Stories of Mystery

by Unknown

I need hardly say how soon the glories of earth, sea, and sky, which we had been contemplating, shrank into mere accessories around that one central figure, as she stood gazing upon them through the shrouds and spars from our deck. But, notwithstanding the beauty of the scene and the hour, she did not hold her position long to enjoy them. She had, in appearing thus before strange men, evidently by a great effort, done that which she shrank from doing; but whether in obedience to her own will or to that of another, we could not guess. The ice thus broken, however, she was the Invisible Princess no longer. Emboldened by two or three subsequent moonlight and twilight ventures, she at length came out in the sunset, and I doubt if the setting sun ever revealed a lovelier sight than greeted our eyes on that evening. A glance in the clear light satisfied us that the superhuman beauty we almost worshipped, and the splendor that seemed too lavish to be real, were no mere glamor of lamplight or moonlight, but surpassed in the reality all that our stunted, sceptical, Western imaginations, even stimulated as they were, had dared to anticipate.

I might attempt to describe her. I might tell you that her every limb and every feature seemed perfect in its form and its harmony with the others; that her complexion was a fresh, delicate bloom, without spot or blemish; that the innumerable braids of her long, black hair were ravishingly glossy and soft; that her great, dark eyes were bewilderingly bright and wise, and expressive of everything enchanting and good that eyes can express; that her smile,—but no! her smile was an expression of her individuality too subtle for words to catch; and without any power of revealing this individuality, this all that distinguished her from merely mortal woman and made her angelic, where is the use of attempting to describe her? Of her garments, by a recurrence to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu for the names of them, I could give you a description, from the golden-flowered, diamond-studded kerchief wreathed in her hair, to the yellow Cinderella slippers that covered her fairy feet. But the gauzy fabric that enfolded though it scarcely concealed her bosom, the vest of white damask stuff inwoven and fringed with gold and silver, the caftan, and the trousers of crimson embossed and embroidered with flowers of the same gorgeous materials, all were buttoned and guarded and overstrewn with jewels, while the broad belt that confined them was literally encrusted with diamonds and clasped by a magnificent bouquet of flowers wrought by the lapidary from diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and pearls, so exquisitely that the artist showed a skill in them almost worthy of his materials.

From our ardent gaze the beautiful vision was soon withdrawn,—often to reappear, however, in the bright, calm weather that followed, each time with less of blushing and confusion in the beautiful face; and at length, some of us began to flatter ourselves, with a shy glance of interest and recognition for us in the luminous eyes.

On her strange companion, also, her presence shed a beam that lightened the darkness of our thoughts toward him. We marked the long, dark lashes of her eyes rising and falling, now trustingly, now fearingly, before that inscrutable countenance, as if her spirit wavered between a dream of terror and a contentful awaking. And many imagined that, as those dark eyes began to turn more lovingly and more longingly toward him, the strange brilliance of his own became imbued with their softness, while a faint auroral tinge seemed just ready to change his countenance from marble to flesh and blood.

Thus day after day we crept along the European coast, enjoying a dream of romance in which we could have gone on sailing contentedly forever, our only cause of uneasiness being that, at some of the numerous ports we touched, the magic presence on which the spell depended might go from us, as it came to us, without ceremony or warning, and leave us to cross the great ocean in the world of intolerable loneliness that would settle on the ship when she was gone. There was something like a patriotic aspiration in our desire to transplant this brightest of Eastern blossoms to diffuse its supreme beauty and sweetness in the West. And though we feared for her the stormy autumn passage of the Atlantic, a load was taken from every spirit when we left the Pillars of Hercules behind us and pointed our prow straight out across the cloud-bound ocean.

Just as we lost sight of land, we were attacked by a most violent storm, that buffeted us for many a day, during which we saw nothing of our fair passenger, and we learned that she was seriously ill. But never had invalid such a nurse as she. No one knew if he slept or ate, and no one was allowed to share his office, and no one obtruded on him the sorrow or sympathy which all felt in spite of our engrossing battle for life against the tempest. For though there was no change in his appearance or demeanor, all were conscious that a deep feeling stirred his heart. Even when we doubted if all our energies could preserve the vessel from being dashed back upon the coast we had just left, he gave us neither help nor heed, till in the final moment when we had given up all for lost, he seized the helm and shot us into shelter and safety behind the reef whereon we expected to go to pieces, through a channel which, in the calm that followed the storm, we found it difficult to retrace to the deep water, towing the ship with boats.

Again we got well out to sea, and were becalmed. For nearly a week, not a breeze had broken the surface of the ocean. Then another of those enchanting scenes we had feared to behold no more was presented to us. The beautiful invalid, assisted by her now inseparable companion, came upon the deck to watch the sunset. From her cheek the bloom of health was gone; but the look of wild dread with which hitherto she had never quite ceased to regard him who supported her was gone also, and in its place the large, dark eyes were filled by a glance of such indescribable gratitude and trust as only her eyes could express. He, for the first time, looked neither more nor less than a man. Her shrinking from our presence, too, had disappeared, and her look of recognition now was unmistakable and cordial. She had resumed her original garb, long disused as if to avoid remark at the ports we visited, and its glowing colors seemed to heighten the contrast between the pallid cheek and the long, dark lashes that drooped languidly over them, as, wearied at length by the unusual exertion, she sank heavily on her companion, and was rather borne than assisted back to the cabin.

During another week of breezeless autumn calm, this strange drama was re-enacted many times before us, with each time a deepening of the tragic shades that were gathering above it. But even after it became evident that the sweet evening air had no balm for the drooping girl, she loved to look out on the glories of the sunset, as if conscious that soon she should behold them no more forever. And when her strength no longer enabled her to walk, her nurse carried her out like a child in his arms.

But this also ceased after a time, and the hope that our transplanted blossom would ever flourish on a new soil had already faded from the bosom of the most sanguine among us, when one evening the guardian genius of the cabin beckoned to me from its portal. My entrance seemed to arouse the fair invalid, who was reclined upon a couch. The enchanting halo of her perfect beauty was unabated by disease; and she was surrounded by articles so rare, so costly, and in such profusion, as to force themselves upon my attention even in that first glance. A faint smile, and a recognition from those now too bright eyes, were my welcome. But they did not rest upon me long; for, as if by some fascination, those eyes seemed always turned toward him, or, if by chance he was beyond their reach, to the spot where they could first behold his return.

So this nursling of a palace, evidently dying out on the wide sea, with only rough men about her, had neither a word nor a look of reproach for the one who had dragged her forth to so wretched a fate. Even in her mind's wanderings, she seldom went back to former pomps or pleasures, and her tongue preferred rather to stumble through the rough and unfamiliar language in which of late she had been so terribly schooled, than to speak that of her youth. Once, when after a short absence her attendant returned to her side, she said,—