'Who will waken me? I dream! I dream! I must, I will awake!'
The oarsmen shudder. Then, collecting his whole remaining force, he flings himself violently into the depths. Three of the men instantly plunge in after him; those in the boats hasten to the rescue. Having seen what had happened, they gaze upon the spot where the whirling, whistling waves were closing over the old lord and his faithful servants. The bold divers reappear, bearing in their arms the castle's lord. Under the heraldic banner they lay the last heir of the haughty House. In vain they try to resuscitate the venerable form; the dream is over now, but the mortal life remains under the blue waves of the ancestral lake.
The foreign prince inherits the ancient castle with all its treasures, the glories of the honored name, the entire Past of a noble race. He buries the bodies of his virgin wife and haughty father-in-law with funereal pomp and honor; but orders the corpse of the exile to be roughly thrown into unhallowed ground. In the very hall in which he had spent the first night of his bridal, surrounded by gay revellers, pledging full cups of ruby wine, with light jests flying from reckless lip to lip—he spreads, with the same comrades, the solemn Feast of the Dead. When the next dawn breaks upon them, mounting their vigorous steeds, they all ride back to the court of the King of the South. The king rejoices in his heart, giving thanks to the Fates that his leal subject has inherited vast wealth, and that the alien family, powerful through so many centuries, is extinct forever.
In the clefts of the mountains they remember and honor the young chieftain, whose body had been thrown into unhallowed ground. They know that his dishonored grave lies on that side of the castle through which will pass their path to victory; and they will plant the cross of glorious memories upon it as they march to the assault to drive the foreigner from the Home of his loyal ancestors. Eagles and vultures, led by some mystic instinct, are often seen to fly from the mountains to the towers and turrets of the castle. It is certain that in some not distant day the comrades of the chieftain will pour with resistless strength into its doomed walls.... Let another chant to you the Hymn of victory; I have sung the Dirge of agony!
Unhappy maiden! thou vanishest like a thought which cannot shape itself in any language known on earth, a dream of early love! Thou wouldst not lose thy snowy wings, and they bear thee on the whirlwind's track, where the mists fly, the clouds sail, the sound of harps dies, the leaves of autumn drift, the breath of sighs vanishes! Martyr to thine own dream of plighted faith, they bury thy fair form in ancestral earth; perchance the sculptured marble presses on thy faultless brow, for on its snow they grave the hated foreign name borne by thy alien husband! But the grass and wild flowers will soon grow unheeded around it, and in the green and flourishing world of the ever vanishing, thy name is never spoken.
On the very morning of thy death, the seven old men to whom obedience was commanded by the chieftain, curse thee because thou borest away with thee the soul of their hero. In their addresses to the people, with scorn and scoff upon their lips, they sneer and call thee 'WOMAN;' but the people weep, and pray: Lord Christ, Son of the Virgin, give to the maiden ETERNAL PEACE!