Years have passed away since we related Amine’s sufferings and cruel death; and now once more we bring Philip Vanderdecken on the scene. And during this time, where has he been? A lunatic—at one time frantic, chained, coerced with blows; at others, mild and peaceable. Reason occasionally appeared to burst out again, as the sun on a cloudy day, and then it was again obscured. For many years there was one who watched him carefully, and lived in hope to witness his return to a sane mind; he watched in sorrow and remorse—he died without his desires being gratified. This was Father Mathias!
The cottage at Terneuse had long fallen into ruin; for many years it waited the return of its owners, and at last the heirs-at-law claimed and recovered the substance of Philip Vanderdecken. Even the fate of Amine had passed from the recollection of most people; although her portrait over burning coals, with her crime announced beneath it, still hangs—as is the custom in the church of the Inquisition—attracting from its expressive beauty, the attention of the most careless passers-by.
But many, many years have rolled away—Philip’s hair is white—his once powerful frame is broken down—and he appears much older than he really is. He is now sane; but his vigour is gone. Weary of life, all he wishes for is to execute his mission—and then to welcome death.
The relic has never been taken from him: he has been discharged from the lunatic-asylum, and has been provided with the means of returning to his country. Alas! he has now no country—no home—nothing in the world to induce him to remain in it. All he asks is—to do his duty and to die.
The ship was ready to sail for Europe; and Philip Vanderdecken went on board—hardly caring whither he went. To return to Terneuse was not his object; he could not bear the idea of revisiting the scene of so much happiness and so much misery. Amine’s form was engraven on his heart, and he looked forward with impatience to the time when he should be summoned to join her in the land of spirits.
He had awakened as from a dream, after so many years of aberration of intellect. He was no longer the sincere Catholic that he had been; for he never thought of religion without his Amine’s cruel fate being brought to his recollection. Still he clung on to the relic—he believed in that—and that only. It was his god—his creed—his everything—the passport for himself and for his father into the next world—the means whereby he should join his Amine—and for hours would he remain holding in his hand that object so valued—gazing upon it—recalling every important event in his life, from the death of his poor mother, and his first sight of Amine, to the last dreadful scene. It was to him a journal of his existence, and on it were fixed all his hopes for the future.
“When! oh when is it to be accomplished?” was the constant subject of his reveries. “Blessed indeed will be the day when I leave this world of hate, and seek that other in which the weary are at rest.”
The vessel on board of which Philip was embarked as a passenger was the Nostra Señora da Monte, a brig of three hundred tons, bound for Lisbon. The captain was an old Portuguese, full of superstition, and fond of arrack—a fondness rather unusual with the people of his nation. They sailed from Goa, and Philip was standing abaft, and sadly contemplating the spire of the cathedral, in which he had last parted with his wife, when his elbow was touched, and he turned round.
“Fellow-passenger, again!” said a well-known voice—it was that of the pilot Schriften.
There was no alteration in the man’s appearance; he showed no marks of declining years; his one eye glared as keenly as ever.