During this delightful talk, the wine, like a balmy oil, glided down the knights" throats, sweet and powerful; but its effects were manifested in the two with a very striking difference. While Ra.s.selwitz grew continually sulkier and charier of his words, and at last became downright sleepy, Tausdorf"s spirits were more and more awakened and joyful. A flippant coquetry, at other times hateful to him and foreign to his disposition, now prevailed in his manners to the fair stranger, who knew how to turn the well-polished diamond of her spirit so nimbly to and fro, that from its hundred points the flashes struck blindingly upon Tausdorf"s eyes, and flung into shadow the image of the lovely, but simple and grave Althea. To complete the impression which she had visibly made upon him, the Circe, at a fitting turn of the conversation, took up a harp which lay beside her, and sang, accompanying herself a lullaby to her heart, than which nothing could be sweeter or more alluring. While now Tausdorf kindled more and more at her burning looks, the soft tones of her song, instead of the heart which should have been lulled, soothed the good Ra.s.selwitz into a sound slumber. The knight considered the sleeper with approving eyes, and then cast them, full of voluptuous desire, on the fair stranger.
"Cease, beautiful siren!" he exclaimed at last, seizing her white hand, and holding it firmly upon the strings; "your magic song disturbs me in my gazing on you. A woman, created for love, as you are, cannot lull her heart to sleep without committing a deadly sin against my s.e.x."
With a heavenly smile, in which, however, lurked a strange glance, Bona looked at him, and her hand returned a gentle pressure. Then casting a look of inquiry at the sleeping Ra.s.selwitz, she on a sudden sighed out softly and anxiously--"Oh, heavens!"
"What is the matter, n.o.ble lady?" cried Tausdorf, starting up, and caught her in his arms as she fell.
"A sickly oppression which will soon pa.s.s over," stammered Bona, while her bosom heaved mightily against his breast. "Help me up to my chamber, dear Tausdorf."
Alarmed, anxious, thrilled through by strange forebodings, he obeyed her mandate; and half gliding, half carried, the lady reached her room with the knight. A dull lamp burnt on a table by the bed, around which flowed curtains of green silk, flinging a secret mysterious shadow. He let her down softly on the couch, and would have withdrawn, to call the maid to her a.s.sistance, but she raised herself up again, and winding her fair arms about his neck, murmured softly--"Dear man!"--and her kisses quivered on his lips like a kindling flash of lightning.
"Fairest creature!" he stammered, in the double intoxication of wine and pa.s.sion. Wildly throbbed his pulses as if they would burst their veins,--and the lamp went out.
It was towards the morning when Tausdorf awoke from a heavy slumber.
When on opening his eyes he found the sleeping Bona by his side, his recollection returned with the consciousness, and he sprang up in horror.
"Then it was not merely a wild dream," he exclaimed painfully. "How could I so forget myself! Never shall I forgive myself this error!"
He paced up and down the room with vehemence for a time, and then paused before the fair sleeper.
"The sin is beautiful which has seduced me from the right path; but that does not excuse a man from whom principles are to be expected, and who has taken upon himself important duties. Poor Althea! is this the reward of your love and truth? I never could have believed that to be possible which now rises to my revolted senses in disgusting reality.
Ah! let no one boast of his virtue! It is often the prey of the most involuntary accident!--Of _accident_?--Was indeed all that happened to me yesterday no more than accident? I can answer for myself--my soul was pure when I entered this house; and not till I was allured by the siren"s song, and the voluptuous spirits of the wine had painted her fair form in glowing colours, not till then was the evil pa.s.sion kindled in me. Could a few gla.s.ses have changed me so much? Could they have lighted up the wild glow that raged in my veins, and the dregs of which still lie heavy on my head and heart? The advances too of the stranger and her feigned sickness, which tightened the noose about my neck,--at the bottom of all this is some secret plan which I must unravel."
He left the room quickly, and soon returned with horror in his looks, and in his hands two half-full goblets, which he placed on the table by the bed, and had already raised his arm to wake the sleeper. At this moment the first sunbeams flamed through the darkness of the green curtains, and cast a warm glow upon her lovely features. Bona opened her eyes, which immediately sought and found her beloved, and rested upon him with bewitching tenderness; but she soon perceived the cold disdain that flashed from his, and she started up from the bed in terror.
"For heaven"s sake," she exclaimed, "what has happened to you? What do you mean by these fierce looks?"
"To ask you how we so soon became familiar with each other--how you so soon succeeded in seducing an honourable knight into disgraceful infidelity towards the mistress of his heart."
"This is a common injustice of you men to lay on the weaker s.e.x the blame of the evil caused by your sensuality, that you may afterwards despise your victim, and so have a pretence for denying all satisfaction."
"You are right, but it does not apply here. We will not, however, say any more about which of us is the victim; only I must know whether some h.e.l.lish arts were not employed in the adventures of last night, and therefore you must give me an account of these goblets."
"Gracious heavens! I am lost!" exclaimed Bona, without looking at the goblets, and clasping her hands together. Tausdorf went on:--
"This, with the white sediment at the bottom, stood before Ra.s.selwitz, who still lies motionless on the seat, bound up in a death-like slumber. This, with the black dregs, I emptied, and I can now well explain the ebullition which threw me into your arms. Strumpet! have we drank poison at your hands?"
The beautiful sinner started up proudly, glanced at the knight with n.o.ble anger, and exclaimed, "Contemptible suspicion!" and s.n.a.t.c.hed at the goblet with intent to empty it; but Tausdorf put back her hand--
"No! I would not place any soul before the judgment-seat ere the Creator calls for it."
He took the goblet from the table, and having flung it out of the window, walked up and down the room in silence; Bona wept.
"You would drink of it?" he continued. "There was then no poison in the goblet? But what else? For, by heaven, all is not right with this wine."
Bona hid her face in the pillows of the bed, and was silent.
"A love-draught, perhaps, for the chosen victim of your desires, and an opiate for the troublesome witness--is it not so?"
Bona started as if a blow had struck her heart, and was still silent.
"In the name of heaven, woman, what made you seek out me in particular?
You are fair enough, unfortunately, to be able to dispense with such means with thousands of my s.e.x. Why must you fling into my breast the scorpion--which must poison the peace of my future days?"
"I loved you, as I now abhor you," was hollowly murmured from beneath the pillows.
"Profane not the sacred word," retorted Tausdorf indignantly; "I cannot, besides, rest contented with this answer. What you did yesterday, the way in which you prepared and accomplished it, the danger to which you exposed yourself if discovered, all this points to something very different. You had some great, and, as my warning angel tells me, some terrible, design upon me, and that it is which you must confess this very hour."
At this Bona started up with wild looks, and her long auburn locks hung down in disorder, like so many living snakes, about her fair pale face, and gave it the convulsed appearance of a raging Medusa. "Kill me," she cried, defyingly, "or accuse me at the tribunal as a poisoner--I am silent."
Tausdorf could not refrain from shuddering as her figure stood up thus before him, like some horrid spectre,--that figure which but a few hours since had appeared so kind and graceful: he turned away from her, and at length said--
"You understand us German knights badly, in thinking us capable of such wretched measures. If you do not choose to unburthen your heart by a frank confession of your evil intentions, persist then in your obduracy. I leave you to your conscience; and however late may come the moment in which you hear its voice, yet the moment will come. If in such an hour you repent of the evil you have already done me, and of that which you yet purpose, may heaven not remember against you your heavy sin in abusing the fair body it has given you--abusing it as a bait for vice, and to the destruction of the souls of your fellow-creatures. I for my part forgive you now as becomes a Christian; but we never see each other again."
He went. With the rolling eyes of a lioness, whose prey has escaped, Bona watched after him.
"So then, this sin has been in vain. I have not even earned the fruits of the evil harvest. My machines have been in play to no purpose. The awkward footsteps of this rough man have crushed to pieces the artificial wheelwork. Let it go. I meant it better with you than you deserved. The a.s.sailant has always the advantage, because he can choose time and place. If you will not be set upon my victim, he must be set upon you, that self-defence may force the sword of vengeance into your hand. May you both perish in it!"
The old gardener thrust his head in at the door with a crafty, inquiring laugh. Bona called out to him--"I am alone, Sylvester. What is Ra.s.selwitz doing?"
"Awake at last!" replied the gardener, coming into the room. "He complained of head-ache, begged of me to excuse him to you, and tottered off. But in his place some one else has come again--Mr.
Christopher Friend, splendidly tricked out, and dressed in sky-blue velvet, waits below in the green-house, and begs for a morning audience."
"So early?" asked Bona, surprised. "What can he want?"
"He inquired of me so circ.u.mstantially about your fortune," replied the gardener, "and looked withal so smart and gay, and made such little twinkling eyes, that I think in a short time you may expect proposals of marriage."
Bona smiled scornfully. After a brief consideration she replied--"He does indeed mistake, but he comes in good time. Beg of him to excuse me till I am dressed."
"Number three, in so short a period!" said the gardener smirking. "If this goes on, you"ll soon draw after you the core of the Schweidnitz male population, as Punch does the children with his trumpet."
"Think you so?" rejoined Bona, with self-satisfaction.
"And yet," continued the old man, "you don"t altogether understand it.
You entice the birds in a masterly way, but you forget to pluck them, which yet is the princ.i.p.al part of the business. With the exception of the easy fool of a Spaniard, your love-affairs have brought you in marvellously little. The handsome pagan courtesans of the old time were much wiser. Though you may not exactly wish to build pyramids of the oblations of your adorers, yet a comfortable house for a refuge to your old age is in truth not to be despised."
"I hope never to be old to need it," said Bona hastily.
"But don"t reckon without your host," rejoined the gardener. "The quantum of wealth from the new world, left you by Don Alonzo, has melted away confoundedly in the old world, as must naturally be the case with your pa.s.sion for appearing as a rich heiress. If this is to last long, you will be forced to sell the rich jewels with which you blind the eyes of people. What then is to become of you if you do not betimes think of some new acquisition?"
"He who follows _much_ at once," replied Bona, "attains _nothing_. I follow _one_ object only, but that one I follow so stedfastly, with such inflexible purpose, that I _must_ gain it, and when I have gained it, I need nothing more in this world."
"And this _one_?" asked the gardener with sly importunity.
"I pay you as my servant, not as my confessor," replied Bona with angry pride, and pointed to the door.