"Fairest Bianca!" said Plindorf, advancing, "let me not alarm you, although I am not the person you seemed to expect; let me hope that the presence of a friend and well-wisher to both parties is not disagreeable or terrifying."
Bianca, exceedingly alarmed at the sudden apparition of one so odious to her, had sunk down upon a rude seat. The Baron approached, and taking her passive hand, seated himself by her side. Mistaking the cause of her quietness, he ventured to press her trembling hand to his lips, and attempted to pass his arm around her waist. The terrified girl suddenly sprang from him with a loud shriek, and attempted to fly; the Baron again caught her hand, and endeavored forcibly to detain her. At that moment the Count Altenberg suddenly stood before them, his eyes flashing with rage.
"Villain," he exclaimed, as soon as his passion would give him utterance, "deceitful, cowardly scoundrel! take that" – striking him a violent blow, and at the same time unsheathing his sword.
The Baron was ready in an instant, but as soon as the Count felt his weapon clashing against that of his antagonist, he became at once cool and composed. Not so Plindorf, he dashed at his more youthful opponent with a fury that had well nigh brought the combat to a speedy and fatal issue, and compelled Frederic to exert his utmost skill. The peculiar danger of his situation, and almost certain death or remediless disgrace that awaited him, even if victorious, for having struck his superior officer, were present to the mind of the young officer in gloomy and terrible colors; but it was too late to retract. The fury of the Baron threw him off his guard – he received a mortal wound, and fell dead. The unhappy survivor stood for some seconds gazing upon the inanimate form before him; and as the features, after being convulsed for a little, settled into the iron stiffness of everlasting sleep, he uttered a deep sigh, and unconsciously moved away from the spot. At this moment Bianca, recovering from the stupor into which the terrible scene had thrown her, earnestly enjoined him to fly.
"There is no time to be lost," said the agonized girl; "fly at once to the sea-side – go on board any vessel that is about sailing – in a few days, I doubt not, this unhappy business will be hushed up."
"And where shall I fly?" said the Count; "where shall I go from him?" – indicating the slain nobleman by a movement of his hand – "do you know what I have done? I have in one moment sentenced myself to death; or, what is worse, to disgraceful and infamous privation of all my honors and rank."
"No, no – there is yet time – go immediately on board the American man-of-war in the harbor – they dare not search for you there."
With many entreaties and tears, she prevailed upon him to take measures for his safety; and with a lightened heart saw him, from the windows of her father's house, reach the water-side uninterrupted; saw him leave the shore in a little skiff, when the intervention of other objects hid him from her sight.
The two officers were missed that evening. The dead body of the ill-fated Baron was soon discovered; for many had seen him going towards old Morelli's cottage; but no traces of Count Altenberg have ever been discovered. Morelli and his daughter underwent a rigid examination; the former could throw no light upon the mysterious disappearance of Frederic, but Bianca, the pure-minded Bianca, unreservedly related all the circumstances. The examining officers forwarded an elaborate and circumstantial report of the case to Vienna, accompanied by an earnest petition in behalf of the absent Count. The Emperor laid the affair before a select council of old and experienced officers, who, after due deliberation, and weighing the excellence of Altenberg's character against the depravity of his slain antagonist, suggested the expediency of pardoning the offender. Proclamation was accordingly made to that effect, but without success.
The unhappy Bianca lived to experience, in all its bitterness, that "hope deferred that maketh the heart sick" and eventually breaks it. She died in less than two years after the flight of Frederic, a victim to a disorder that has no place in the catalogue of nosologists, and is not recognised as a malady; though it is as incurable and consigns almost as many victims to an untimely grave as consumption, with which it is very frequently confounded – I mean a broken heart. She was buried, according to her dying request, in the little arbor that Frederic had assisted her to erect and adorn, and where she had passed those most delightful moments in human existence, the days of the first love, and first courtship, of two young, affectionate, and virtuous beings. Blessed moments! that occur but once in the dreary threescore years and ten, and fade away before we have time to enjoy them, and we only become conscious of their existence from the certainty that they are gone for ever.
Several years ago, and, if I am not much mistaken, just after the peace of 1815, an officer, in full Austrian uniform, came on board one of our frigates then lying in the harbor of Genoa. From the richness of his regimentals, and a cross and ribbon in his button-hole, it was evident that the stranger was of high ancestral and military rank.
It so happened that he came on board just at "grog time," (four o'clock) in the afternoon; and during the interesting moment that sailors are discussing their whiskey – the whole Holy Alliance, with aids and prime ministers and protocols, might come on board, and balance Europe, or upset the scales, just as unto them seemed good, expedient, or politic, without attracting any attention from these short-jacketed philosophers; unless indeed some straggler from the upper deck might come below, and casually inform his messmates, that "there was a whole raft of soger officers on the quarter-deck;" for be it known to all concerned, that the word number is seldom or never used by nautical philologists to designate things numerable, it is always "a raft of women," "a raft of marines," &c. I could easily go on to show that the word "raft" is a good phrase, and peculiarly applicable to women and marines; but I must resist the temptation of convincing the public, that sailors are as deeply versed in the mysteries of their mother-tongue, as many of those who stay ashore all their life-times, and make dictionaries.
The day after the arrival of this military stranger, it was ascertained by the crew, that there was a supernumerary on board by the name of Williams; for it is as impossible for the commander and officers of a man-of-war to keep a secret in the cabin, as it is for twelve "good men and true," locked up in a jury-room. The new-comer seemed to have free access to the cabin, and was treated with much respect by the officers, but it was soon observed, by the seamen, that he never went on shore. In the course of a few months, he was put on board a homeward-bound ship: and when the crew of the frigate returned to America, they saw him again in New York, abandoned to intemperance.
When on a cruise in the Pacific, the crew of one of the light vessels of the squadron were transferred to the frigate that I was on board of; their time of service having expired. Among them was Williams; and from his shipmates I learned the above particulars. In person, he was about five feet eight or nine inches high, and extremely well made. With the rest of the schooner's people, he had been on shore on liberty, where he had been continually intoxicated; his face was in consequence bloated, and his eyes bloodshot and swollen.
I further understood, that he would get drunk whenever he had an opportunity, and when intoxicated he was completely insane. He was also subject to fits of temporary derangement, independent of the insanity produced by excessive drinking, when he was both furious and dangerous; and it was always necessary, on such occasions, to confine him in irons. He was also represented as being extremely reserved, and refusing to answer any questions respecting himself, whether addressed to him by officers or seamen; that he spoke with fluency all European languages, on which account, he was extremely useful as an interpreter, both on the coast of Peru and Chili, and on that of Brazil; that he was a first rate swordsman, either with the small-sword or sabre, and a dead shot with pistol or musket.
During his short stay on board the frigate, he had one of his temporary fits of insanity, probably induced by excessive intemperance, if intemperance admits of superlatives, while on shore. He suddenly started up from a gloomy, stupid reverie, and ran about the decks like a