Ivan the Terrible; or, Dark Deeds of Night — page 211: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

| 207 THE PRINCE AND THE FISHERMAN. (Continued from page 200.) ————+_—_ In the meantime the prince, whose admirable coolness had never left him, rose bruised and bleeding from the ground. Pale and trembling with anger, he sought on all sides for a weapon with which he might revenge himself. - Gabriel approached him more glaring and deadly than before, and seizing him by the neck with a grasp of iron, he dragged him into the chamber where the old man slept. r. My father! my father! oh, my father!” cried he ina voice of heartrending egony. ‘Behold the villain who has assassinated Nisida!” _ The old man, who had drunk but a few drops of the soporific eon, was awakened by this cry, which pierced him to the soul. He rose, hastily threw on a part of his clothes, and, with that promptness of action which God has bestowed on mothers in moments of danger, he ascended to his daughter’s room, pro- cured a light, and kneeling by the side of the bed, he began to feel her pulse, and watch her respiration with a mortal anxiety. , All this had passed in less timé than we have occupied in - its relation. » Brancaleone, by a desperate effort, had disengaged himself from the hands of the fisherman ; and, suddenly resuming his princely haughtiness, he said, in a firm tone, “You will not kill without hearing me ?” : Gabriel wished to overwhelm him with his grevious injuries, but could not utter a single word. He melted into tears. , “Your sister is nof dead,” continued the prince, with cold dignity. “She is but asleep. You may assure yourself of that, and in the meantime’ I engage, on my honour, not to move a sirgle step from this spot.” These words were pronounced with such an accent of truth, that the fisherman was struck by them. A ray of unexpected hope suddenly broke in upon him ; but throwing on the stranger a look of hatred and mistrust, he murmured, in a hollow voice, “Do not flatter yourself, whether or no, of being enabled to escape me,” He*then went ap to the chamber of his sister, and, ap- proaching the old man, tremblingly articulated, “Well, my father ?” Solomon checked him softly with the solicitude of a mother who drives away some buzzing insect from the cradle of her infant, and, making a sign for him to be silent, he said, in a low voice, “She is neither dead nor poisoned. Some one has given her a philtre to drink, with a sinister design ; but her respira- tion is regular, and she will not be long in recovering from this lethargy.” Gabriel, reassured concerning the life of Nisida, descended to the ground-flocr, where he had left the seducer. The attitude of the young fisherman was gloomy and graye. He had not this time come to rend, with the weapons nature had bestowed upon him, the murderer of his sister, but to clear up a treacherous and infamous mystery, and avenge his hononr, which had been so basely outraged. He opened the folding doors by which the house was entered, The rain having ceased, the moon broke through the clouds which had just before obscured her beams, and threw a flood oflight into the apartment. : The fisherman adjusted his saturated vestments, shook the water from his hair, and then advanced towards the stranger, who firmly awaited him. “Now,” said Gabrie], sternly, “you will explain to me the reason of your presence in our house.”’ : “ T know,” replied the prince, with insolent coolness, “ that appearances are against me. It is the fate of lovers to be treated as thieves; but though I have not the advantage of being known to you, I am the betrothed of the beautiful Nisida, With your father’s knowledge and consent. Now, as I have the misfortune to haye parents who have the cruelty to dis- - approve of a marriage of the kind, love blinded me, and I was guilty of a fault, to which a young man like you ought to be indulgent. At the most, it was but a simple scheme to carry her off, with the best intentions in the world, I swear to you, and you will find me ready to make ample reparation, if you will extend your hand to me, and call me your brother.” ‘Call you my brother, villain and traitor ?” rejoined Gabriel, whose cheeks glowed with rage to hear his sister spoken of with such impudent levity. ‘If in such manner they avenge insults so gross in your cities, we fishermen have another ‘mode of treating them. You flattered yourself you could carry desolation and shame into our house, by paying an in- famous wretch to come and eat the bread of an old man, in order to poison his daughter ; by creepirg in the night, armed with a poniard like a brigand, into the chamber of my sister, and by intending to carry her off!” ee prince evinced impatience, but Gabriel sternly pro- ceeded, “Listen. I should at this moment destroy you, as I have destroyed your dagger; but I pity you. I see plainly that you know not how to use your hands, either for defence or labour. Out upon ye! I begin to understand you. You boast yourself my master; you have usurped poverty by acu those old habiliments, but you are unworthy of them !” He threw upon the prince a look of crushing scorn, and then, approaching a small closet concealed in the wall, he drew forth a musket and a hatchet. “ Here,”’ said he, “are all the arms in our house ; choose!” An expression of satisfaction lighted up the countenance of the prince, who had, while listening to the fisherman, been devoured with suppressed rage. He seized themusket, and, stepping back three paces, drew himself up with all the dignity he could so well assume. “Tt would have been better if you had lent me this weapon at first,’ said he, “for you would then have spared me the fatigue of losing so much time in attending to your absurdi- ties». Thanks, young man; one of my servants ghall bring back your gup. Adieu! There is something for your pains.” . And he threw him a purse, which fell heavily at the fisher- man’s feet. “T lent you that gun to defend yourself,” replied Gabriel, rendered motionless by astonishment at the impudence of his foe. . “ Make way, my good fellow,” added the other, as he moved towards the door. >: “ Do you refuse, then, to defend yourself ?” said Gabriel. “‘T cannot fight with you,” answered the prince. « And why not ?” answered the fisherman, sternly. “ Because,” resumed the other, “God has so willed it; be- cause you were born to cringe, and I to trample you beneath my feet ; because all the blood I could shed upon this island would not purchase a single drop of mine ; because athousand vulgar lives would not be worth a single hour of mine ; be- cause you will throw yourself on your knees at the very name I am about to pronounce ; finally, because you are but a poor fisherman and I am the Prince of Brancaleone.” At this formidable name, which the young lord threw out as if he expected from it the effect of a thunderbolt, the fisher- man bounded forward like a lion that secures his prey. He breathed more freely, as if relieved of a weight that had long oppressed his heart, and exclaimed, “Have you come to deliver yourself up, my lord ? Between the poor fisherman and the powerful prince there is a debt of blood. You shall now pay for yourself and for your father !’”’ And he raised his hatchet above the head of the prinee, who pulled the trigger of the musket he pointed at his an- tagonist. ; -. Oh, you have been too hasty in your choice,” said Gabriel “the piece is not loaded ” CONMicooolks. conn