face of the water, to put a soul into the very river
as it ran!

CHAPTER XXXV.

WAGNER AND THE TEMPTER--PHANTASMAGORIA.

While Stephano was bearing away the Lady Nisida in the manner described
in the preceding chapter, Fernand Wagner was pacing his solitary cell,
conjecturing what would be the result of the morrow's trial.

Nisida had visited him a second time on the preceding
evening--disguised, as on the former occasion, in male attire; and she
had implored him, in the language of the deaf and dumb, but far more
eloquently with her speaking eyes and the expression of her beauteous
countenance, to allow measures to be that night adopted to effect his
immediate escape. But he had resolutely persisted in his original
determination to undergo his trial: for by pursuing this course, he
stood the chance of an acquittal; and he knew on the other hand that if
he were sentenced to die, the decree of the human tribunal could not be
carried into execution. How his escape from that fate (should death be
indeed ordained) was beyond his power of comprehension; but that he
possessed a superhuman protector he knew full well.

Without revealing to Nisida his motives for meeting the criminal judges,
he refused to yield to her silently but eloquently pleaded prayer that
he would escape should gold induce the jailers to throw open the door of
his cell: but he conveyed to her the assurance that the deep interest
she manifested in his behalf only bound him the more sincerely and
devotedly to her.

During eight or nine days of his imprisonment, he had reflected deeply
upon the murder of Agnes. He naturally associated that black deed with
the mystery of the strange lady who had so alarmed Agnes on several
occasions; and he had of course been struck by the likeness of his much
loved Nisida to her whom his dead granddaughter had so minutely
described to him. But, if ever suspicion pointed toward Nisida as the
murderess of Agnes, he closed his eyes upon the bare idea--he hurled it
from him; and he rather fell back upon the unsatisfactory belief that
the entire case was wrapped in a profound mystery than entertain a
thought so injurious to her whom he loved so tenderly.

We said that Nisida had visited him on Saturday night. She had
determined to essay her powers of mute persuasion once more ere she
finally arranged with the bandit for his rescue. But that arrangement
was not to take place; for on the Sabbath evening she was carr