𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐀 ━ 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐧 𝐋𝐞 𝐅𝐚𝐧𝐮

𝘽𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚𝙙

IT WAS ABOUT ten months since we had last seen him: but that time had sufficed to
make an alteration of years in his appearance. He had grown thinner; something of
gloom and anxiety had taken the place of that cordial serenity which used to
characterize his features. His dark blue eyes, always penetrating, now gleamed with a
sterner light from under his shaggy grey eyebrows. It was not such a change as grief
alone usually induces, and angrier passions seemed to have had their share in
bringing it about.
We had not long resumed our drive, when the General began to talk, with his
usual soldierly directness, of the bereavement, as he termed it, which he had
sustained in the death of his beloved niece and ward; and he then broke out in a tone
of intense bitterness and fury, inveighing against the “hellish arts” to which she had
fallen a victim, and expressing, with more exasperation than piety, his wonder that
Heaven should tolerate so monstrous an indulgence of the lusts and malignity of hell.

My father, who saw at once that something very extraordinary had befallen, asked
him, if not too painful to him, to detail the circumstances which he thought justified
the strong terms in which he expressed himself.
“I should tell you all with pleasure,” said the General, “but you would not believe
me.”
“Why should I not?” he asked.
“Because,” he answered testily, “you believe in nothing but what consists with
your own prejudices and illusions. I remember when I was like you, but I have learned
better.”
“Try me,” said my father; “I am not such a dogmatist as you suppose.
Besides which, I very well know that you generally require proof for what you
believe, and am, therefore, very strongly predisposed to respect your conclusions.”
“You are right in supposing that I have not been led lightly into a belief in the
marvelous — for what I have experienced is marvelous — and I have been forced by
extraordinary evidence to credit that which ran counter, diametrically, to all my
theories. I have been made the dupe of a preternatural conspiracy.”
Notwithstanding his professions of confidence in the General’s penetration, I saw
my father, at this point, glance at the General, with, as I thought, a marked suspicion
of his sanity.
The General did not see it, luckily. He was looking gloomily and curiously into the
glades and vistas of the woods that were opening before us.

“You are going to the Ruins of Karnstein?” he said. “Yes, it is a lucky coincidence;
do you know I was going to ask you to bring me there to inspect them. I have a special
object in exploring. There is a ruined chapel, ain’t there, with a great many tombs of
that extinct family?”
“So there are — highly interesting,” said my father. “I hope you are thinking of
claiming the title and estates?”
My father said this gaily, but the General did not recollect the laugh, or even the
smile, which courtesy exacts for a friend’s joke; on the contrary, he looked grave and
even fierce, ruminating on a matter that stirred his anger and horror.
“Something very different,” he said, gruffly. “I mean to unearth some of those fine
people. I hope, by God’s blessing, to accomplish a pious sacrilege here, which will
relieve our earth of certain monsters, and enable honest people to sleep in their beds
without being assailed by murderers. I have strange things to tell you, my dear friend,
such as I myself would have scouted as incredible a few months since.”
My father looked at him again, but this time not with a glance of suspicion — with
an eye, rather, of keen intelligence and alarm.
“The house of Karnstein,” he said, “has been long extinct: a hundred years at least.
My dear wife was maternally descended from the Karnsteins. But the name and title
have long ceased to exist. The castle is a ruin; the very village is deserted; it is fifty
years since the smoke of a chimney was seen there; not a roof left.”
“Quite true. I have heard a great deal about that since I last saw you; a great deal
that will astonish you. But I had better relate everything in the order in which it
occurred,” said the General. “You saw my dear ward — my child, I may call her. No
creature could have been more beautiful, and only three months ago none more
blooming.”
“Yes, poor thing! when I saw her last she certainly was quite lovely,” said my
father. “I was grieved and shocked more than I can tell you, my dear friend; I knew
what a blow it was to you.”
He took the General’s hand, and they exchanged a kind pressure. Tears gathered
in the old soldier’s eyes. He did not seek to conceal them. He said:
“We have been very old friends; I knew you would feel for me, childless as I am.
She had become an object of very near interest to me, and repaid my care by an
affection that cheered my home and made my life happy. That is all gone. The years
that remain to me on earth may not be very long; but by God’s mercy I hope to
accomplish a service to mankind before I die, and to subserve the vengeance of
Heaven upon the fiends who have murdered my poor child in the spring of her hopes
and beauty!”

“You said, just now, that you intended relating everything as it occurred,” said my
father. “Pray do; I assure you that it is not mere curiosity that prompts me.”
By this time we had reached the point at which the Drunstall road, by which the
General had come, diverges from the road which we were traveling to Karnstein.
“How far is it to the ruins?” inquired the General, looking anxiously forward.
“About half a league,” answered my father. “Pray let us hear the story you were so
good as to promise.”