Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/27

Rh suggesting at once a German castle and an Italian palace, the castle of Escal-Vigor is situated at the western extremity of the island, at the intersection of two very lofty dikes, from whence it commands a view of the whole country.

From time immemorial the Kehlmarks had been considered as the masters and protectors of Smaragdis. The duty of guarding and keeping in repair the monumental dikes had been their's for centuries. An ancestor of Henry was credited with the erection of those enormous ramparts, which had for ever preserved the country from those inundations and sometimes total submersions, that had overwhelmed several of the sister-isles.

Once only, about the year 1400, on a wild, tempestuous night, the sea had succeeded in breaking through a part of this chain of artificial hills, and had rolled its cataclysmal waves to the very heart of the island; when, so the tradition runs, the castle of Escal-Vigor proved sufficiently spacious and well-provisioned to serve as refuge and storehouse for the entire population.

The Dykgrave sheltered his people as