The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1890-08-20
THE VEIL OF DEATH.

THh VEIL Of DEATH.
Count Jeppi had a habit of prom
enading by the sea shore for an
hour or two every day after dinner,
while smoking his cigar Possessor
of a great name and colossal for
tune, related to the most ancient
families of the Roman patriciate,
the count had made marriage OF
love. He had espoused, five years
previously, the daughter of Prince
Cinnella-suberb and placid as
Raphael, blonde and stately as a
Titan. A cultivated man-elegant
young, handsome, loving and be
loved-the count could not be other
than perfectly happy, and he was
During eight months of the year
from November to June, he dwclt
in Florence, the city of palaces and
pleasures. AT the period Of intense
heat he asmo..to Onsnmi6eialo ii. 4
Installed himself in coquettish,
vine clad little villa, hung on the
fanks of the mountain, by the side
of the sea, between the blue of the
water and the blue of the sky-a
corner made for readinglove stories
and for loving. He lived here
during the summer, enjoying with
his wife the solitude deux, drink
ing in long draughts of love, en-
chantcd with the sunlight spoil
ed child of fortune.
One suffocating evening toward
the last of July, the count, accord
ing to his custom shortly after din
ner kissed his wife and went out. 1t
was about s o'clock. The air was
sultry and oppressive; not u breath
of wind stirred among the leaves of
the fig and orange trees, white with
dust. The sea, of an azure opaqe
and profound, stretched away to-
ward the Morrison, smooth as a sea
of oil, and the sky, satuated with
heat, was of blue so intense and
implacable as TO appear stone gray.
Along the winding streets, peasants,
seated on the doorsteps, were drink
ing Sicilian wine from the wide
mouthed, leathern bottles, and
groups of beautiful young girls,
brown as the Florentine bronses,
flung back and forth amid pearls of
laughter, flowers less red than the
coral of their lips. Barefooted
urchins, with eyes of jet, were driv-
ing the white goats slowly home
ward; long after they had passed,
the tinkling oftIe little bells, hung
round their necks, could be herd.
This charming spectacle, always
the me, yet always new, never
wearied the count. He reached the
foot of the hill and passed rapidly
on the quay. The knight had come
superb, and the stars appeared, one
by one, like eyes of gold looking
down on the slumbering. island.
Suddenly, in a second, in less
time than it takes the lightning to
flash, the earth trembled as if sha-
ken by the march of invisible armies
of giants. The sea, chop
ping and agitated, hurled it's waves
in wild confusion; the
heavens veiled themselves in black:
a sulphurous wind, like blast from
a furnace, breathed devastation, and
in the awful darkness, the count,
terrified, Recommending his soul to
God in that supreme instant of lu-
cidity which always precedes
dreadful death, was thrown violent
ly forward on his face.
The first thing which Count Jeppi
saw on regaining consciousness was
a star looking down at him, then
two, then three, and all the beauti.
full cortege of the silent sky. He
motionless few moments,
uncertain what had happened to
him, then he arose and walked a
few steps; he was not wounded.
What, then, had taken place?
What formidable power had thrown
him, unresisting to the groundP
The amorous sea was washing the
beach with its silvery waves, the
heavens were clear as the eyes of a
bride, gentle breeze was string
all was calm. Yet, strange circum-
stance, he no longer recognized the
country about him; the horrison
seemed to him more even and more
level than before.
Suddenly, he reprehended all, the
frightful truth-the earthauakel
Like sword piercing him to the
soul, a vision of his wife buried
beneath the ruins filed him with
mortal anguish.