Senta

“ While her father's ship was nearing harbour that afternoon, Senta was in the midst of a merry group at her home. Several of her girl friends had come to pay her a visit, and, according to the quaint Norwegian custom, they had brought their spinning-wheels with them so that they might not be idle during the daylight hours. Now the wheels whirred and the maidens chattered at a lively rate. But strange to say, Senta was the idlest of the lot. Her hands would fall into her lap, and her gaze would wander into space. ”

“ Senta continues gazing at the picture. The music has become soft and slow, and the curse-theme pervades the air like a ghostly presence. But the heroine sings to herself that beautiful salvation-motif. The phrase is finished with a startled shriek, for the door has opened, and there before the astonished girl stands her hero—"der Fliegende Holländer!" Daland, her father, is also there, but Senta has neither sight nor thought of him. She stands immobile and amazed, her eyes never turning from the Holländer. When Daland comes nearer, she grasps his hand, whispering, "Who is that stranger?" ”

“ The stranger overhears them, and concludes that as she has been recreant to her former lover, so too she will be untrue to him. He decides to leave her; for if he should remain, her penalty would be eternal death. As his mysterious vessel sails away Senta rushes to a cliff, and crying out that her life will be the price of his release, hurls herself into the sea, vowing to be constant to him even in death. ”

“ The sudden apparition of the stranger, whose resemblance to the portrait is very striking, robs Senta of all composure, and it is only when her father has gently reproved her for her cold behaviour that she bids him welcome. ”

“ Senta comes hurriedly from the house, followed by Erik, both in great agitation. He has learned of her betrothal to the stranger. "What have I heard?" he cries in incredulous anguish; "O God, what have I seen? Is it a delusion? Can it be truth? Can it be fact?"—"Ask not, Erik," she falters, in anguish, too; "I must not answer."—"Just God! There can be no doubt of it. It is truth! What unholy power swept you along? What force so quickly prevailed with you to make you break this devoted heart? ”

“ Erik's cry brings Daland, Mary, and the Chorus to the rescue, and they too strive to restrain Senta, when they hear the stranger proclaim from the deck of his phantom ship that he is the Scourge of the Sea,—the Flying Dutchman. The vessel sails away from the harbour. Senta escapes from her friends, and rushes to a projecting cliff, whence she casts herself recklessly into the seething waves, intent only upon showing her love and saving him, and thereby proving herself faithful unto death:—
‘Praise thou thine angel for what he saith ”

“ Then the other maidens begged her also to join them in their spinning, and not to waste her sighs and thoughts on one who could never be her lover; but Senta said she was tired of the hum of spinning-wheels, and asked Dame Mary to tell them again the legend of the Flying Dutchman. ”

“ Roused from her abstraction by the chiding voice of Mary, and by her companions, who twit her with having fallen in love with a shadow instead of thinking only of her lover Erik, the hunter, Senta resumes her work, and to still their chatter sings them the ballad of the Flying Dutchman. When she has described his aimless wanderings and his mournful doom, which naught can change until he finds a maiden who will pledge him her entire faith, the girls mockingly interrupt her to inquire whether she would have the courage to love an outcast and to follow a spectral wooer. ”

“ To escape its fury a stout Norwegian ship sailed hastily before the wind into the nearest port and cast anchor. Its captain, a stout weather-beaten man, was provoked at having to do this, as he was nearly home and anxious to get there and greet his only daughter, after a long voyage. Daland was the captain's name, and Senta that of his daughter. She had been left motherless when very young, and now lived quietly with her old nurse while her father was away upon his voyages. Senta was a quiet, dark-eyed girl given much to day dreams on account of her somewhat lonely life. ”

“ But Erik was not satisfied, and he went on to describe a vision he had lately had, in which he had seen Senta give her hand to this very phantom captain, who embraced her rapturously, and led her to his vessel; and when Senta heard this, the glamour of her strange fascination came over her again, and she cried out wildly:
"He seeks for me, and I for him! ”

“ And if my heart breaks with its misery, tell me, Senta, who is there will speak a word for me?" He pleads warmly, young Erik; he is at that age and point in life when not to obtain the woman he has set his heart upon seems a calamity such as will extinguish the sun, make the rest of life worthless; when refusal signifies destruction, and he is not ashamed of this as a weakness, but proud of it as a strength, and uses it as the most pertinent argument, and feels no abjectness in confessing himself at the mercy of a girl, a toy in her frail hands. ”

“ The phantom ship falls to pieces, and the Dutchman is freed from his curse when Senta casts herself into the waves; and the highest moment of the whole drama is that in which the dreamy monomaniac, the modern Jeanne d'Arc, the real heroine of the opera, wins her own salvation, masters the world and makes it her heaven, by taking her fate in both hands and setting out to do the thing she feels most strongly impelled to do. If the Dutchman's salvation depends on himself, it is evidently unnecessary for Senta to be drowned ”

“ In another place he gives us his notion of the ideal woman in still more explicit terms, this time à propos of Senta. "Like Ahasuerus, he [the Dutchman] longs for death to end his sufferings; but this redemption, denied to the undying Jew, the Dutchman can win through—a woman, who shall sacrifice herself for him for love. The longing for death drives him on to seek this woman ”

“ Quite unlike Sentaro and other ordinary people, instead of having a great dread of death, they all, both rich and poor, longed for it as something good and desirable. They were all tired of their long, long lives, and longed to go to the happy land of contentment called Paradise of which the priests had told them centuries ago. ”

“ He even found a house for his guest, and in this way Sentaro obtained his great wish and became a resident in the country of Perpetual Life.
Within the memory of all the islanders no man had ever died there, and sickness was a thing unknown. Priests had come over from India and China and told them of a beautiful country called Paradise, where happiness and bliss and contentment fill all men's hearts, but its gates could only be reached by dying. This tradition was handed down for ages from generation to generation—but none knew exactly what death was except that it led to Paradise. ”

“ One is sure to take fever in Senna on the second day, if by chance one escapes it on the first day of a sojourn there; but no place is entirely bad. Senna has one redeeming feature: it is the native village of the large-hearted and hospitable Senhor H. A. Ferrao. The benevolence of this gentleman is unbounded. The poor black stranger passing through the town goes to him almost as a matter of course for food, and is never sent away hungry. In times of famine the starving natives are fed by his generosity; hundreds of his own people he never sees except on these occasions ”

“ I desired that the senate of Rome might appear before me, in one large chamber, and a modern representative in counterview, in another. The first, seemed to be an assembly of heroes and demi-gods; the other, a knot of pedlars, pick-pockets, highwaymen, and bullies. ”

“ Sapt was out and in of the throng, and where he had been, glances, smiles, and whispers were rife. I doubted not that, true to his relentless purpose, he was spreading the news that he had learnt. To uphold the Crown and beat Black Michael—that was his one resolve. Flavia, myself—ay, and the real King in Zenda, were pieces in his game; and pawns have no business with passions. ”

“ As things were now I had more work than Sapt and Fritz could manage, for they must come with me to Zenda, and I wanted a man to guard what I loved most in all the world, and suffer me to set about my task of releasing the king with a quiet mind. ”

“ As the clock on the mantel-piece struck one he stamped his foot on the floor, saying:
"They've got the king!"
"Yes," said I, "'all's well!' as Black Michael's dispatch said. What a moment it must have been for him when the royal salutes were fired at Strelsau this morning! I wonder when he got the message?"
"It must have been sent in the morning," said Sapt. "They must have sent it before news of your arrival at Strelsau reached Zenda—I suppose it came from Zenda."
"And he's carried it about all day!" I exclaimed. "Upon my honor, I'm not the only man who's had a trying day! ”

“ But never would Sen-tur’s wrath turn against his mistress.”
“Thou holdest him in bondage,” I said, with a somewhat clumsy attempt at gallantry, “as thou dost all men, high and low. Sen-tur is favoured indeed.”
“Sen-tur loves me, and I love Sen-tur,” she said drily; “he is the most precious treasure I possess, for he is wholly mine, and he has no cares, no affections, no thought save for me. He is dearer to me than the kingdom of Kamt.”
“It is a merciful decree of Ra, then,” said Hugh, with a smile, “that he sent me to take the kingdom of Kamt from thee and not Sen-tur.” ”

“ You can’t find out how Big Buffalo was killed, and until you know, every mother’s son of those Delawares swallow all that Lone-Elk tells them. So how’s it going to end? Am I to jump and run like a whipped pup, all winter, every time we hear a noise?”
“Just you wait, my son,” Kingdom answered, quite gaily. “We know that the Seneca’s hold on Captain Pipe is his secret lead mine. Suppose we find that mine! Mr. Pipe will be glad to find out where it is. There! Now you see what I mean. You’re just feeling a little cross because you had to stay out of sight. But here’s another thing, John. ”

“ Then, as Hugh would not take the dagger from her, she placed it quietly at his feet, then threw her arms passionately round the panther’s neck, while great tears fell from her eyes onto his fur.
“Farewell, Sen-tur, my beauty, my loved one,” she whispered. “I know that thou art not afraid to die, for thou, like Neit-akrit, dost long for that glorious land which lies beyond the valley of death. Come back, Sen-tur, to me at nights, and tell me what thou hast seen. Sen-tur is ready, oh, beloved of the gods,” she added; “thou needst not fear, he will not even struggle. ”

“ Sapt and Fritz were waiting for me with six men and the horses. Over his saddle Sapt carried a long coil of rope, and both were heavily armed. I had with me a short stout cudgel and a long knife. Making a circuit, we avoided the town, and in an hour found ourselves slowly mounting the hill that led to the Castle of Zenda. The night was dark and very stormy; gusts of wind and spits of rain caught us as we breasted the incline, and the great trees moaned and sighed. When we came to a thick clump, about a quarter of a mile from the Castle, we bade our six friends hide there with the horses. ”

“ For all my promises will not save you if any man here learns from you the truth as to the prisoner in Zenda. I'll kill you like a dog if the thing be so much as breathed within the house!"
Then, when he was gone, I looked at Sapt.
"It is a hard nut!" said I.
"So hard," said he, shaking his grizzled head, "that, as I think, this time next year is like to find you still King of Ruritania!" and he broke out into curses on Michael's cunning.
I lay back on my pillows.
"There seem to me," I observed, "to be two ways by which the king can come out of Zenda alive. ”

“ But Ma-za-ri-ta, who had listened with shifting emotions chasing over her face, vainly striving to pierce the meaning of the words, now threw her arms about the neck of the chief, and spoke rapidly in the Seneca tongue. The Indian's stern aspect melted and took on its more wonted expression, in which there was something almost benignant.
"Go without harm even while it is night," he said, "lest the Senecas discover all, and sore mischief befall." ”

“ With the king on one side and the duke on the other, Zenda felt itself the center of all Ruritania. We jogged gently through the town, but set our horses to a sharper pace when we reached the open country.
"You want to catch this fellow Johann?" asked Fritz.
"Aye, and I fancy I've baited the hook right. Our little Delilah will bring our Samson. It is not enough, Fritz, to have no women in a house, though brother Michael shows some wisdom there. If you want safety you must have none within fifty miles." ”

“ For my part, if a man must needs be a knave, I would have him a debonair knave, and I liked Rupert Hentzau better than his long-faced, close-eyed companions. It makes your sin no worse, as I conceive, to do it à la mode and stylishly.
Now it was a curious thing that on this first night, instead of eating the excellent dinner my cooks had prepared for me, I must needs leave my gentlemen to eat it alone, under Sapt’s presiding care, and ride myself with Fritz to the town of Zenda and a certain little inn that I knew of. ”

“ This Indian was Fishing Bird. He found Lone-Elk still talking,—still surrounded by an attentive, awestruck throng. When the Harvest Festival was over, the Seneca was saying, then would be the time to mourn Big Buffalo’s death and then the time to avenge his murder. It was an old, old custom, he went on, that if one died when a festival was being enjoyed, the body should be laid aside until the season of the merrymaking was over. Addressing Captain Pipe directly, he appealed to the chief to say if the ancient custom should not now be observed. ”