Chapter V: Search for the Lost Bride

Dorina was loved by all the retainers and peasants on her father’s vast estates, and bitter were the lamentations uttered by all who heard of the catastrophe. That she should have died in some dark recess of those vast caves was fearful to think of, and yet the supposition (which my mother felt convinced originated with Cunigunda) that Dorina had fled with the English youth on the very day before she was to wed the Count, seemed still more revolting.

Two of the gentlemen who, among the guests, were the most energetic in prosecuting the search, found that about twenty yards beyond, and on the left of the flowery seat which terminated the emerald avenue, the floor descended suddenly to a much lower level, and there was a narrow entrance to a much smaller cavern. This lower cave had three small outlets, and they determined to pursue the centre one, which appeared to descend more precipitately than the other two.

As the Adelberg caves were on a lower level than those of Hohenstein, they thought that the lower they kept the more likely they were to reach them. As they proceeded they searched on the ground, in hopes of finding footmarks that might serve as a guide. In one place they fancied they saw the prints of a small foot. Again, further on, there was another, but no larger one; therefore, if this was Dorina’s, they considered she must have been alone at that time.

Soon afterwards these passages became narrower, and so low that they could scarcely stand upright; but as they proceeded further it opened out into a cave so large and high that, though they held up their torches for some time, no boundaries were visible. Keeping close to one side, they went on, and, to their dismay, discovered a great number of outlets; and here the droppings from the roof formed numerous pools, so that no footsteps could be discovered. They then began reluctantly to acknowledge that a further search was impossible, and; fearing to lose themselves irrecoverably, they selected one of the outlets that led in a southerly direction.

Soon afterwards, however, they met Count Rossi, and a large party of gentlemen and servants, and informed him of the small footprint they had seen in the narrow passage. The Count, of course, wished to go and search in that direction, and the two Englishmen accompanied him. But they found it impossible to remember which of the numerous outlets from the large cave which contained pools of water was the one by which they had entered it. In vain they searched in all directions--no footprints, nor even any passage so low as the one where they had seen it, could be found.

The Count was at last persuaded to give up this hopeless search, and walked slowly back to the Castle without speaking a word. His eyes had a glazed and vacant look; his cheeks were very pale; he walked as one in a dream, and the party accompanied him in dead silence. It was very late when they arrived at the Castle, and towards morning the Graf von Hohenstein also returned home, exhausted by fatigue and sorrow, and much injured by a fall in the Adelsberg cave, which broke his arm, and bruised him severely.

Day after day passed on, no intelligence of the missing pair had arrived, and there was every reason to fear that they had perished in the cave, or that the gardener’s report of having seen the Gräfinn walk to the stable, was true. The latter hypothesis was utterly rejected by the unhappy father and bridegroom, who, as time passed on, became more and more convinced that they should never again behold in this world their beloved Dorina.

It sometimes crossed my mother’s mind that if the unhappy bride and her partner had been lost in the windings of the cave, and did not die, they might have fallen into the hands of smugglers or banditti, who were said to infest some of its secret outlets, and carry on, in defiance of the Government, their illicit trade. If so, they might keep them prisoners for some time, lest their haunt should be made known. She hinted this possibility to several people; and the Graf himself stationed men to watch night and day on the roads and lanes leading to the Adelsberg caves on the other side. For weeks they watched, but no traces of banditti or smugglers were to be seen, nor were even the remains of any of their secret dens discovered amid these wild and gloomy ravines, which appeared untrodden by the foot of man.