Now there was a Greek, Achilles Metaxà by name, who had attached himself
to Carl's fortunes. In person, he was the very model of an ancient hero.
He had the capacious brow, the eye of fire, and the full black beard,
descending in wavy curls to his chest.
The man was brave, too, for Carl and he had fought together.
It so happened, that they slept one night in a retired convent. Their
hardships latterly had been great, and the complaints of Achilles had been
unceasing in consequence. In the morning Carl rose, and found that his
clothes and arms had vanished, and that his friend was absent also.
Carl remained long enough to satisfy himself, that his friend was the
culprit; and then turned towards the sea coast, determined at all hazards
to leave Greece.
He succeeded in reaching Missolonghi, in the early part of 1823, shortly
after the death of Marco Botzaris--being then in a state of perfect
destitution, and his mental sufferings greatly aggravated by the
consciousness, that he had induced so many of his comrades to sacrifice
their lives and prospects in an unworthy cause.
At Missolonghi, where Mavrocordato reigned supreme, he was grudged the
paltry ration of a Suliote soldier, and might have died of starvation, had
it not been for the timely interposition of a stranger.
Moved by that stranger's persuasion, Carl consented to form one of a
contemplated expedition against Lepanto; and, had his illustrious
benefactor lived, might have found a steady friend.
As it was, he waited not to hear the funeral oration, delivered by
Spiridion Tricoupi; but was on the deck of the vessel that was to bear him
homewards, and shed tears of mingled grief, admiration, and gratitude, as
thirty-seven minute guns, fired from the battery, told Greece and Carl
Obers, that they had lost Byron, their best friend.
Carl reached Germany, a wiser man than when he left it.
He found his father dead, and he came into possession of his small
patrimony; but felt greatly, as all men do who are suddenly removed from
active pursuits, the want of regular and constant employment.
He was glad to renew his intercourse with his old University; and found
himself greatly looked up to by the students, who were never wearied with
listening to his accounts of the Morea, and of the privations he had there
encountered.
We need hardly inform our readers, that Carl Obers was one of the
pedestrian students at Wallensee, and was indeed the identical narrator of
the Vienna story.
We left George and his brother, on the shore below the priest's
cottage. The one was laid cold and motionless--the other wished that
_he_ also were so.
Immediately on Delmé's falling, the young guide alarmed the
priest--brought him down to the spot--pointed to the brothers--threw
himself into the boat--and paddled swiftly across the lake, to alarm the
guests at the inn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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