Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf

by George W. M. Reynolds

His was not the love which knows only passionate impulse: it was a constant, unvarying tender sentiment—far, far more pure, and therefore more permanent, than the ardent and burning love which Nisida felt for him. His was not the love which possession would satiate and enjoyment cool down: it was a feeling that had gained a soft yet irresistible empire over his heart.

And that love of his was nurtured and sustained by the most generous thoughts. He pictured to himself the happiness he should experience in becoming the constant companion of one whose loss of hearing and of speech cut her off as it were from that communion with the world which is so grateful to her sex: he imagined to himself, with all the fond idolatry of sincere affection, how melodiously soft, how tremulously clear would be her voice, were it restored to her, and were it first used to articulate the delicious language of love. And then he thought how enchanting, how fascinating, how fraught with witching charms, would be the conversation of a being endowed with so glorious an intellect, were she able to enjoy the faculty of speech. Thus did her very imperfections constitute a ravishing theme for his meditation; and the more he indulged in dreams like these, the more resolute did he become never to rest until he had discovered and rescued her.

Seven days had elapsed since the ship sailed from Leghorn; and Sicily had already been passed by, when the heavens grew overclouded, and everything portended a storm. The captain, whom Wagner had placed in charge of his vessel, adopted all the precautions necessary to encounter the approaching tempest; and soon after the sun went down on the seventh night a hurricane suddenly swept the surface of the Mediterranean. The ship bent to the fury of the gust—her very yards were deep in the water. But when the rage of that dreadful squall subsided, the gallant bark righted again, and bounded triumphantly over the foaming waves.

A night profoundly dark set in; but the white crests of the billows were visible through that dense obscurity: while the tempest rapidly increased in violence, and all the dread voices of the storm, the thunder in the heavens, the roaring of the sea, and the gushing sounds of the gale, proclaimed the fierceness of the elemental war. The wind blew not with that steadiness which the skill of the sailor and the capacity of the noble ship were competent to meet, but in long and frequent gusts of intermittent fury. Now rose the gallant bark on the waves, as if towering toward the starless sky, in the utter blackness of which the masts were lost; then it sank down into the abyss, the foam of the boiling billows glistening far above, on all sides, amidst the obscurity. What strange and appalling noises are heard on board a ship laboring in a storm—the cracking of timber, the creaking of elastic planks, the rattling of the cordage, the flapping of fragments of sails, the failing of spars, the rolling of casks got loose, and at times a tremendous crash throughout the vessel, as if the whole framework were giving way and the very sides collapsing!

And amidst those various noises and the dread sounds of the storm, the voices of the sailors were heard—not in prayer nor subdued by terror—but echoing the orders issued by the captain, who did not despair of guiding—nay, fighting, as it were, the ship through the tumultuous billows and against the terrific blast.

Again a tremendous hurricane swept over the deep: it passed, but not a spar remained to the dismantled bark. The tapering masts, the long graceful yards were gone, the cordage having snapped at every point where its support was needed—snapped by the fury of the tempest, as if wantonly cut by a sharp knife. The boats—the crew’s last alternative of hope—had likewise disappeared. The ship was now completely at the mercy of the wild raging of the winds and the fury of the troubled waters; it no longer obeyed its helm, and there were twenty men separated, all save one, from death only by a few planks and a few nails! The sea now broke so frequently over the vessel that the pumps could scarcely keep her afloat; and at length, while it was yet dark, though verging toward the dawn, the sailors abandoned their task of working at those pumps. Vainly did the captain endeavor to exercise his authority—vainly did Wagner hold out menaces and promises by turns; death seemed imminent, and yet those men, who felt that they were hovering on the verge of destruction, flew madly to the wine-stores.

Then commenced a scene of the wildest disorder amidst those desperate men; and even the captain himself, perceiving that they could laugh, and shout, and sing, in the delirium of intoxication, rushed from the side of Wagner and joined the rest. It was dreadful to hear the obscene jest, the ribald song, and the reckless execration, sent forth from the cabin, as if in answer to the awful voices in which Nature was then speaking to the world. But scarcely had a faint gleam appeared in the orient sky—not quite a gleam, but a mitigation of the intenseness of the night—when a tremendous wave—a colossus amongst giants—broke over the ill-fated ship, while a terrible crash of timber was for a moment heard in unison with the appalling din of the whelming billows. Wagner was the only soul on deck at that instant: but the fury of the waters tore him away from the bulwark to which he had been clinging, and he became insensible.

When he awoke from the stupor into which he had been plunged, it was still dusk, and the roar of the ocean sounded in his ears with deafening din.

But he was on land, though where he knew not. Rising from the sand on which he had been cast, he beheld the billows breaking on the shore at the distance of only a few paces; and he retreated further from their reach. Then he sat down, with his face toward the east, anxiously awaiting the appearance of the morn that he might ascertain the nature and the aspect of the land on which he had been cast. By degrees the glimmering which had already subdued the blackness of night into the less profound obscurity of duskiness, grew stronger; and a yellow luster, as of a far-distant conflagration, seemed to struggle against a thick fog. Then a faint roseate streak tinged the eastern horizon, growing gradually deeper in hue, and spreading higher and wider—the harbinger of sunrise; while, simultaneously, the features of the land on which Wagner was thrown began to develop themselves like specters stealing out of complete security; till at length the orient luster was caught successively by a thousand lofty pinnacles of rock; and finally the majestic orb itself appeared, lighting up a series of verdant plains, delicious groves, glittering lakes, pellucid streams, as well as the still turbulent ocean and the far-off mountains which had first peeped from amidst the darkness.

Fair and delightful was the scene that thus developed itself to the eyes of Wagner; but as his glance swept the country which rose amphitheatrically from the shore not a vestige of the presence of man could be beheld. No smoke curled from amidst the groves, no church spire peeped from amongst the trees; nor had the wilderness of nature been disturbed by artificial culture.