Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 370, August 1846

"It is he!" exclaimed the young noble, looking out; "the same tall form and insolent gait. Ah! he is entering the house. Hark! he is mounting the stair. God be praised, he falls into my very hands!"

In truth, footsteps were evidently ascending the staircase. Otmar and his old attendant paused to listen with palpitating interest. The next moment the door of the Jew's apartment, on the other side of the passage, was heard to open, and a voice to exclaim, "Hello! old fox, where have you hid yourself? Out of your hole, I say! I have to speak with you." Then the door closed, and all was still.

"It is the same voice!" exclaimed Otmar again. "It is he who made that foul attempt upon her liberty. Villain!" And half-drawing his sabre, he rushed towards the door of the room.

"Down with him! down with the rascal, teremtette!" cried Farkas, following his master in excitement.

"No, no!" said Otmar, checking his own first impulse, and catching the old man's arm. "He is a traitor and a spy! It is not for me to punish; it is for the country's laws. She bids me seek to discover him. Providence has thrown him into my hands, and enabled me to obey her behest. She would condemn me were I to take vengeance into my own hands."

"What!" cried Farkas, violently. "My lord has his enemy face to face, and hesitates to defy him to the death!"

"Peace, old man!" exclaimed Otmar; "you know not what you say. Ah! I see it all now," he continued. "He is the agent of her enemies, and is in collusion with our doctor landlord. It is here their villainous schemes are hatched."

"True! It was he – it must have been he," said Farkas in his turn, "who sat with the rascally old thief, when I entered his room the night before the last."

"Hear me, Farkas," continued the young noble. "I must away to the castle. Maria Theresa may still be there. All shall be revealed. Watch you, at some distance, in the street, that he leave not the house or escape us."

"Better split the cowardly villain's skull at once, teremtette!" cried the old man once more, indignantly.

"Peace, I say!" said Otmar. "Follow me, and stealthily." And with these words he left the room, followed down the stairs by his grumbling attendant, who still muttered many an angry "teremtette!" between his lips, unable to comprehend the hesitation of his young master, when so good an opportunity was before him of taking revenge upon "such a villainous scoundrel" as the spy.

Scarcely had they quitted the apartment, when an angle of the wainscoting, forming the door of a partially concealed closet, opened; and the form of the Jew money-lender – pale, trembling, and with haggard eyes – staggered into the room.

"Jehovah! We are lost – irretreviably lost!" he exclaimed with a choked husky voice. "Cavaliere! Cavaliere!" and he hastened, as fast as his trembling limbs would carry him, to the door. But, in spite of his agony and his alarm, his usual habits of caution, and perhaps of self-appropriation also, did not forsake him, and with the words, "That paper the young fellow wrote may tell us more!" he turned back, shuffled to the table, snatched up the letter, which Otmar had forgotten in his hurry, and then gained his room, where, seated, with gloomy and discontented brow, the Italian spy waited him.

"Diavolo! Where have you been hiding, Bandini? I need your aid," exclaimed the cavaliere, as he entered. "All is ruined, if still stronger measures be not taken. My grand expedition of last night, which might have secured all at a blow, has utterly failed, through the interference of a rash young fool, who has twice crossed my path to baffle me. I myself am wounded," – and he pointed to a bandage, partly concealed by a scarf thrown over his shoulder – "still confused, from a blow dealt upon my head by some meddling ruffian. The curses of hell blight their arms, one and all! Those traitors, too, the Hungarians, have broken every promise, to shout Vivat! to that woman; because she shed before them a few maudlin tears. Weak fools! weak fools! and that they call enthusiasm! They promise her supplies of men and money. My schemes are ruined – my services all naught – your hopes of reward utterly gone, Master Bandini – utterly gone, do you hear? – if some great coup-de-main be not yet tried. There! look not so pale and frightened, man, with that ugly wo-begone face of yours. There are yet means that may be used."

"But we are lost – lost!" stammered the Jew, shaking in every limb, and struggling in vain to speak.

"Lost! Not yet!" replied the Italian scornfully "whilst I have yet a head to scheme, and a bold heart to execute."

"We are lost, I tell you. All is discovered. We are betrayed!" cried the Jew. "That young fellow – in yonder room – alas! he knows all. We must fly – conceal ourselves."

"How now, man?" exclaimed the cavaliere, in his turn springing up in alarm.

"I had driven him from the house, at your desire," stammered Bandini, panting for breath; "but he returned to seek his baggage. They had both been absent, master and man; and I had thought to look after my own poor goods and chattels in the room" —

"Or to that which you could lay your hands upon, old thief – I know you. But proceed! What means this tale?" said the spy.

"Jehovah knows you speak not true!" continued the Jew. "But they came back suddenly and unawares. I feared they might think evil of me, if they found me there; and I concealed myself in the closet. I heard all!"

"All! – all what? Speak, man!" exclaimed the Italian furiously.

"He is the same – the same of whom you spoke just now," pursued the old man, trembling. "He who wounded you last night. He recognised you as you entered. He knows all. He is gone up to the castle to betray us. Oh! I am a lost man – a lost man!" and the Jew wrung his hands bitterly.

"Betrayed!" cried the spy – "gone, to the castle! Ten thousand devils drag him down to hell! Which way did he go? What did you hear? Speak, man! – speak, I tell you." And he shook the old man violently by the collar.

"He will probably mount to it by the shorter ascent, along the Jews' street," gasped forth Bandini with difficulty.

"And is there no quicker way?" exclaimed the Italian hurriedly.

"By the lane opposite," stammered the Jew breathlessly. "Turn to the left – mount the crooked street – you will find yourself opposite to the garden, behind my old friend Zachariah's house. On passing through it, you are at the upper end of the Jews' street, and near the castle plain."

"There is no time to be lost!" cried the spy, flinging his hat upon his head. "My pistols are primed and loaded," he continued, feeling in an inner pocket of his coat. "I shall be there before him. He must die. The same passage will favour my escape. Ah! it is you rascal of a Jew, villainous miser, who are the cause of all! Dearly shall you repay me this!" And seizing the old money-lender by the throat, he nearly throttled him, and, when he was almost black in the face, flung him with violence into a corner of the room.

As the Italian disappeared, the old man raised himself, with difficulty, from the ground.

"And such is the poor Jew's reward," he muttered, "from these Christian dogs, for all his losses, and his sacrifices, and his perils! What is to be done? If he kill the youth, I have still to fear his wrath. If he come not in time, we are undone. Every way is danger. Shall I myself turn informer? It is late – very late in the day – but yet it may be tried. Can I glean nothing from this paper that may sound like fresh and genuine information? What have we here?" he continued, rapidly scanning parts of Otmar's letter with his eye, and murmuring its contents to himself. "'I leave the country' – 'But my father's honour must be covered' – 'Send the papers ceding the estates' – 'I am resolved to sign, although it be my utter ruin' – The name? – 'Otmar, Baron Bartori.' – Merciful Jehovah!" burst forth the Jew. "It is he! It is my young man – and I knew it not – he, whose sign-manual is to convey to me the estates, in return for my poor moneys lent: and, if he sign not, the heritage goes to the next male heir; and I am frustrated of my dues. But he will be killed – die without signing. I am a ruined man – a ruined man!" And the money-lender clasped his hands in despair. "No, no – he must not die. Caracalli! Caracalli! touch him not! touch him not! He must not die, ere I have his precious sign-manual. Save him! save him! Jehovah! what shall I do? Caracalli! Caracalli!" And thus madly shouting after the Italian, the Jew rushed from his room in a frenzy of despair.

In addition to the great and winding carriage-road which leads up to the summit of the hill on which stands the castle of Presburg, there is a shorter passage to it, by a narrow tortuous street, lined with old falling houses, and paved at intervals with terrace-like stone steps to aid the steep ascent. To this street, in former times, the Israelites residing in the city were restricted as a dwelling-place, incurring heavy fine and imprisonment by daring, either openly or under a feigned name, to infringe this severe rule: and even at the present day, although this restriction has been removed, it is almost entirely occupied, either from habit or from choice, by petty and most doubtful traders of the same persuasion, and is still known under the name of the Jews' Quarter. The upper end of this steep and winding lane is terminated, between high walls, by a large old gateway, opening into the castle plain. And under this gateway it was, that the Italian spy awaited his victim. He had contrived to evade the vigilance of Farkas, by darting up a lane immediately fronting the St Michael's gate, and now, having ascertained, by a few hasty words interchanged with the Jew Zachariah, that no one answering the description of the young noble had been seen to pass, he felt assured, that, by his haste in pursuing the shorter cut from behind, he had gained an advance upon him.

The night was fast closing in, and the Italian felt himself secure from observation in the dark recess in which he lurked behind the gate. Aware that by a deed of assassinating alone he could save himself from the consequences of a revelation which not only ruined all his schemes, but placed his life at stake, he grasped a pistol in his hand, and waited firmly, with calmness which showed his long acquaintance with deeds of hazard and of crime.

He had stood some time, counting with impatience the moments, until he began to fear that the young noble had taken the longer road, when at last the sound of footsteps struck upon his ear. Looking out from the corner of the gateway in which he had concealed himself, he could plainly see, at some little distance, the form of a man, resembling that of his expected victim, mounting the stone steps of the lane between the row of walls; and he drew back, cocked his pistol, and prepared to fire at him as he passed. Presently hastier footsteps – those of a running man – sounded nearer. Had he been perceived? Was his purpose divined? Was his victim about to rush upon him? These thoughts had scarcely time to pass rapidly through his brain, when a dark form hurried round the angle of the gateway. The Italian's hand was on the lock. He fired.

A terrific cry, and then a groan, followed the explosion. A body fell. The Italian bent forward. At his feet lay the form of his associate, the miserable Jew.

"Kill him not – the sign-manual" – were the only last words that faintly met the ear of the assassin, before the blood rushed up in torrents into the mouth of the unhappy man, and choked his voice for ever.

Before the spy had a moment's time to recover from his surprise at the unexpected deed he had done, another cry of "Murder! murder!" was shouted close beside him, by a man who had run up. A strong hand grasped his arm. It was that of his intended victim.

"Assassin!" cried Otmar. "Ah! it is again he! God's will be done!"

"Mille diavoli! Have at thee yet!" exclaimed the Italian, struggling to disengage himself with a strong effort, and staggering back.

Succeeding in the attempt, he drew his sword. The weapons of the two men were immediately crossed. Both fought with desperation. Already a wound on Otmar's arm had rather excited his energies than disabled him, when a crowd was seen approaching rapidly from the direction of the castle. Some persons detached themselves from it, and ran forward, attracted by the previous cry of "murder," and the clash of arms. The cavaliere felt that he was lost, if he made not a fearful effort to disengage himself at once from his antagonist, and made a violent lunge at Otmar. The active young noble swerved aside. The sword passed him unscathed, and the next moment his sabre descended on to the Italian's head. With a fearful curse, the spy staggered, reeled backward, and fell to the ground.

When the persons from the castle hurried up, they found the young noble standing by his prostrate foe, and leaning upon his sabre – his cheek already pale from the loss of the blood which streamed from his wound. Before, in the confusion, much explanation could be asked or given, others of the approaching party had come up: at an order issued, a sedan chair, borne by eight men, was set down under the gateway; a female form issued from it, and, in spite of the opposition of those about her, Maria Theresa advanced through the crowd.

"What has happened? Who disturbs the peace?" she exclaimed, coming forward with that courage she evinced on all emergencies.

"Retire, I beseech you, to your chair, madam, and allow yourself to be carried on," said the young Prince Kaunitz, who formed one of the suite. "This is no sight for a woman, and a queen." And he interposed his person between his sovereign and the bodies of the Italian and the Jew.

"Permit me, prince," said Maria Theresa, waving him aside; for she had now caught sight of the pale face of Otmar, brightly illumined by the lighted torches which some of her attendants bore to light her on her way, upon her evening transit from the castle to the primate's summer palace.

"You, my young champion, here!" she cried, with tones of evident anxiety, stepping forward. "What has happened? In God's name, what is this? You are not hurt, sir?"

"Only a scratch, so please your majesty," replied Otmar; "and happy and proud I am that I should have gained it in your service."

"Tell me what has passed? How do I find you here? Who is this man?" continued the young Queen, glancing slightly at the form of the prostrate Italian.

"It is the same villain who has already dared to lay his hand upon the sacred person of your majesty," said the young noble proudly. "Chance led me to his discovery. I was hurrying to seek my Queen, to obey her orders. The wretch – I know not how – was beforehand with me. He would have waylaid me, as I must suppose. Another, who passed me at the moment, was his victim. I attacked him; and there he lies. I know no more."

"And who is that poor man?" said Maria Theresa, pointing to the body of the Jew.

Some of her attendants raised up the corpse.

"I recognise him," said Otmar. "He was the accomplice of that fellow. God's justice has fallen on him by the hand of his own confederate. But how, is still to me a mystery."

"The other still lives," exclaimed the voices of some, who had now lifted up the form of the Italian.

"Let him be conveyed to the castle," commanded the Queen. "Every inquiry shall be instituted in this affair. Let justice take its course upon the spy and traitor."

The Italian was conveyed away.

"But you are hurt, noble youth. Your cheek grows paler still," cried Maria Theresa. "Help there! Bring water! quick! He may be dying."

"It is nothing!" said Otmar, with sinking voice and failing senses. "A little faintness! I shall be better soon. A smile from you will repay all!"

His head whirled, and he fell back into the arms of the bystanders.

In spite of the alarm of the young Queen, a deep blush overspread her countenance at these last words.

"Ah! should it be so!" she murmured to herself; and, after casting a long look upon the form of the handsome youth before her, she bent her head to the earth.

Water was quickly brought from a neighbouring house. In spite of the increasing crowd attracted to the spot, Maria Theresa disdained not to bathe with her own hands the temples of the fainting man. Snatching a perfumed handkerchief from the hand of Kaunitz, she bound it tightly on the young noble's arm. In a short time, he once more opened his eyes. Water was given him to drink; and he again was able to stand, weakly, on his feet.

"You – my Queen. You have deigned – to look upon your poor subject-to tend him" – he stammered faintly, as his eyes fell upon the lovely face before him. "You – the noble – the beautiful – the beloved" —

"Hush! hush, sir," interposed the young Queen hurriedly. "You must not speak now. Your brain wanders. You shall be conveyed to the castle, and tended there. As soon as you are fully recovered, a post is ready for you with the army. You must leave us forthwith. Be brave, be gallant, be noble, as you have ever shown yourself; and, perhaps, hereafter" —

She checked herself; with a sigh, and turned away her face.

"Yes – away from here! I must away," said Otmar. "The army, the battle-field, glory, renown, must be my only thoughts." And, sinking his head on his heart, he murmured lowly —

"Moriamur pro Rege Nostro."

Conclusion

It is well known in history, that the rising of the Hungarian saved the falling fortunes of Maria Theresa. The enthusiasm of this sensitive and energetic people, once awakened, knew no bounds. All the country nobles, with their followers, took up arms. Croatia alone supplied twelve thousand men. Immense sums of money, to support the army, were offered by the clergy; and, out of the most distant provinces, sprang up, as the soldiers sown by the teeth of Cadmus from the earth, those countless savage hordes, who under the name of Pandours carried terror into every part of Europe. From the moment of the "insurrection," as it is called, of the Hungarian nobility, the aspect of affairs began to change. The Elector of Bavaria, who, to the grief of Maria Theresa, had received the imperial crown of Germany, so long in the possession of the House of Hapsburg, chiefly by the influence of French intrigues, under the name of Charles the Seventh, was driven from his States. England and Holland were won over to the cause of the persecuted Queen; and both, especially the former, lent her large sums. The whole British nation was interested in her favour. The English nobility, instigated by the Duchess of Marlborough, offered her a subscription collected to the amount of a hundred thousand pounds; but this sum Maria Theresa nobly refused, accepting nothing that was not granted to her by the nation in Parliament assembled. By the valour of Hungarian arms, the French were at length driven out of Bohemia; and what still more contributed to the peace shortly after obtained from a great portion of the Queen's enemies, was the result of the bloody field of Hanau, which turned out entirely to the advantage of Maria Theresa and her noble allies, and at which half of the noblesse of France was either killed or wounded.

It was shortly after this great battle, in which so many bold spirits fell on either side, that a catafalk was erected at the upper end of the middle aisle belonging to the glorious Gothic Church of St Stephen's in Vienna. The service for the dead had been performed with pomp. The priests had retired from the aisle. But still, upon the steps, covered with black cloth, and illumined from above by many wax-lights, knelt two personages. The one was a female, dressed in deep mourning, who appeared to be praying fervently. A group of attendants, both male and female, in the attire of the court mourning of the day, stood at a little distance from her. The other was an old man, in a well-worn hussar dress, who had thrown himself forward on to the upper step, upon another side of the catafalk, and had buried his face in his hands. At length the female rose, gave a last look at that dark mass, which concealed a coffin, and, within, a corpse; and then, drawing her veil over her face, moved slowly towards a side-door, followed by her attendants, with a respect paid only to a royal personage. A crowd of beggars surrounded the door, where an Imperial carriage waited; and distributing the contents of a heavy purse among them, the lady said, with broken voice,

"Pray for the soul of Otmar, Baron Bartori, who died in battle for his Queen."

MESMERIC MOUNTEBANKS

In an age of utilitarian philosophy and materialism, we are proud to stand forth as the champion of he Invisible World. Maga and Magic are words which we cannot dissociate from one another, either in sound or in affection. The first was the mistress of our youth – our literary mother – our guide and instructress in the paths of Toryism, good-fellowship, and honour. Fain would we hope that, in maturer years, we have rendered back to the eldest-born of Buchanan some portion of the deep debt of gratitude which from our childhood upwards we have incurred. We have ever striven to comport ourselves in sublunary matters as beseemeth one who has sat at the feet of Christopher, imbibed the ethical lore of a Tickler, and received the sublimest of peptic precepts and dietetic instruction from the matchless lips of an Odoherty. Her creed is ours, and no other – the bold, the true, and the unwavering – and when we die, bewept, as we trust we shall be by many a youth and maiden of the next generation, we shall ask no better epitaph for our monument than that selected by poor John Keats, though with the alteration of a single word – "Here lieth one whose name is writ in Maga."

Magic, however – not Maga – is the theme of our present article; nor do we scruple at the very outset to proclaim ourselves a devout and fervent believer in almost every known kind of diablerie, necromancy, and witchcraft. We are aware that in the present day such confessions are very rare, and that when made by some reluctant follower of the occult faith, they are always accompanied with pusillanimous qualifications, and weak excuses for adherence to opinions which, in one shape or another, pervade the population of Christendom, and pass for current truth throughout the extensive realm of Heathenesse. So much the better. We like a fair field and no auxiliaries; and we are here to do battle for the memory and fair fame of Michael Scott, Doctor Faustus, and the renowned Cornelius Agrippa.

Sooth to say, we were born and bred long before Peter Parley had superseded the Fairy Tales, and poisoned the budding faculties of the infancy of these realms with his confounded philosophical nonsense, and his endless editions of Copernicus made Easy. Our nurserymaid, a hizzie from the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire, was a confirmed and noted believer in dreams, omens, tatie-bogles, and sundry other kinds of apparitions. Her mother was, we believe, the most noted spaewife of the district; and it was popularly understood that she had escaped at least three times, in semblance of an enormous hare, from the pursuit of the Laird of Lockhart's grews. Such at least was the explanation which Lizzy Lindsay gave, before being admitted as an inmate of our household, of the malignant persecution which doomed her for three consecutive Sundays to a rather isolated, but prominent seat in the Kirk of Dolphington Parish: nor did our worthy Lady-mother see any reason to doubt the accuracy of the statement. For was it not most natural that the daughter – however comely – and Lizzy was as strapping a lass as ever danced at a kirn – of a woman who had the evil reputation of divining surreptitious fortunes by means of the sediment of a tea-cup – of prophesying future sweethearts in exchange for hoarded sixpences – and of milking dry her neighbours' cows by aid of cantrips and an enchanted hair rope – was it not most natural, we say, that the daughter of the witch should have been looked upon with a suspicious eye by the minister, who used annually to preach four sermons in vituperation of Her of Endor, and by the Elders, whose forefathers had turned out doggedly for the Covenant, and among whom still circulated strange and fantastic tales of bodily apparitions of the Evil One to the fugitives in the muir and the wilderness – of hideous shapes, which disturbed the gathered conventicle by the sides of the lonely burn – of spells, which made the buff-coats of their adversaries impenetrable as adamant to leaden bullet or the sweep of the Cameronian steel?