If my fancy has painted you in genuine colours, you will on the receipt of this, incontinently follow the bearer where she will lead you.
Inamorita.”
“The deuce I will!” exclaimed I,—“But soft!”—And I re-perused this singular document, turned over the billet in my fingers, and examined the hand-writing, which was femininely delicate, and I could have sworn was a woman’s. Is it possible, thought I, that the days of romance are revived?—No, “The days of chivalry are over!” says Burke.
As I made this reflection, I looked up, and beheld the same figure which had handed me this questionable missive, beckoning me forward. I started towards her; but, as I approached, she receded from me, and fled swiftly along the margin of the river at a pace which, encumbered as I was with my heavy cloak and boots, I was unable to follow; and which filled me with sundry misgivings, as to the nature of the being, who could travel with such amazing celerity. At last, perfectly breathless, I fell into a walk; which, my mysterious fugitive perceiving, she likewise lessened her pace, so as to keep herself still in sight, although at too great a distance to permit me to address her.”
The hero hastens after his guide but always she eludes him. Piqued by her repeated escapes, he stops in a rage, and relieves his feelings in “two or three expressions that savoured somewhat of the jolly days of the jolly cavaliers.” And under the circumstances, he felt fully justified in his profanity. “What! to be thwarted by a woman! Peradventure; baffled by a girl? Confusion! It was too bad! To be outwitted, generated, routed, defeated, by a mere rib of the earth? It could not be borne!” Recovering his temper, he followed his capricious guide out of the town, into a shadowy grove to “an edifice, which seated on a gentle eminence, and embowered amidst surrounding trees, bore the appearance of a country villa.”
“The appearance of this spacious habitation was anything but inviting; it seemed to have been built with a jealous eye to concealment; and its few, but well-defended windows were sufficiently high from the ground, as effectually to baffle the prying curiosity of the inquisitive stranger. Not a single light shone from the narrow casement; but all was harsh, gloomy and forbidding. As my imagination, ever alert on such an occasion, was busily occupied in assigning some fearful motive for such unusual precautions, my leader suddenly halted beneath a lofty window, and making a low call, I perceived slowly descending therefrom, a thick silken cord, attached to an ample basket, which was silently deposited at our feet. Amazed at this apparition, I was about soliciting an explanation: when laying her fingers impressively upon her lips, and placing herself in the basket, my guide motioned me to seat myself beside her. I obeyed; but not without considerable trepidation: and in obedience to the same low call which had procured its descent, our curious vehicle, with sundry creakings, rose in air.”
This airy jaunt terminated, of course, in an Arabian Nights exterior, which Melville particularises after the “voluptuous” traditions of Vathek and Lalla Rookh. “The grandeur of the room,” of course, “served only to show to advantage the matchless beauty of its inmate.” This matchless beauty was, after established tradition, “reclining on an ottoman; in one hand holding a lute.” Her fingers, too, “were decorated with a variety of rings, which as she waved her hand to me as I entered, darted forth a thousand coruscations, and gleamed their brilliant splendours to the sight.”
“As I entered the apartment, her eyes were downcast, and the expression of her face was mournfully interesting; she had apparently been lost in some melancholy revery. Upon my entrance, however, her countenance brightened, as with a queenly wave of the hand, she motioned my conductress from the room, and left me standing, mute, admiring and bewildered in her presence.”
“For a moment my brain spun round, and I had not at command a single of my faculties. Recovering my self-possession, however, and with that, my good-breeding, I advanced en cavalier and, gracefully sinking on one knee, I bowed my head and exclaimed ‘Here do I prostrate myself, thou sweet Divinity, and kneel at the shrine of thy—’”