2.3. CHAPTER III.
THE stars still shone brightly when I awoke, and Taurus
high in the southern heaven shewed that it was
midnight. I awoke from disturbed dreams. Methought I
had been invited to Timon's last feast; I came with
keen appetite, the covers were removed, the hot water
sent up its unsatisfying steams, while I fled before
the anger of the host, who assumed the form of Raymond;
while to my diseased fancy, the vessels hurled by him
after me, were surcharged with fetid vapour, and my
friend's shape, altered by a thousand distortions,
expanded into a gigantic phantom, bearing on its brow
the sign of pestilence.
The growing shadow rose and
rose, filling, and then seeming to endeavour to burst
beyond, the adamantine vault that bent over, sustaining
and enclosing the world. The night-mare became torture;
with a strong effort I threw off sleep, and recalled
reason to her wonted functions. My first thought was
Perdita; to her I must return; her I must support,
drawing such food from despair as might best sustain
her wounded heart; recalling her from the wild excesses
of grief, by the austere laws of duty, and the soft
tenderness of regret.
The position of the stars was my only guide. I turned
from the awful ruin of the Golden City, and, after
great exertion, succeeded in extricating myself from
its enclosure. I met a company of soldiers outside the
walls; I borrowed a horse from one of them, and
hastened to my sister. The appearance of the plain was
changed during this short interval; the encampment was
broken up; the relics of the disbanded army met in
small companies here and there; each face was
clouded;
every gesture spoke astonishment and dismay.
With an heavy heart I entered the palace, and stood
fearful to advance, to speak, to look. In the midst of
the hall was Perdita; she sat on the marble pavement,
her head fallen on her bosom, her hair dishevelled, her
fingers twined busily one within the other; she was
pale as marble, and every feature was contracted by
agony. She perceived me, and looked up enquiringly; her
half glance of hope was misery; the words died before I
could articulate them; I felt a ghastly smile wrinkle
my lips. She understood my gesture; again her head
fell; again her fingers worked restlessly. At last I
recovered speech, but my voice terrified her; the
hapless girl had understood my look, and for worlds she
would not that the tale of her heavy misery should have
been shaped out and confirmed by hard, irrevocable
words. Nay, she seemed to wish to distract my thoughts
from the subject: she rose from the floor: "Hush!" she
said, whisperingly;
"after much weeping, Clara sleeps;
we must not disturb her." She seated herself then on
the same ottoman where I had left her in the morning
resting on the beating heart of her Raymond; I dared
not approach her, but sat at a distant corner, watching
her starting and nervous gestures. At length, in an
abrupt manner she asked, "Where is he?"
"O, fear not," she continued, "fear not that I should
entertain hope! Yet tell me, have you found him? To
have him once more in my arms, to see him, however
changed, is all I desire. Though Constantinople be
heaped above him as a tomb, yet I must find him—then
cover us with the city's weight, with a mountain piled
above—I care not, so that one grave hold Raymond and
his Perdita." Then weeping, she clung to me: "Take me
to him," she cried, "unkind Lionel, why do you keep me
here? Of myself I cannot find him—but you know where
he lies—lead me thither."
At first these agonizing plaints filled me with
intolerable compassion. But soon I endeavoured to
extract patience for her from the ideas she suggested.
I related my adventures of the night, my endeavours to
find our lost one, and my disappointment. Turning her
thoughts this way, I gave them an object which rescued
them from insanity. With apparent calmness she
discussed with me the probable spot where he might be
found, and planned the means we should use for that
purpose. Then hearing of my fatigue and abstinence, she
herself brought me food. I seized the favourable
moment, and endeavoured to awaken in her something
beyond the killing torpor of grief. As I spoke, my
subject carried me away; deep admiration; grief, the
offspring of truest affection, the overflowing of a
heart bursting with sympathy for all that had been
great and sublime in the career of my friend, inspired
me as I poured forth the praises of Raymond.
"Alas, for us," I cried, "who have lost this latest
honour of the world! Beloved Raymond!
He is gone to the
nations of the dead; he has become one of those, who
render the dark abode of the obscure grave illustrious
by dwelling there. He has journied on the road that
leads to it, and joined the mighty of soul who went
before him. When the world was in its infancy death
must have been terrible, and man left his friends and
kindred to dwell, a solitary stranger, in an unknown
country. But now, he who dies finds many companions
gone before to prepare for his reception. The great of
past ages people it, the exalted hero of our own days
is counted among its inhabitants, while life becomes
doubly 'the desart and the solitude.'
"What a noble creature was Raymond, the first among the
men of our time. By the grandeur of his conceptions,
the graceful daring of his actions, by his wit and
beauty, he won and ruled the minds of all. Of one only
fault he might have been accused; but his death has
cancelled that. I have heard him called inconstant of
purpose—when he deserted, for the sake
of love, the
hope of sovereignty, and when he abdicated the
protectorship of England, men blamed his infirmity of
purpose. Now his death has crowned his life, and to the
end of time it will be remembered, that he devoted
himself, a willing victim, to the glory of Greece. Such
was his choice: he expected to die. He foresaw that he
should leave this cheerful earth, the lightsome sky,
and thy love, Perdita; yet he neither hesitated or
turned back, going right onward to his mark of fame.
While the earth lasts, his actions will be recorded
with praise. Grecian maidens will in devotion strew
flowers on his tomb, and make the air around it
resonant with patriotic hymns, in which his name will
find high record."
I saw the features of Perdita soften; the sternness of
grief yielded to tenderness—I continued:—"Thus to
honour him, is the sacred duty of his survivors. To
make his name even as an holy spot of ground, enclosing
it from all hostile attacks by our praise, shedding on
it the
blossoms of love and regret, guarding it from
decay, and bequeathing it untainted to posterity. Such
is the duty of his friends. A dearer one belongs to
you, Perdita, mother of his child. Do you remember in
her infancy, with what transport you beheld Clara,
recognizing in her the united being of yourself and
Raymond; joying to view in this living temple a
manifestation of your eternal loves. Even such is she
still. You say that you have lost Raymond. O, no!—yet
he lives with you and in you there. From him she
sprung, flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone—and not,
as heretofore, are you content to trace in her downy
cheek and delicate limbs, an affinity to Raymond, but
in her enthusiastic affections, in the sweet qualities
of her mind, you may still find him living, the good,
the great, the beloved. Be it your care to foster this
similarity—be it your care to render her worthy of
him, so that, when she glory in her origin, she take
not shame for what she is."
I could perceive that, when I recalled my
sister's
thoughts to her duties in life, she did not listen with
the same patience as before. She appeared to suspect a
plan of consolation on my part, from which she,
cherishing her new-born grief, revolted. "You talk of
the future," she said, "while the present is all to me.
Let me find the earthly dwelling of my beloved; let us
rescue that from common dust, so that in times to come
men may point to the sacred tomb, and name it his—then
to other thoughts, and a new course of life, or what
else fate, in her cruel tyranny, may have marked out
for me."
After a short repose I prepared to leave her, that I
might endeavour to accomplish her wish. In the mean
time we were joined by Clara, whose pallid cheek and
scared look shewed the deep impression grief had made
on her young mind. She seemed to be full of something
to which she could not give words; but, seizing an
opportunity afforded by Perdita's absence, she
preferred to me an earnest prayer, that I would take
her within view of the gate at which her father had
entered Constantinople. She promised to commit no
extravagance, to be docile, and immediately to return.
I could not refuse; for Clara was not an ordinary
child; her sensibility and intelligence seemed already
to have endowed her with the rights of womanhood. With
her therefore, before me on my horse, attended only by
the servant who was to re-conduct her, we rode to the
Top Kapou. We found a party of soldiers gathered round
it. They were listening. "They are human cries," said
one: "More like the howling of a dog," replied another;
and again they bent to catch the sound of regular
distant moans, which issued from the precincts of the
ruined city. "That, Clara," I said, "is the gate, that
the street which yestermorn your father rode up."
Whatever Clara's intention had been in asking to be
brought hither, it was balked by the presence of the
soldiers. With earnest gaze she looked on the labyrinth
of smoking piles which had been a city, and then
expressed her readiness to return home. At this
moment
a melancholy howl struck on our ears; it was repeated;
"Hark!" cried Clara, "he is there; that is Florio, my
father's dog." It seemed to me impossible that she
could recognise the sound, but she persisted in her
assertion till she gained credit with the crowd about.
At least it would be a benevolent action to rescue the
sufferer, whether human or brute, from the desolation
of the town; so, sending Clara back to her home, I
again entered Constantinople. Encouraged by the
impunity attendant on my former visit, several soldiers
who had made a part of Raymond's body guard, who had
loved him, and sincerely mourned his loss, accompanied
me.
It is impossible to conjecture the strange enchainment
of events which restored the lifeless form of my friend
to our hands. In that part of the town where the fire
had most raged the night before, and which now lay
quenched, black and cold, the dying dog of Raymond
crouched beside the mutilated form of its lord. At such
a time sorrow has no voice; affliction, tamed by
it is
very vehemence, is mute. The poor animal recognised me,
licked my hand, crept close to its lord, and died. He
had been evidently thrown from his horse by some
falling ruin, which had crushed his head, and defaced
his whole person. I bent over the body, and took in my
hand the edge of his cloak, less altered in appearance
than the human frame it clothed. I pressed it to my
lips, while the rough soldiers gathered around,
mourning over this worthiest prey of death, as if
regret and endless lamentation could re-illumine the
extinguished spark, or call to its shattered
prison-house of flesh the liberated spirit. Yesterday
those limbs were worth an universe; they then enshrined
a transcendant power, whose intents, words, and actions
were worthy to be recorded in letters of gold; now the
superstition of affection alone could give value to the
shattered mechanism, which, incapable and clod-like, no
more resembled Raymond, than the fallen rain is like
the former mansion of cloud in which it climbed the
highest
skies, and gilded by the sun, attracted all
eyes, and satiated the sense by its excess of beauty.
Such as he had now become, such as was his terrene
vesture, defaced and spoiled, we wrapt it in our
cloaks, and lifting the burthen in our arms, bore it
from this city of the dead. The question arose as to
where we should deposit him. In our road to the palace,
we passed through the Greek cemetery; here on a tablet
of black marble I caused him to be laid; the cypresses
waved high above, their death-like gloom accorded with
his state of nothingness. We cut branches of the
funereal trees and placed them over him, and on these
again his sword. I left a guard to protect this
treasure of dust; and ordered perpetual torches to be
burned around.
When I returned to Perdita, I found that she had
already been informed of the success of my undertaking.
He, her beloved, the sole and eternal object of her
passionate tenderness, was restored her. Such was the
maniac language
of her enthusiasm. What though those
limbs moved not, and those lips could no more frame
modulated accents of wisdom and love! What though like
a weed flung from the fruitless sea, he lay the prey of
corruption—still that was the form she had caressed,
those the lips that meeting hers, had drank the spirit
of love from the commingling breath; that was the
earthly mechanism of dissoluble clay she had called her
own. True, she looked forward to another life; true,
the burning spirit of love seemed to her
unextinguishable throughout eternity. Yet at this time,
with human fondness, she clung to all that her human
senses permitted her to see and feel to be a part of
Raymond.
Pale as marble, clear and beaming as that, she heard my
tale, and enquired concerning the spot where he had
been deposited. Her features had lost the distortion of
grief; her eyes were brightened, her very person seemed
dilated; while the excessive whiteness and even
transparency of her skin, and something hollow in
her
voice, bore witness that not tranquillity, but excess
of excitement, occasioned the treacherous calm that
settled on her countenance. I asked her where he should
be buried. She replied, "At Athens; even at the Athens
which he loved. Without the town, on the acclivity of
Hymettus, there is a rocky recess which he pointed out
to me as the spot where he would wish to repose."
My own desire certainly was that he should not be
removed from the spot where he now lay. But her wish
was of course to be complied with; and I entreated her
to prepare without delay for our departure.
Behold now the melancholy train cross the flats of
Thrace, and wind through the defiles, and over the
mountains of Macedonia, coast the clear waves of the
Peneus, cross the Larissean plain, pass the straits of
Thermopylae, and ascending in succession Oeta and
Parnassus, descend to the fertile plain of Athens.
Women bear with resignation these long drawn ills, but
to a man's
impatient spirit, the slow motion of our
cavalcade, the melancholy repose we took at noon, the
perpetual presence of the pall, gorgeous though it was,
that wrapt the rifled casket which had contained
Raymond, the monotonous recurrence of day and night,
unvaried by hope or change, all the circumstances of
our march were intolerable. Perdita, shut up in
herself, spoke little. Her carriage was closed; and,
when we rested, she sat leaning her pale cheek on her
white cold hand, with eyes fixed on the ground,
indulging thoughts which refused communication or
sympathy.
We descended from Parnassus, emerging from its many
folds, and passed through Livadia on our road to
Attica. Perdita would not enter Athens; but reposing at
Marathon on the night of our arrival, conducted me on
the following day, to the spot selected by her as the
treasure house of Raymond's dear remains. It was in a
recess near the head of the ravine to the south of
Hymettus. The chasm, deep,
black, and hoary, swept from
the summit to the base; in the fissures of the rock
myrtle underwood grew and wild thyme, the food of many
nations of bees; enormous crags protruded into the
cleft, some beetling over, others rising
perpendicularly from it. At the foot of this sublime
chasm, a fertile laughing valley reached from sea to
sea, and beyond was spread the blue Aegean, sprinkled
with islands, the light waves glancing beneath the sun.
Close to the spot on which we stood, was a solitary
rock, high and conical, which, divided on every side
from the mountain, seemed a nature-hewn pyramid; with
little labour this block was reduced to a perfect
shape; the narrow cell was scooped out beneath in which
Raymond was placed, and a short inscription, carved in
the living stone, recorded the name of its tenant, the
cause and aera of his death.
Every thing was accomplished with speed under my
directions. I agreed to leave the finishing and
guardianship of the tomb to the
head of the religious
establishment at Athens, and by the end of October
prepared for my return to England. I mentioned this to
Perdita. It was painful to appear to drag her from the
last scene that spoke of her lost one; but to linger
here was vain, and my very soul was sick with its
yearning to rejoin my Idris and her babes. In reply, my
sister requested me to accompany her the following
evening to the tomb of Raymond. Some days had passed
since I had visited the spot. The path to it had been
enlarged, and steps hewn in the rock led us less
circuitously than before, to the spot itself; the
platform on which the pyramid stood was enlarged, and
looking towards the south, in a recess overshadowed by
the straggling branches of a wild fig-tree, I saw
foundations dug, and props and rafters fixed, evidently
the commencement of a cottage; standing on its
unfinished threshold, the tomb was at our right-hand,
the whole ravine, and plain, and azure sea immediately
before us; the dark rocks received a
glow from the
descending sun, which glanced along the cultivated
valley, and dyed in purple and orange the placid waves;
we sat on a rocky elevation, and I gazed with rapture
on the beauteous panorama of living and changeful
colours, which varied and enhanced the graces of earth
and ocean.
"Did I not do right," said Perdita, "in having my loved
one conveyed hither? Hereafter this will be the
cynosure of Greece. In such a spot death loses half its
terrors, and even the inanimate dust appears to partake
of the spirit of beauty which hallows this region.
Lionel, he sleeps there; that is the grave of Raymond,
he whom in my youth I first loved; whom my heart
accompanied in days of separation and anger; to whom I
am now joined for ever. Never—mark me—never will I
leave this spot. Methinks his spirit remains here as
well as that dust, which, uncommunicable though it be,
is more precious in its nothingness than aught else
widowed earth clasps to her sorrowing
bosom. The myrtle
bushes, the thyme, the little cyclamen, which peep from
the fissures of the rock, all the produce of the place,
bear affinity to him; the light that invests the hills
participates in his essence, and sky and mountains, sea
and valley, are imbued by the presence of his spirit. I
will live and die here!
"Go you to England, Lionel; return to sweet Idris and
dearest Adrian; return, and let my orphan girl be as a
child of your own in your house. Look on me as dead;
and truly if death be a mere change of state, I am
dead. This is another world, from that which late I
inhabited, from that which is now your home. Here I
hold communion only with the has been, and to come. Go
you to England, and leave me where alone I can consent
to drag out the miserable days which I must still
live."
A shower of tears terminated her sad harangue. I had
expected some extravagant proposition, and remained
silent awhile, collecting my thoughts that I might the
better combat
her fanciful scheme. "You cherish dreary
thoughts, my dear Perdita," I said, "nor do I wonder
that for a time your better reason should be influenced
by passionate grief and a disturbed imagination. Even I
am in love with this last home of Raymond's;
nevertheless we must quit it."
"I expected this," cried Perdita; "I supposed that you
would treat me as a mad, foolish girl. But do not
deceive yourself; this cottage is built by my order;
and here I shall remain, until the hour arrives when I
may share his happier dwelling."
"My dearest girl!"
"And what is there so strange in my design? I might
have deceived you; I might have talked of remaining
here only a few months; in your anxiety to reach
Windsor you would have left me, and without reproach or
contention, I might have pursued my plan. But I
disdained the artifice; or rather in my wretchedness it
was my only consolation to pour out my heart to you,
my
brother, my only friend. You will not dispute with me?
You know how wilful your poor, misery-stricken sister
is. Take my girl with you; wean her from sights and
thoughts of sorrow; let infantine hilarity revisit her
heart, and animate her eyes; so could it never be, were
she near me; it is far better for all of you that you
should never see me again. For myself, I will not
voluntarily seek death, that is, I will not, while I
can command myself; and I can here. But drag me from
this country; and my power of self control vanishes,
nor can I answer for the violence my agony of grief may
lead me to commit."
"You clothe your meaning, Perdita," I replied, "in
powerful words, yet that meaning is selfish and
unworthy of you. You have often agreed with me that
there is but one solution to the intricate riddle of
life; to improve ourselves, and contribute to the
happiness of others: and now, in the very prime of
life, you desert your principles, and shut yourself up
in useless solitude.
Will you think of Raymond less at
Windsor, the scene of your early happiness? Will you
commune less with his departed spirit, while you watch
over and cultivate the rare excellence of his child?
You have been sadly visited; nor do I wonder that a
feeling akin to insanity should drive you to bitter and
unreasonable imaginings. But a home of love awaits you
in your native England. My tenderness and affection
must soothe you; the society of Raymond's friends will
be of more solace than these dreary speculations. We
will all make it our first care, our dearest task, to
contribute to your happiness."
Perdita shook her head; "If it could be so," she
replied, "I were much in the wrong to disdain your
offers. But it is not a matter of choice; I can live
here only. I am a part of this scene; each and all its
properties are a part of me. This is no sudden fancy; I
live by it. The knowledge that I am here, rises with me
in the morning, and enables me to endure the
light; it
is mingled with my food, which else were poison; it
walks, it sleeps with me, for ever it accompanies me.
Here I may even cease to repine, and may add my tardy
consent to the decree which has taken him from me. He
would rather have died such a death, which will be
recorded in history to endless time, than have lived to
old age unknown, unhonoured. Nor can I desire better,
than, having been the chosen and beloved of his heart,
here, in youth's prime, before added years can tarnish
the best feelings of my nature, to watch his tomb, and
speedily rejoin him in his blessed repose.
"So much, my dearest Lionel, I have said, wishing to
persuade you that I do right. If you are unconvinced, I
can add nothing further by way of argument, and I can
only declare my fixed resolve. I stay here; force only
can remove me. Be it so; drag me away—I return;
confine me, imprison me, still I escape, and come here.
Or would my brother rather devote the heart-broken
Perdita to the straw and chains of
a maniac, than
suffer her to rest in peace beneath the shadow of His
society, in this my own selected and beloved recess?"—
All this appeared to me, I own, methodized madness. I
imagined, that it was my imperative duty to take her
from scenes that thus forcibly reminded her of her
loss. Nor did I doubt, that in the tranquillity of our
family circle at Windsor, she would recover some degree
of composure, and in the end, of happiness. My
affection for Clara also led me to oppose these fond
dreams of cherished grief; her sensibility had already
been too much excited; her infant heedlessness too soon
exchanged for deep and anxious thought. The strange and
romantic scheme of her mother, might confirm and
perpetuate the painful view of life, which had intruded
itself thus early on her contemplation.
On returning home, the captain of the steam packet with
whom I had agreed to sail, came to tell me, that
accidental circumstances hastened his departure, and
that, if I went with him, I
must come on board at five
on the following morning. I hastily gave my consent to
this arrangement, and as hastily formed a plan through
which Perdita should be forced to become my companion.
I believe that most people in my situation would have
acted in the same manner. Yet this consideration does
not, or rather did not in after time, diminish the
reproaches of my conscience. At the moment, I felt
convinced that I was acting for the best, and that all
I did was right and even necessary.
I sat with Perdita and soothed her, by my seeming
assent to her wild scheme. She received my concurrence
with pleasure, and a thousand times over thanked her
deceiving, deceitful brother. As night came on, her
spirits, enlivened by my unexpected concession,
regained an almost forgotten vivacity. I pretended to
be alarmed by the feverish glow in her cheek; I
entreated her to take a composing draught; I poured out
the medicine, which she took docilely from me. I
watched her as she drank
it. Falsehood and artifice are
in themselves so hateful, that, though I still thought
I did right, a feeling of shame and guilt came
painfully upon me. I left her, and soon heard that she
slept soundly under the influence of the opiate I had
administered. She was carried thus unconscious on
board; the anchor weighed, and the wind being
favourable, we stood far out to sea; with all the
canvas spread, and the power of the engine to assist,
we scudded swiftly and steadily through the chafed
element.
It was late in the day before Perdita awoke, and a
longer time elapsed before recovering from the torpor
occasioned by the laudanum, she perceived her change of
situation. She started wildly from her couch, and flew
to the cabin window. The blue and troubled sea sped
past the vessel, and was spread shoreless around: the
sky was covered by a rack, which in its swift motion
shewed how speedily she was borne away. The creaking of
the masts, the clang of the wheels, the tramp
above,
all persuaded her that she was already far from the
shores of Greece.—"Where are we?" she cried, "where
are we going?"—
The attendant whom I had stationed to watch her,
replied, "to England."—
"And my brother?"—
"Is on deck, Madam."
"Unkind! unkind!" exclaimed the poor victim, as with a
deep sigh she looked on the waste of waters. Then
without further remark, she threw herself on her couch,
and closing her eyes remained motionless; so that but
for the deep sighs that burst from her, it would have
seemed that she slept.
As soon as I heard that she had spoken, I sent Clara to
her, that the sight of the lovely innocent might
inspire gentle and affectionate thoughts. But neither
the presence of her child, nor a subsequent visit from
me, could rouse my sister. She looked on Clara with a
countenance of woful meaning, but she did not speak.
When I appeared, she turned away, and in reply
to my
enquiries, only said, "You know not what you have
done!"—I trusted that this sullenness betokened merely
the struggle between disappointment and natural
affection, and that in a few days she would be
reconciled to her fate.
When night came on, she begged that Clara might sleep
in a separate cabin. Her servant, however, remained
with her. About midnight she spoke to the latter,
saying that she had had a bad dream, and bade her go to
her daughter, and bring word whether she rested
quietly. The woman obeyed.
The breeze, that had flagged since sunset, now rose
again. I was on deck, enjoying our swift progress. The
quiet was disturbed only by the rush of waters as they
divided before the steady keel, the murmur of the
moveless and full sails, the wind whistling in the
shrouds, and the regular motion of the engine. The sea
was gently agitated, now shewing a white crest, and now
resuming an uniform hue; the clouds
had disappeared;
and dark ether clipt the broad ocean, in which the
constellations vainly sought their accustomed mirror.
Our rate could not have been less than eight knots.
Suddenly I heard a splash in the sea. The sailors on
watch rushed to the side of the vessel, with the
cry—some one gone overboard. "It is not from deck,"
said the man at the helm, "something has been thrown
from the aft cabin." A call for the boat to be lowered
was echoed from the deck. I rushed into my sister's
cabin; it was empty.
With sails abaft, the engine stopt, the vessel remained
unwillingly stationary, until, after an hour's search,
my poor Perdita was brought on board. But no care could
re-animate her, no medicine cause her dear eyes to
open, and the blood to flow again from her pulseless
heart. One clenched hand contained a slip of paper, on
which was written, "To Athens." To ensure her removal
thither, and prevent the irrecoverable loss of her body
in the wide sea, she had
had the precaution to fasten a
long shawl round her waist, and again to the
staunchions of the cabin window. She had drifted
somewhat under the keel of the vessel, and her being
out of sight occasioned the delay in finding her. And
thus the ill-starred girl died a victim to my senseless
rashness. Thus, in early day, she left us for the
company of the dead, and preferred to share the rocky
grave of Raymond, before the animated scene this
cheerful earth afforded, and the society of loving
friends. Thus in her twenty-ninth year she died; having
enjoyed some few years of the happiness of paradise,
and sustaining a reverse to which her impatient spirit
and affectionate disposition were unable to submit. As
I marked the placid expression that had settled on her
countenance in death, I felt, in spite of the pangs of
remorse, in spite of heart-rending regret, that it was
better to die so, than to drag on long, miserable years
of repining and inconsolable grief.
Stress of weather drove us up the Adriatic Gulph; and,
our vessel being hardly fitted to weather a storm, we
took refuge in the port of Ancona. Here I met Georgio
Palli, the vice-admiral of the Greek fleet, a former
friend and warm partizan of Raymond. I committed the
remains of my lost Perdita to his care, for the purpose
of having them transported to Hymettus, and placed in
the cell her Raymond already occupied beneath the
pyramid. This was all accomplished even as I wished.
She reposed beside her beloved, and the tomb above was
inscribed with the united names of Raymond and Perdita.
I then came to a resolution of pursuing our journey to
England overland. My own heart was racked by regrets
and remorse. The apprehension, that Raymond had
departed for ever, that his name, blended eternally
with the past, must be erased from every anticipation
of the future, had come slowly upon me. I had always
admired his talents; his noble aspirations; his grand
conceptions of the glory and majesty of his ambition:
his utter want of mean passions; his fortitude and
daring. In Greece I had learnt to love him; his very
waywardness, and self-abandonment to the impulses of
superstition, attached me to him doubly; it might be
weakness, but it was the antipodes of all that was
grovelling and selfish. To these pangs were added the
loss of Perdita, lost through my own accursed self-will
and conceit. This dear one, my sole relation; whose
progress I had marked from tender childhood through the
varied path of life, and seen her throughout
conspicuous for integrity, devotion, and true
affection; for all that constitutes the peculiar graces
of the female character, and beheld her at last the
victim of too much loving, too constant an attachment
to the perishable and lost, she, in her pride of beauty
and life, had thrown aside the pleasant perception of
the apparent world for the unreality of the grave, and
had left poor Clara quite an
orphan. I concealed from
this beloved child that her mother's death was
voluntary, and tried every means to awaken cheerfulness
in her sorrow-stricken spirit.
One of my first acts for the recovery even of my own
composure, was to bid farewell to the sea. Its hateful
splash renewed again and again to my sense the death of
my sister; its roar was a dirge; in every dark hull
that was tossed on its inconstant bosom, I imaged a
bier, that would convey to death all who trusted to its
treacherous smiles. Farewell to the sea! Come, my
Clara, sit beside me in this aerial bark; quickly and
gently it cleaves the azure serene, and with soft
undulation glides upon the current of the air; or, if
storm shake its fragile mechanism, the green earth is
below; we can descend, and take shelter on the stable
continent. Here aloft, the companions of the
swift-winged birds, we skim through the unresisting
element, fleetly and fearlessly. The light boat heaves
not, nor is opposed by death-bearing waves;
the ether
opens before the prow, and the shadow of the globe that
upholds it, shelters us from the noon-day sun. Beneath
are the plains of Italy, or the vast undulations of the
wave-like Apennines: fertility reposes in their many
folds, and woods crown the summits. The free and happy
peasant, unshackled by the Austrian, bears the double
harvest to the garner; and the refined citizens rear
without dread the long blighted tree of knowledge in
this garden of the world. We were lifted above the
Alpine peaks, and from their deep and brawling ravines
entered the plain of fair France, and after an airy
journey of six days, we landed at Dieppe, furled the
feathered wings, and closed the silken globe of our
little pinnace. A heavy rain made this mode of
travelling now incommodious; so we embarked in a
steam-packet, and after a short passage landed at
Portsmouth.
A strange story was rife here. A few days before, a
tempest-struck vessel had appeared off the town: the
hull was parched-looking and
cracked, the sails rent,
and bent in a careless, unseamanlike manner, the
shrouds tangled and broken. She drifted towards the
harbour, and was stranded on the sands at the entrance.
In the morning the custom-house officers, together with
a crowd of idlers, visited her. One only of the crew
appeared to have arrived with her. He had got to shore,
and had walked a few paces towards the town, and then,
vanquished by malady and approaching death, had fallen
on the inhospitable beach. He was found stiff, his
hands clenched, and pressed against his breast. His
skin, nearly black, his matted hair and bristly beard,
were signs of a long protracted misery. It was
whispered that he had died of the plague. No one
ventured on board the vessel, and strange sights were
averred to be seen at night, walking the deck, and
hanging on the masts and shrouds. She soon went to
pieces; I was shewn where she had been, and saw her
disjoined timbers tossed on the waves. The body of the
man who had landed, had been
buried deep in the sands;
and none could tell more, than that the vessel was
American built, and that several months before the
Fortunatas had sailed from Philadelphia, of which no
tidings were afterwards received.