Blanche! Great heaven! what could it mean? Yes, it was her! There she was dead: the same calm, sweet features; the same graceful form, dressed in white; the fair arms crossed on the breast. From the position in which I found her, she seemed not to have made the slightest effort to save herself: the angels of heaven seemed to have fanned her with their wings,—so innocently calm, so pure looked she. But how came she on board this unhappy bark? Where was she going to? I had supposed that when she fled from Naples, it was to some foreign land, not to remain in Italy. And where was her lover? I resolved to leave the body, and go to some fishermen’s huts on the cliff behind the ruin, and seek assistance, to have the body conveyed to town. As I prepared to do so, several other bodies presented themselves to my gaze, and in the corpse of a man, lying with his face exposed, I recognized Lord Glenfell. He was dressed in royal blue cloth, such as he had always worn (preserving his English customs) at Naples. One hand was buried in his bosom, the other hung stiff and cold by his side; and even in death he retained his perfect beauty. This unexpected, incomprehensible event, coming so suddenly upon me, after my own sorrows, and the fright from the storm, overpowered me, and sitting down on a fragment of stone, I wept over the bodies. Along the beach for a quarter of a mile the wreck was strewed in confusion: masts, cargo, rigging, luggage, all lay in different positions. The principal part of the passengers and crew probably had perished. One or two bodies came floating along as I franticly rushed up the hill again, in the direction of the fisher’s huts. They were not there when I reached them:—gone, an old woman told me, to plunder the wreck. She and a young girl were the only occupants of the tent, and I earnestly entreated them to return with me to the shore, and carry the body of Blanche to their house, to remain there till I could obtain assistance from Baie. They consented to accompany me, and we returned together, they talking incessantly about the storm and the wreck, wondering what the name of the vessel was, and whence it came. The bodies were undisturbed when I reached them. The woman, apparently used to such scenes, carelessly took up the inanimate form of my beloved friend, and strode away to the house again, while the girl remained to watch that of Lord Glenfell’s.
Meanwhile the sun had fully risen, and threw his golden rays on the scene. The waves had subsided somewhat: they were growing calmer. The sky was bright and glowing: the hues of morning lit up the shores.
The wreckers were busy at their plunder, wretchedly dressed; some of them in tatters, running here and there: even the dead bodies they spared not. The girl sat down on the sand near the gurgling waves, and I, standing on my feet, regarded the fair young Englishman. His eyes, which in life had been a soft brilliant blue, were wide open, and their unnatural glare startled me. The deadly pallor of his features, and the languid air his form and face bore, too surely showed that life was not there. Presently the old woman returned, and with the aid of her husband, an athletic peasant, they raised the corpse, and I and the girl following, went back whence we came.
They laid the two beautiful, yet guilty lovers, side by side on a rustic bed, poor and lowly as the lot of them to whom it belonged. Then the woman began to wash away the sand which thickly obscured their faces, and gathered on their clothes, all the while uttering sad cries that two so beautiful should die. Wiping the tears from my eyes, I turned to the peasant, and asked him if he could proceed immediately to my house at Baie, and procure biers to take the bodies thither, and tell my maid and some of the peasants there to come also? He replied with alacrity that he would, and departed.
When the sand and red clay of the shore was entirely cleared from their persons, I regarded the corpses more attentively. Two years had not changed my Blanche; she was as beautiful as in those times past, when we sang together at Naples. I remembered the night of her departure, and her nocturnal farewell—so sad, so strange. Where had she gone then, and whither was she going now in this ship? Perhaps again to Parthenope, when the scissors of the fatal sisters, cut short the thread of her days. Oh! unhappy fate,—sad destiny.
Lord Glenfells then continued faithful to his vows of faith and love. Oh! marvellous instance of attachment in a man, that his love should last two years. Perhaps, if there were more women like her, their love would last longer. Together they had died, and now it was my sad task to see them buried amid the wild, romantic scenery of Baie.
I was alone with the bodies for more than an hour, ere the peasant came back with my poor, astonished Pasiphae, accompanied by several men, bearing hand biers. News of the shipwreck had reached the town, and great fear had been entertained lest some evil had befallen me, as hour after hour passed away, and I came not, and the terrible storm arose. Great was their amazement when they beheld me watching two corpses, and when they saw the agony imprinted on my face. The sympathizing Pasiphae threw herself at my feet, and weepingly buried her face in the folds of my robe.
“This is a most inexplicable affair, my poor Pasiphae,” said I. “I will tell you some other time. I could not return to you last evening. I spent the night in the ruins of the temple to avoid the storm. I wish to get home quickly.”
“The sweet child wept much last night, my lady, but I hushed him to sleep at last,” said my faithful servant.