Page:The Enchanted Knights; or The Chronicle of the Three Sisters.djvu/92

12 suffering life. A raging tempest broke over the Baltic sea, unshipped the rudder, split the sails, shivered the masts, seized the vessel, and whirled it round and round. The towering wave now lifted the miserable wreck to the clouds, then again threw it into the bottomless depths, till by a violent gust it was shattered on a rock. Udo hearing the cry:—“Save himself who can!” was the first to plunge into the sea, rejoicing in the secret hope of a speedy death, but in spite of himself, an irresistible power snatched him from a watery grave, and the receding wave left him senseless on the shore. On recovering he saw himself surrounded by a multitude of men engaged in restoring him; one of them was the most assiduous in the task, and Udo on close inspection found him to be Waidewuth the Unknown; but instead of expressing gratitude for their care, the prince said in a weak voice and with melancholy gesture:—“Cruel man! have I merited this treatment; to be thus forcibly torn from the arms of repose, and thrown back into a sea of suffering, from which my mind had already escaped. Have pity upon me, let the flood be my tomb! let me glide again into the deep! and you will be to me a benefactor as you are now my torturer who finds pleasure in beholding the racking agonies of the unfortunate.”