The Tower of Dago.
by Mor Jokai.
CHAPTER I
The Tower
As the steamer from Stralsund is approaching the Gulf of Finland, the passenger's attention is attracted by an object which projects high out of the sea. He will hear the seamen call it the Tower of Dago. An old and wealthy Englishman, he may be told, on one occasion felt impelled by curiosity to ask the captain what it would cost him to examine the ruin close at hand. The answer was clothed in language less polite than forcible: "Merely the shrivelled skin and dried-up bones you carry about with you, sir!"
For hitherto the Tower of Dago has been spared an appearance in our art galleries only by the circumstance that it cannot well be got before the painter's easel. It is built upon the outermost point of a rocky promontory of the great island of Dago. The projecting headland lies obliquely across the northern current, and the sea makes a ceaseless seething whirlpool round the obstruction. The sea-bottom all around is strewn with most perilous reefs. Among their intricate labyrinths even the skiffs of the most adroit boatmen are in danger of being dashed in pieces.
And yet, for a sight of the Tower of Dago one might well risk one's life, especially at a time when the raging storm is clothing it with all its picturesque grandeur.
The extreme ledge of the promontory is a great block of reddish-brown rock. It rises precipitously out of the dark green waves, which incessantly storm it with their foam-crested dragon-heads. Some spring-tide monster will often lash itself aloft to the very summit, frightening the seagulls and eagles that love to range themselves along the verge of the rock.
From this ledge rises a six-sided tower some hundred and fifty feet high. The lower part is built in Cyclopean fashion, of massive uncut blocks of rock. The upper portion is of red stones. These reach to the very summit of the tower, the battlements of which are to-day surmounted by the luxuriant green of juniper shrubs. And when the setting sun, bursting through a cloud, casts his rays upon the dead giant rising there in his solitude, while round about the low ashen clouds seem almost to touch his head; when the sea roars beneath and breaks in foam against his feet; when the reflected sunlight streams back, like the rays of a lighthouse, from some window the panes of which are haply still unshattered--then the glowing colossus seems a very Polyphemus, who with his one eye dares to defy the gods and wage eternal feud with men. That is the Tower of Dago.
But in perfect calm the scene is changed. Veiled in translucent mists, the tower rises aloft in grand repose beneath the hot, unclouded summer sky. Towards the summit it shows a great semi-circular gap like a mighty mouth petrified in the act of making an imprecation--a mouth gaping wide as if to salute the sea, or hail yonder craft that glides along the horizon. At ebb-tide, too, the great rock's hidden companions, the sunken reefs, begin to show themselves all around.
Among them, half sunk in the sand, are seen the shattered remains of masts, rusty anchors and guns, all overgrown with seaweed and shell-fish. Here and there the eye perceives a human skull still encased in a helmet, a skeleton still protected by a shirt of mail, and innumerable remnants of stranded ships with their inscriptions and marks still readable. At one spot is seen the bottom of a vessel, whose copper plates, now hidden, now disclosed, by the restless motion of the waves, are green with verdigris. And everywhere the great sea-spiders and monster crabs--lords of the abyss--crawl and gloat unceasingly among the wreckage. Then the spectator, shuddering at this terrible arrangement of still life, is forced to ask himself, "Who could have been so mad as to build a tower like this on such an accursed spot, and who the madmen that could steer their vessels hither on these cruel rocks?"
And could there be any link of destiny connecting that forbidding edifice with the wreckage that lay around?
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II
Back to the Sea
In the time of Catherine II. a baron of the Von Ungern family, in the province of Brandenburg, migrated to the court of St. Petersburg. He had some Slavonic blood in his veins, and shortly after settling in the Russian capital he married the daughter of a Muscovite nobleman.
His wife's dowry brought him several extensive estates in Volhynia.
In spite of their German name his two sons were perfect Russians. The elder, Feodor, was a naval officer. He was a thorough seaman, and the terror of every Swedish seaport and merchantman. Zeno, the younger brother, was also a seaman, but his tactical abilities were exercised only at court, and particularly among the ladies. The fame of the elder brother naturally lent brilliancy to Zeno's name also. Feodor, however, willingly left to him all the pleasures of court life and all its dazzling distinctions. Such things were not for him. The storm-tossed sea and its perilous combats were for Feodor his chiefest joy. Yet, when storm and fight alike were lulled to rest, he loved his quiet home--a little castle buried in an old forest, where his dear and beautiful wife dwelt with her little son. The boy, whose name was Alexander, was now four years old, and the father was not less proud of his domestic fortune than of his naval laurels.
Feodor had just accomplished one of his most heroic exploits against the Swedes. One stormy night he had suddenly surprised the convoy fleet at Karlskrona and burnt a large portion of it. He had captured several richly laden merchant-ships which tried hard to get out of range, plundered them of their most valuable contents, and then sent them to the bottom. He had also carried off the magnificent bell which had been taken by the Swedes from Hamburg city, and was then on its way to adorn the cathedral of Kalmar. Then he returned, unmolested, with booty and fame to Kronstadt.
Upon arriving there he considered it his first duty to deliver an account of his actions to the Admiral of the fleet. At that time the shore at Kronstadt was covered with a great number of small huts inhabited by the workmen in the port. As Captain Feodor leaped ashore from his boat, a girl, who had been watching the spot for some time, came out of one of the huts and approached him. The girl was young and pretty, and was dressed in the picturesque costume of the Volhynian women. She hurried up to the officer and seized his hand to kiss it.
He recognised her immediately as his little son's nurse.
"What!" he exclaimed in surprise. "Mashinka! Why, what brings you here?"
The girl raised her finger to her lips and glanced timorously round about. Only when she had assured herself that there was no one listening did she begin to speak.
"Oh, my Master!" she exclaimed in a low tone; "have a care! Muffle yourself in your cloak! If you are recognised here you will certainly be taken!"
"Taken!" cried the Captain. "What foolishness is this, Mashinka? Why should any one wish to take me, think you?"
"Why!" echoed the girl. "To make you dig for lead in the Urals, most likely. You are an outlaw!"
"Are you raving, woman?" asked Feodor. "What crime have I committed?"
"That you will soon learn," replied Mashinka. "Last winter did you not shelter Krazinski in your house?"
"Krazinski! Why, he was a dear friend of mine--a brother-in-arms of the old days."
"That may be. But now they say he is a conspirator."
"But what is that to me? I knew nothing of that then. He came to the castle for the hunting, and after having had as much of that as he wanted he went off again. But I see I had better go off to the Court at once and tell them all about the matter."
"Nay, Master; go not there!" whispered the girl imploringly. "There you have a most powerful enemy whom your death alone will pacify."
"An enemy! Who is he?" asked Feodor in surprise.
"Your brother," replied Mashinka.
"What! Zeno?--he whom I loved so much that I made over to him my inheritance and even the title of Count as well, reserving only a minor's portion for myself?"
"Ay; and now he means to have that portion also," said Mashinka. "He has seized your castle in the forest; and even that seaman's whistle at your breast--he has already been promised that."
"Well, well! Fool that I am!" muttered Feodor. "Was he not all his life a miserable cur? After all, it is not to be wondered at. But what can he know of Krazinski?"
"This much--that Krazinski, in leaving, forgot to take with him a certain leather writing-case, and that it contained many dangerous papers."
"But I myself delivered that case to my wife, in order that she might take charge of it until Krazinski should demand it. She was to give it up to no one else."
"And yet, she has given it up to your brother. And because of that you have been outlawed."
"My wife!" exclaimed Captain Feodor, turning pale.
"She only was your wife. Now she is your brother's. Whoever is banished for life to the Ural mines is at the same time separated for ever from his wife, and she can at once marry again. That is how it happened. You were too long gone, and love in absence, they say, is difficult."
"But she had her son!" cried the Captain in a tone of agony. "Was not he enough to love? And such a son, too! Tell me, what have they done with my son?"
"You know well the custom, surely? When the father is banished the child is outlawed also. Son must follow father, and in order that he may never return, he is branded with a red-hot iron on the shoulder."
The Captain seemed about to reply, but the words died away upon his lips.
Suddenly he seized the girl's shoulders in his powerful grasp, and began to stare intently into her eyes. For it is a common belief in Volhynia that there are many unhappy mortals possessed by the Evil One in such a way that he takes up his abode in their eyeballs. Then, by means of all manner of phantoms and illusions, he causes them to "see the things that are not." About such sights the victims talk as if they were perfectly real. But it is believed that if a truly brave and upright man who fears not the Evil One seizes the possessed person firmly by the shoulders, gazes unflinchingly into the bewitched eyes until he perceives the demon lurking within, and then quickly and unexpectedly spits into them--then the Evil Spirit is confounded and flies in confusion from the possessed one's eyes. Thus did Captain Feodor.
"Ah, yes! It may be--it may, indeed, be so," said the girl resignedly, as she wiped her eyes with the hem of her apron. "Often have I asked myself whether all I have seen and heard is not merely falsehood and deceit. It may be all the devil's work. Oh, would to God it were so! I would bless you every day of my life for driving the curse out of me.
But, Master, I beseech you, cross the threshold of that hut and look within. If you see nothing, then the Evil One has indeed been at his juggling tricks with me, making me see and speak the things that are not."
Feodor stepped into the tumble-down hut to which Mashinka had pointed.
The first thing that met his gaze was his little son lying on a heap of dirty straw. The little shirt had slipped down over one shoulder, and upon this the mark of the branding-iron was clearly seen. Feodor knelt down, buried his face in the straw beside the boy, and clasped him in his arms. But he uttered no cry and shed no tear.