Excerpt from A Captive Princess Countess von Dornberg sighed wearily as she turned her eyes away from the gray waste of waters spread out before her. A treacherous leaden mist was now steal ing over from the Esthonian shore, and as yet no gleam of silver sail had rewarded her hour's vigil. The clang of her silver bell then echoed loudly in the great, lonely drawing-room. The Lady of the Isles gazed inquiringly at old Elia, her butler, whose wrinkled face was as yellow as the buff facings of his faded blue livery. You have seen nothing? The mail boat should be even now nearing the island. Nothing as yet, Barina, piped the aged serving man. It is the old thing - the currents, the winds, even the witches and nixies, fight against us here! The young ladies? Calmly continued Marie von Dornberg, ignoring the old Russian's superstitious bab ble, for, like the brook, Elia went on forever. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.