Volume I Part 55 (2/2)

Dolios led her, half fainting, to the carriage. She pa.s.sed the remaining hours of her journey in an almost unconscious state. She felt ill in body and mind. The nearer she came to the island the more the feverish joy with which she had looked forward to reaching it was replaced by a mysterious fear. With apprehension she saw the shrubs and trees at the road-side fly past her faster and faster.

At last the smoking horses stopped. She let down the shutters and looked out. It was that cold and dreary hour in which the first grey of dawn struggles for the mastery with the still pervading night. They had arrived, it seemed, at the sh.o.r.e of the lake, but nothing was to be seen of its waters.

A dismal grey mist lay, impenetrable as the future, before Amalaswintha's eyes. Of the villa, even of the island, nothing could be seen.

On the right side of the road stood a low fisher-hut, half-buried in the tall, thick reeds, which bent their heads to the soughing of the morning wind. Singular! they seemed to warn and beckon her away from the hidden lake behind them.

Dolios had gone into the hut. He now returned and lifted the Princess out of the carriage. Silently he led her through the damp meadow to the reeds. Among them lay a small boat, which seemed rather to float on the mist than on the water.

At the rudder sat an old man in a grey and ragged mantle; his long white hair hung dishevelled about his face. He seemed to sit dreaming with closed eyes, which he did not even open when the Princess entered the rocking boat and placed herself in the middle upon a camp-stool.

Dolios entered the boat after her, and took the two oars; the slaves remained behind with the carriage.

”Dolios!” cried Amalaswintha anxiously, ”it is very dark. Can the old man steer in this fog, and no light on either sh.o.r.e?”

”A light would be of no use, Queen. He is blind.”

”Blind!” cried the terrified woman. ”Let me land! Put back!”

”I have guided the boat for twenty years,” said the aged ferryman; ”no seeing man knows the way as well as I.”

”Were you born blind then?”

”No. Theodoric the Amelung caused me to be blinded, believing that Alaric, the brother of Thulun, had hired me to murder him. I am a servant of the Balthes, and a follower of Alaric, but I was innocent; and so was my master, the banished Alaric. A curse upon the Amelungs!”

he cried with an angry pull at the rudder.

”Silence, old man!” said Dolios.

”Why should I not say to-day what I have said at every oar-stroke for twenty years? It is the way I beat time. A curse upon the Amelungs!”

The Princess looked with horror at the old man, who, in fact, steered the boat with complete security, and as straight as an arrow.

His wide mantle and dishevelled hair waved in the wind; all around was fog and silence; only the regular beat of the oars could be heard.

Empty air and grey mist enveloped the slight boat.

It seemed to Amalaswintha as if Charon was rowing her over the Styx to the grey realm of shades.

s.h.i.+vering, she drew her mantle closely around her.

A few more strokes of the oar, and they landed.

Dolios lifted the trembling Queen on to the land; but the old man silently turned his boat, and rowed as quickly and unerringly back as he had come. With a sort of dismay Amalaswintha watched him disappear into the thick mist.

Suddenly it seemed to her as if she heard the sound of oar-strokes from a second boat, which approached nearer and nearer. She asked Dolios what was the cause of this noise.

”I hear nothing,” he answered; ”you are over-excited. Come into the house.”

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