right hand, however, was free, and by a violent effort I forced back the cock of the pistol nearly to the click; but then I lost all power. The hammer fell; the weapon went off with a loud echoing report, and for an instant, by the flash, I saw a hideous face with a gray beard close gazing into mine.
The sound of Lawrence's footsteps running rapidly overhead were the most joyful I had ever heard; but the next instant I felt myself cast violently backward, and I fell half stunned and bewildered to the ground.
Before I could rise the light of the candle began to appear, as Lawrence came down the stairs, first faint, and then brighter; and I heard his voice exclaiming, "What has happened? what has happened!"
"Take care!" I cried faintly; "there is some man or some devil here, and he has half killed me!"
Looking carefully around, Lawrence helped me to rise, and then we picked up the candle I had let fall and lighted it again, he gazing in my face from time to time, but seeming hardly to like to take his eyes off the vaults, or to enter into any conversation, for fear of some sudden attack. Nothing was to be seen, however; my savage assailant was gone, leaving no trace behind him but a cut upon the back of my head, received as he cast me backward.
"What has happened!" said Lawrence at length, in a very low voice. "Why, your face looks quite blue, and you are bleeding!"
"No wonder," I answered; "for I have been half strangled, and have nearly had my brains dashed out. Have you got powder and ball? If so, load the pistol;" and giving it to him, I sat down on the last step of the stairs to recover myself a little, keeping a wary eye upon the gloom beyond him while he re-charged the weapon.
From time to time he asked a question, and I answered, till he had heard all that had happened, and then, after a minute's thought, he said, "Do you know, I think we had better give this up, and barricade ourselves into the room upstairs. There may be more of these ruffians than one."
"No, no," I answered; "I am resolved to see the end of it. There is only one, depend upon it, or I should have had both upon me. We are two, and can deal with him at all events. I have a great notion that some crime has been committed here this night, and we ought to ascertain the facts. Those first shrieks were from a woman's voice."
"Well, well," answered my companion, "I am with you, if you are ready. Here, take one light and one pistol, and you examine the right-hand vaults: while I take the left. We are now on our guard, and can help each other."
We walked on accordingly, very slowly and carefully, taking care to look round us at every step, for the vaults were very rugged and irregular, and there was many a point and angle which might have concealed an assailant, but we met with no living creature. At length I thought I perceived a glimmer of light before me, but a little to the left, and calling up Lawrence, who was at some yards' distance, I pointed it out to him.
"To be sure I see it," he answered ; "it is the moon shining. We must be near the entrance of the vaults. But what is that? There seems to be some one lying down there."
He laid his hand upon my arm as he spoke, and we both stood still and gazed forward. The object toward which his eyes were directed certainly looked like a human figure, but it moved not in the least, and I slowly advanced toward it. Gradually I discerned what it was. There was the dress of a woman, gay colored and considerably ornamented, and a neat little foot and shoe, with a small buckle in it, resting on a piece of fallen rock. The head was away from us, and she lay perfectly still.
My spirit felt chilled; but I went on, quickening my pace, and Lawrence and I soon stood beside her, holding the lights over her.
She was a young girl of nineteen or twenty, dressed in gala costume, with some touch of the city garb, some of the peasant attire. Her hair, which was all loose, wet, and disheveled, was exceedingly rich and beautiful, and her face must have been very pretty in the sweet happy coloring of health and life. Now it was deathly pale, and the windows of the soul were closed. It was a sad, sad sight to see! Her garments were all wet, and there was some froth about the mouth, but the fingers of the hands were limp and natural, as if there had been no struggle, and the features of the face were not distorted. There was, however, a wound upon her temple, from which some blood had flowed, and some scratches upon her cheek, and upon the small fair ears.
She looked very sweet as she lay there, and Lawrence and I stood and gazed at her long. Her dress was somewhat discomposed, and I straightened it over her ankles, though the sense of modesty and maiden shame had gone out with all the other gentle harmonies in that young heart.
How came she by her death? How came she there? Was she slain by accident, or had she met with violence? were questions that pressed upon our thoughts. But we said little then, and after a time left her where we found her. It mattered not to her that the bed was hard or the air cold.
We searched every corner of the vaults, however, for him I could not help believing her murderer, but without success; and on going to the mouth of the vault, where there had once been a door, long gone to warm some peasant's winter hearth, we found that it led out upon the road close by the side of the Rhine, and hardly a dozen paces from the river.
It was clear how he had escaped; and we sadly took our way back to the chamber above, where we passed the rest of the night in melancholy talk over the sad events that must have happened.
We slept no more, nor tried to sleep; but as soon as the east was gray went down to the shed where we had left the horses, and resumed our journey, to give information at the next village of what we had discovered.
The horses were very stiff, and at first could hardly drag us along, for the road was in a horrible state, but they soon warmed to the work, and in little more than three quarters of an hour we reached a small village, where we got some refreshment, while the landlord of the little Gasthaus ran at my request for the Polizei.
When the only officer in the place came, I told him every thing that had happened in the best German I could muster, and willingly agreed to go back with him to the spot, and show him where the body lay. The rumor spread like wild-fire in the village; a crowd of the good peasantry collected round the door; and when we set out, taking a torch or two with us, as I described the vaults as very dark, we had at least a hundred persons in our train, among whom were a number of youths and young girls. As nothing but one old chaise was to be procured in the village, and it did not look as if it would rain, we pursued our way on foot, but we certainly accomplished the distance faster than we had done with two horses in the morning. All the way the officer—I really do not know his right German title—continued conversing with Lawrence, who did not understand a word of German, and with myself, for whom his German was a world too fast. I gave him, however, all the information I could, and as his language has the strange peculiarity of being easier to speak than to understand, I made him master, I believe, of every little incident of the last eventful night.
My description of the face of the man who had first nearly strangled me and then nearly dashed my brains out, and of whom I had caught a glimpse by the flash of the pistol, seemed to interest him more than all the rest. He stopped when I gave it to him, called several of the girls and young men about him, and conversed with them for a moment or two with a good deal of eagerness. The greater part of what they said escaped me, but I heard a proper name frequently repeated, sounding like Herr Katzenberger, and the whole ended with a sad and gloomy shake of the head.
Soon after we resumed our advance we came to the mouth of the vault. It required no torches, however, to let us see what we sought for. The sun, still low, was shining slantingly beneath the heavy brows of the rocky arch, and the rays receded to the spot where the body of the poor girl lay.
All steps were hurried as we came near; and boys and girls, men and women, crowded round. It was evident that every one present recognized a friend in that lifeless form. "Ach, die Carlina!"—"Ach, die arme Carlina!" arose from a hundred voices; and some eyes were seen to shed bitter tears.
They made a little bier of vine poles and branches, and laid the fair corpse upon it. Then they sought for various green leaves and some of the long-lingering autumn flowers, and strewed them tastefully over the body; and then four stout men raised the death-litter on their shoulders and bore it away toward the village. The men and women, without noise or bustle, formed them selves into a little procession, with a native sense of reverent decorum which is more strongly felt among the German peasantry than among any other people I ever met with, and followed the corpse, two and two.
I had the policeman for my companion; and beseeching him to speak slowly, I asked if he could give me any explanation of the strange and terrible events which must have happened.
"We know very little as yet," he answered; "but we shall probably know more soon. This young lady, poor thing! was the only daughter of a rich but cross-grained man, living at a village a short way further down the Rhine, on the other side. Her mother, who died three years ago, was from our own village. She was dancing away gayly last evening with our young folks, just before the storm came on; for her father had brought her up in his boat, and left her at her aunt's. When it came on with thunder and lightning, they all went into the house, and, as misfortune would have it, that young lad who is carrying the head of the bier sat down by her in a corner, and they could not part soon enough. He was a lover of hers, every one knew; but her father was hard against the match, and before they had been in the house an hour the old man came in and found them chatting in their corner. Perhaps he would have staid all night had it not been for that; but he got very angry, and made her go away with him in his boat in the very midst of the storm. He said he had been on the Rhine many a worse night than that—though few of us have ever seen one. But he was obstinate as a bull, and away they went, though she cried terribly, both from fear and vexation. What happened after, none of us can tell; but old Herr Katzenberger has a gray beard, just such as you speak of."
They carried the body to the little old church, and laid it in the aisle; and then they sent for the village doctor to examine into the mode of her death. I was not present when he came, but I heard afterward that he pronounced her to have died from drowning, and declared that the wound on the temple must have occurred by a blow against some rock when life was quite or nearly extinct. "Otherwise," he said, "it would
have bled much more, for the artery itself was torn."
For my part, I was marched up with Lawrence to the Ampthaus, and there subjected to manifold interrogatories, the answers to which were all carefully taken down.
In the midst of these we were interrupted by the inroad of a dozen of peasants, dragging along a man who struggled violently with them, but in whom every one present recognized the father of the poor girl whose body we had found. The peasants said they had found him some six miles off, tearing his flesh with his teeth, and evidently in a state of furious insanity. They had found it very difficult to master him, they declared, for his strength was prodigious.
He was the only witness of what had taken place during that terrible night upon the river, and he could give no sane account. He often accused himself of murdering his child; but the good people charitably concluded that he merely meant he had been the cause of her death by taking her upon the treacherous waters in such a night as that; and the fact of his boat having drifted ashore some miles further down, broken and bottom upward, seemed to confirm that opinion. I made some inquiries regarding the unfortunate man during a subsequent tour; but I only learned that he continued hopelessly insane, without a glimmer of returning reason.