CHAPTER VIII


Feltram's Plan

This horror of the beautiful lake, which other people thought so lovely,
was, in that mind which affected to scoff at the unseen, a distinct
creation of downright superstition.

The nursery tales which had scared him in his childhood were founded on
the tragedy of Snakes Island, and haunted him with an unavowed
persistence still. Strange dreams untold had visited him, and a German
conjuror, who had made some strangely successful vaticinations, had told
him that his worst enemy would come up to him from a lake. He had heard
very nearly the same thing from a fortune-teller in France; and once at
Lucerne, when he was waiting alone in his room for the hour at which he
had appointed to go upon the lake, all being quiet, there came to the
window, which was open, a sunburnt, lean, wicked face. Its ragged owner
leaned his arm on the window-frame, and with his head in the room, said
in his patois, "Ho! waiting are you? You'll have enough of the lake one
day. Don't you mind watching; they'll send when you're wanted;" and
twisting his yellow face into a malicious distortion, he went on.

This thing had occurred so suddenly, and chimed-in so oddly with his
thoughts, which were at that moment at distant Mardykes and the haunted
lake, that it disconcerted him. He laughed, he looked out of the window.