"Dear Friend Of My Youth,--I hear from papa that you have been highly honoured by our wise and noble King--that he has made you captain of your division, and given you the Iron Cross. I congratulate you heartily, and am rejoiced at your good fortune. What else passed papa wouldn't tell me, but he was very excited about it, and in a great rage when he mentioned you. Ah! if only you could have managed to win his affection and the goodwill of the parishioners! Then I shouldn't have to be so careful, and could see and speak to you often.... Dear Boleslav, I implore you never to think of coming into the garden again.
"You know papa--what he is; and if he found out--ah! I believe he would kill me! Wait patiently, my dear friend! The Bible says, you know, patience shall be rewarded. So have patience till the hour when I shall summon you to come to me; then I will tell you all the news. How full of longing I am to see you! Oh, those lovely days of childhood! What has become of them? How happy I was then!--Your
"Helene.
"Postscript.--Never come to the garden again. I will appoint another place of meeting. Not in the garden."
Strange, that what a few minutes before had filled him with delight now seemed flat and colourless, and disappointed him. Doubtless the half-wild creature was to blame, whose close proximity confused his judgment. A kind of delirium of bliss seemed to have taken possession of her. And how she had smiled! how strangely she had stared into space!
She came back into the room, and moved about it like a somnambulist.
"Regina!"
She half closed her lids, and said, "Yes,Herr,"
"What's the matter with you?"
She smilingly shook her head. "Nothing,Herr," she answered, and again that look came into her eyes; they seemed to swim in dreamful contemplation of some infinite felicity.
He felt his throat contract. Clearly there was still reason to be afraid of himself.
Then he resolved to speak and listen to her no more, but to live in his work. He immersed himself in his papers again, sorted and laid aside important documents, filed, registered, and made copies of them. It seemed to him that he must get everything in order in anticipation of some pending catastrophe.
So the day went by, and the evening. Regina crouched in the darkest and remotest corner she could find and remained motionless. He dared not cast even a glance in her direction. The blood hammered in his temples, yellow circles danced before his eyes, every nerve in his body was on edge from over-fatigue.
On the stroke of ten she rose, murmured goodnight, and disappeared behind her curtain. He neither answered nor looked up.
At eleven he put out the lights and went to bed too.
"Why does your heart beat like this?" he thought. "Remember your oath." But the superstitious, indefinable dread of coming disaster haunted him like a ghost in the darkness.
He got up again, and stole with bare feet across the room to the case of weapons, that was dimly illumined by the newly-risen moon. He caught up one of his pistols, which he always kept loaded to be forearmed against unforeseen events. It had been his faithful friend and protector in many a bloody fray. To-day it should protect him from himself. With its trigger cocked, he laid it on the small table by his bedside.
"It's doubtful whether you sleep a wink now," he said, as he nestled his head on the pillows. Yet scarcely three seconds later he lost consciousness, and slumber lapped his tired limbs.
* * * * *
A curious dream recalled him from profoundest sleep into a half-dozing wakefulness. He fancied he saw two bright eyes like a panther's glittering at him out of the darkness. They were only a few inches from his face, and seemed to be fixed on it with fiery earnestness, as if with the intention of bringing him under the spell of their enchantment.
His breath came slower, almost stopped, then he felt another breath well over him in full soft waves.
It was no dream after all, for his eyes were wide open. The moon cast a patch of light on the counterpane of his bed, and still those other lights glowed on, devouring him with their fire. The outline of a face was visible. A woman's white figure bent over him.
A thrill of mingled pleasure and alarm ran through his body.
"Regina," he murmured.
Then she sank on her knees by the bed and covered his hands with kisses and tears. In the enervation that had crept over him he would have stroked the black tresses which streamed across the pillow, only he lacked the strength to extricate his hands from hers.
Then--"Your oath, think of your oath!" a voice cried within him.
In dismay, he started up. Not yet fully awake, he reeled forwards, and tearing his hands out of her grasp, fumbled for the pistol.
"You, or her."
There was a report. Regina, with a cry of pain, fell with her forehead against the edge of the bed, and at the same moment a great rumbling and crackling was heard from the opposite wall. The portrait of his beautiful grandmother had crashed to the ground.
He stared wildly round him, only just arriving at complete consciousness.
"Are you wounded?" he asked, laying his hand gently on the dark head.
"I--don't--know,Herr," and then she glided across the floor to her mattress.
He dressed himself and kindled a light. It now all appeared a confused nightmare.
Ah! but if she died, if he had killed her?
When he drew aside the curtain, he beheld her cowering and shivering in her corner, holding up the counterpane in her teeth. It was smeared with blood.
"For God's sake--show me. Where were you hit?" he cried.
She let the counterpane drop as far as her breast, and silently offered her naked shoulder for his inspection. Blood was streaming from it.
But the first glance satisfied him, the connoisseur in wounds, that it was a mere surface shot. It would heal of itself in a few days.
"Thank God! Thank God!"
She stared up at him absently with wide eyes.
"It is nothing," he stammered. "A scratch--nothing more."
She appeared not to hear what he said.
"Pull yourself together like a man. Not a word, not a look, must betray your real feelings."
With this self-exhortation he withdrew, and wearily put down the light on the table.
What now? Where should he go? To stay meant ruin and damnation.
This very hour he must go away. Away! Somewhere,anywhere, so long as a barrier of his fellow-creatures separated him from her for evermore. And in breathless haste he began to gather together papers that proved his father's guilt, as if they were the most precious possessions in the world.
More than three months had passed away since Boleslav von Schranden had turned his back on the inheritance of his fathers.
In the meantime spring had come. Moss, starred with anemones, grew amongst the short-bladed grass; the ditches were full of a luxuriant growth of bindweed and nettles; and at every breeze the boughs rained a shower of crumbling catkins. The plough left a trail of smooth, black furrows on the bosom of the awakening earth, and seed-cloths were already being put out to air.
It was the first spring for many and many a long year that had begun in peace, and of which there were hopes of its ending in peace.
Europe's evil genius was vanquished. Like Prometheus he lay chained to his barren sea-girt rock; and so the sword was hung up to rust, and the ploughshare and harrow resumed their sway.
What had taken place on the shores of the Mediterranean in the month of March, the inhabitants of quiet country towns and out-of-the-way moorland villages had as yet no suspicion. Not a breath had reached them of that interrupted quadrille at Prince Metternich's ball, of the fury and consternation of sovereigns and potentates; they knew nothing of foam-bespattered proscriptions issued against the escaped rebel, of re-arming and rumours of war.
The lark's carolling in the sky seemed a jocund invitation to resume labour in the fields, the womb of the earth opened with yearning for the crops from which it had fasted so long.
One day towards the end of April, a curious regiment was seen on the king's highroad approaching the county town of Wartenstein, which excited the wondering interest of all whom they passed by the way.
It was not easy to decide at once whether they were soldiers or workmen. Most of them were armed, but side by side with the gun on their shoulders was a spade, and from the red bundles slung across their backs peeped whetstones and scythe-blades. Ten or twelve of them were mounted, but behind came as baggage a stream of rough waggons, composed of about twenty axle wheels, loaded with bursting sacks of corn and implements of every description. Altogether the regiment numbered about a hundred and fifty, marching in half military fashion in double file. It consisted of muscular youths, for the most part fair and of ruddy complexions, with thickset figures. Their faces were broad and bony, not German, and still less Polish, in type. They spoke a language unknown in the neighbourhood, and sang songs of which no one knew the tune. Notwithstanding, their leader was German, and so was the discipline which had trained their limbs and given to their movements a certain dignity of bearing.
At the head of the procession rode one to whom they looked up with awe and affection, and whose brief and not unfriendly words of command they obeyed with almost childlike zeal. It was Boleslav, who came with this little army to reconquer his own territory.
He had recruited it far away in the Lithuanian East, on the remotest border of the province, whither neither good nor evil reports of the name of Schranden had ever penetrated. During his five years' previous intercourse with this people, he had become intimately acquainted with their habits and customs, and took care to choose his pioneers from those who had been in the war, and become accustomed to the rigours of a soldier's life, but who were still unfamiliar enough with the German tongue to have their minds poisoned by the Schrandeners' gossip.
Now he had every hope that the fate of his father, who had failed to find either serf or labourer to bind himself to work for him, would not be his. And should the Schrandeners offer fight to these workpeople, as they had done to the Polish serfs whom his father had been obliged to call to his assistance, so much the worse for the Schrandeners; they would only be sent home with bleeding noses.
In proud self-reliance he looked coming events in the face. He would willingly have returned home earlier, only, to prosecute his enterprise on the scale it demanded, he was forced to wait till the time in which he could claim his aunt's legacy, and so have the necessary means at his disposal.
He had lived through hard times since that January night, when, to flee the coercion of his hot young blood, he had dashed out into the snow-clad, moon-illumined landscape, followed by the cries of the unhappy woman who could not understand what ailed him.
It was long before the furnace within him abated, and her beseeching, frightened eyes became dimmer in his memory. In Königsberg, where he had gone direct from home, he had meditated obtaining, through boldly seeking a trial, that justice long denied to his house. But though the cross on his breast compelled the doors that had been shut on his father to open to him, the polite shrug of the shoulders with which the judges promised to see what could be done, and then coolly referred him to one Court of Appeal after another, taught him that the passionate self-surrender he had dreamed of would be here ill-timed and out of place.
So he again packed up his father's correspondence, which of his own free will he had desired to make public in order to clear up every shadow of mystery, and felt he must keep it till a more favourable opportunity offered itself. Besides, he had destroyed too much that might have had a vindicating effect, and to court the risk of his own condemnation might after all be acting unfairly to his father's memory.
Contact with the outer world cooled and damped in a singular way his ardour; and the feverish tension of his emotions gradually relaxed, giving place to a more normal state of mind. He was confronted with reasoning instead of anathemas, courteous words instead of threats--and this worked a soothing and beneficial influence on his nature. He projected plans, and prepared himself with composure and deliberation for what the future might have in store for him.
At the same time the magic fascination the wild girl had exercised on him was becoming dimmer in his recollection. Every new face, every new thought, alienated him further from her. Gradually he ceased to reproach himself for having acted with merciless cruelty towards her, and the mastery she had acquired over his senses was now incomprehensible to him. Nevertheless, often when he sat alone at dusk in his private room at the hostelry, he saw those eyes again flashing soft fire, and felt her presence thrill through his veins. Then it seemed as if the scar, that furrowed horizontally his under lip, began to burn like an inflammatory record of that kiss, the only one that the lips of a woman had ever imprinted on his, for his shy and reserved manner had all his life repelled, and kept women at a distance. At such times his whole existence seemed compressed into that one moment's ecstasy. But of course this was only a freak, illusive reverie played his senses, which lamplight and work soon dispelled.
He had written to her once or twice in order to set her mind at rest on the subject of his sudden departure, or rather flight--had asked for an answer, and promised a speedy return.
Once he had had news of her--a letter written in bold characters and correctly expressed. After all these years of bondage, the lessons she had learnt in the old pastor's school still evidently stood her in good stead.
In prospect of his near approach to his home, he drew the sheet from his pocket, and read sitting in the saddle the lines, which, in spite of himself, he almost knew by heart.
"My dear Master,--Don't be anxious on my account. No one will do anything to me. They do not know down in the village that you are gone away, and they are frightened of the wolf-traps, for no one has told them that we cleared them away. Every night I see to the pistols and guns in case they should come; but they won't come. As for the wound, I have quite forgotten it. The grocer at Bockeldorf gave me some English sticking-plaster, and when it peeled off, it was entirely healed. The thaw and floods are now over, thank God. For several days I was obliged to go with very little food, because the water was too high on the meadows for me to wade through, and I would rather have died than go down to Herr Merckel. Ah! dear master, I am so glad that you are coming home soon; for I seem to have nothing to live for, when I have not you to wait upon. I climb up on the Cats' Bridge very often and wait for you there, so that when you come you shall not find it drawn up. Please don't come in the night, nor on Thursday before seven, because then I shall be going to Bockeldorf. The snow is all gone now, and the grass is beginning to get quite green. Yesterday I heard the swallows twittering in the nest they have built in the eaves; but I haven't seen them yet. Now and then I suffer from stitch in my side, and giddiness, and I have not much appetite. I believe it comes from being so much alone, which I cannot bear. But I don't know why I should tell you all this. Perhaps it is because you were always so kind to me. I can't help always remembering your great kindness to me.--YourHochgeboren'shumble servant,
"Regina Hackelberg."
This letter had filled him with pleasure and satisfaction, for it showed on the one hand that she had very reasonably bowed to the inevitable, and that there was no cause for his anxiety; and on the other, that she still faithfully clung and belonged to him heart and soul. And glad as he might be to feel his blood purged of the unwholesome excitement with which she had inspired it, he could not help being pleased at this proof of her remaining ever his true and willing servant.
His belief in Helene's sacred influence on his destiny had, he imagined, received a new impetus, since her note had saved him in an hour of imminent danger. He wore it gratefully as a talisman on his heart, even if he did not read it so often, and with such delight, as he read Regina's.
Soon after his arrival in the capital, an intense yearning had drawn him to the Cathedral, where he had sought out the old altar-piece, which contained her living image. He experienced a bitter disappointment. The Madonna amidst her lilies and roses appeared absolutely ridiculous. She looked to him now as if she had been baked out ofMarzepan, and the flowers, with their stiff stalks and drooping heads, appeared as unnatural and insipid as their doll custodian.
And this was what he had carried about with him for years, as thefacsimileof his beloved! Certainly it was high time she appeared in her own person before his bodily eyes, otherwise he would be in danger of loving a mere phantom.
And now, in this the hour of home-coming, it was not she at all with whom he looked forward to a joyous meeting; his senses saw only the picture of a girl waiting and watching for him, whose fresh and unbounded loveliness was no myth.
It was early morning and the sun was shining. He had made his last halt, the night before, at a hamlet not far from Wartenstein, as he proposed to pass rapidly through the town, to avoid being gaped at, and exciting idle curiosity. Once there he was within three miles and a quarter of home, and hoped to enter his native village at the hour for vespers, for his stalwart followers were used to rapid marching. As he rode up to the moss-grown ramparts, eight sounded from the belfries of Wartenstein, and he counted on being able to quit the town quite early, and so escape awkward questions.
Thus, he was little prepared for the surprises awaiting him within its gates. The sentinel, instead of stopping him and demanding his passport, shouted up to a window in the gateway tower--
"Ring the bells! ring the bells! The first detachment is here!"
Then he saluted with his pike, while a merry peal clashed from the watch-towers of Wartenstein to announce Boleslav's arrival.
"What can be the meaning of it?" he asked himself, shaking his head; and his astonishment increased, when on riding through the streets he found them thronged with crowds of men, women, and children, who waved their caps and handkerchiefs, and welcomed him with resounding cheers.
His Lithuanians, who had been accustomed on their triumphal marches to being received everywhere with open arms, took the present ovation as a matter of course, and responded to the hurrahs with lusty lungs.
But to Boleslav it was plain that there was some misunderstanding, which in the next few minutes would be explained.
As he entered the market-place, which, like the streets, was filled with an enthusiastic crowd, the Landrath, at the head of an impressive procession, consisting of the Burgomaster, Corporation, and other magnates of the town, advanced to meet him. He laid his delicate, bony hand on his breast, and cleared his throat with a rasp, preparatory to speaking.
When he recognised Boleslav, who had quickly sprung from his horse, he drew back in embarrassment. Nevertheless he began--
"I congratulate you, Freiherr von Schranden, on your being the first who has hastened here with your troops----"
"Not so fast,Herr Landrath," Boleslav interrupted. "There is an error somewhere. These people are workmen, whom I have recruited in Lithuania for domestic use. I am on my way with them to Schranden."
An amused smirk passed through the ranks of the town magnates. They enjoyed seeing the Landrath make a fool of himself, even if they themselves were made to look foolish in the process.
"And you really haven't heard yet?" he stammered out, concealing his annoyance.
"I have come straight from the remotest corner of Prussia,Herr Landrath."
"You haven't heard that Napoleon has escaped from Elba, and that the King has again appealed to his gallant Prussian subjects to arm?"
Boleslav felt a rush of mingled horror and joy flood his heart.
So once more the world's history had absorbed the solution of his career in its own, and he would be saved further self-doubt and suspense with regard to it. His vast schemes, the work to which he was to consecrate his life, lay shattered at his feet scarcely begun, and now ended perhaps for ever. But away with all regrets and fears. Did not the Fatherland,hisFatherland, call him?
"Thank you,Herr Landrath," he said, while he endeavoured to still his wildly beating heart. "I feel honoured at your thinking so well of me and my contingent of Schrandeners. We will prove ourselves worthy of your high opinion, and in four-and-twenty hours be in readiness."
The Landrath held out his hand. He retreated a step or two, and was in the act of repaying the Landrath in his own coin for the insult he had not long ago subjected him to.
Then he reflected. The Fatherland calls you, and what is your petty hate or love weighed in the balance? And he seized the bony hand, which its owner, offended, had already withdrawn, and shook it heartily.
Then he learnt further particulars. The evening before the King's proclamation, dated April 7, had reached Wartenstein. All night the administration had been hard at work getting the decrees ready for local heads of departments, and arranging to send out special mounted messengers to distribute them.
"Will one be sent to Schranden?" asked Boleslav.
"Certainly," was the answer.
"Then may I add a military order?"
"Yes, if you wish."
He tore a sheet of paper from his pocket-book and hastily scribbled the following lines:--
"At five o'clock in the afternoon all troops liable to service are to muster in the churchyard square, bringing with them accoutrements and canteens. The hour for marching will then be stated.
"Von Schranden,Landwehr Captain.
"To the local administrator."
"And what will become of Regina?" was a question that rose warningly within him.
But he would not listen to it. He was almost delirious. The fever for action possessed him.
He called his workpeople together, explained to them that he no longer needed their services, and bade each to return as quickly as possible to his native place, from there to join his respective company. He paid them off, and took leave of them with a shake of the hand and a blessing.
The stalwart youths, who had lost their hearts to him, kissed the hem of his coat, and went their way with tears in their eyes. Then he found a place of safety for the waggons, whose freight alone represented no small capital, made arrangements for the sale of the seed and provender, and left the horses at the disposal of a dealer.
Only the one on whose back he rode did he keep for his own use.
It was half-past two before he had transacted his business, and was free to start on his homeward road.
He had seen hanging up for sale in a tailor's shop an undress state-uniform, which, as the officers of the Landwehr were forbidden any gorgeous display of ornament, and it happened to fit him exactly, he purchased promptly, first having the braided collar replaced by a plain scarlet strip.
Thus respectably fitted out, he was ready to confront his Schrandeners, whom he now saw delivered into his hand in a rather different manner from the one he had anticipated.
* * * * *
While Boleslav was riding home, Lieutenant Merckel was pacing up and down the back parlour of the Black Eagle in furious excitement.
"I won't, no, I won't submit to being under the command of that scoundrel," he roared at his father, who, to soothe him, had the best wine in his cellar (the best was sour enough) set on the table, and never wearied of refilling the raving youth's glass.
"Felixchen," he supplicated, "be sensible. If the King has ordered it so, and the authorities demand----"
"But what if my honour demands the contrary, father?" cried his son, angrily twirling the ends of his moustache. "I am an officer, father; I have some sense of honour, and my sense of honour bids me die by putting a bullet through my body with my own hand, rather than follow and serve under that son of a traitor."
"But if the King----" repeated the old man in desperation.
"The King! what does he know about it? He has been taken in, deceived, kept in the dark. But I,Iwill open his eyes. I will say to him, 'Here, your Majesty, are thirty brave soldiers, and an honourable, upright officer, who would rather----'"
"Drink, Felixchen," entreated the old man, and wiped the sweat of anxiety from his brow; "this wine cost me, to begin with, a thaler the bottle. Nowhere else in the world could you get anything to compare with it."
"The devil take your swipes!" exclaimed the dutiful son, smashing the bottle with his sabre-hilt. "I don't intend to sacrifice my honour for any Judas reward. My honour is not to be bribed into silence. My honour dictates that I should tear the hound's heart out of his breast. And I'll do it. The Fatherland must be rid of such a scandalous reproach once for all. This plague-spot in the Prussian staff of officers must and shall be branded out. I'll see that it is. So sure as I am a brave soldier I will do it, even if I die for honour's sake.... Good-bye for the present, father; I must go now and bid my little sweetheart farewell." And rounding his lips for a defiant whistle, the half-inebriated young man swaggered out, his sabre-blade clanking the ground at every step.
Boleslav, as he entered the village shortly after four, found the street full of women and old people, who ran from under the horse's hoofs, maintaining a glum silence, and then followed like evil spirits in his wake. He felt for the pistols in his side pockets, and loosened the scabbard of his sabre; then he fully expected a skirmish of some sort. "Even if they have no other officer with a soldier's coat on, they may be planning to attack me from the front this time," he reflected, and his breast expanded proudly at the thought.
The crowd was denser in the churchyard square, and he was obliged to rein in his horse to give it time to get out of his way. Here and there a smothered laugh or a half-whispered imprecation fell on his ear. Otherwise total silence was the order of the day. Close to the church, some twenty paces from its flight of stone steps, he saw the troops drawn up in double line, about fifteen or sixteen squadrons in strength.
Lieutenant Merckel was parading up and down, giving first one and then another--as it seemed--a word of encouragement. His face was aflame, his gait uncertain; once or twice his cavalry sabre got entangled with his legs and nearly tripped him up.
Boleslav cast one rapid, searching glance at the parsonage. Its windows were closely curtained, and in the garden too there was no sign of life.
He drew a deep breath, and rode into the heart of the crowd, which closed behind him.
Once again he stood single-handed, face to face with the Schrandener wolves, but this time he was master.
The sense of iron calm and perfect coolness, which he had always experienced at moments of life and death issues, did not forsake him now.
"I am waiting for your salute,Herr Lieutenant" he cried in a threatening tone.
He was answered by a drunken, jeering laugh.
So they intended to mutiny! His suspicions had not been ill founded.
He tore his sabre from the scabbard. "Halt!" he commanded.
There was a murmur of dissent. Two or three stepped out of the ranks, and Lieutenant Merckel, with an abusive epithet, drew his sabre and rushed at Boleslav.
This was a moment in which hesitation would have been fatal. A flash of steel, a whiz, and Lieutenant Merckel sank howling on the sandy earth.
The ranks broke their line, made as if they would spring on him: but surprise and terror petrified them.
"Halt!" The command came forth for the second time in a voice of thunder; and no one dared move an eyelash.
Boleslav drew a pistol from the saddle-pocket, and, holding it with the trigger cocked in his left hand, he let the reins slip into his armed right.
"Men of the Landwehr!" he shouted in a voice that reverberated through the square, "you know that during the last six hours you are bound in obedience by a war-decree, and that the slightest attempt at insubordination will cost you your lives. What has taken place up to this moment I will overlook, but whoever does not instantly comply with my commands without grumbling will find that I shall not scruple to send a bullet through his brain on the spot."
Felix Merckel, who was bleeding copiously from a wound in his head, regained consciousness, and tried to raise himself. But the blood that streamed over his face blinded him.
"Take away his sabre and bind him!" were Boleslav's instructions.
The men exchanged glances; they had nothing to bind him with.
Again to hesitate would be to lose the day; so with a quick resolve he sprang off his horse, tore the bridle from its bit, and handed the thongs to the flügelman on his left.
"Set to work, and two others help."
Reluctantly, and with evil sidelong glances, they obeyed. The prostrate man hit out with hands and feet, and endeavoured to wipe the blood out of his eyes with his sleeve, but his struggles were in vain; the reins bound his wrists, and the foam-spattered curb served as a gag.
Meanwhile the spirited black charger had broken away, and was rearing among the terrified rabble.
Boleslav saw, as he looked behind him, that the church door stood open for a farewell service, and that the key was in the lock.
"Put him in the church," he commanded; and at the same moment the old landlord of the inn appeared on the scene, whimpering and wringing his hands.
"Felixchen!" he yelled, "what are they doing to you? Don't give in; cry for help. Help him, dear people. I order you to help him. I am your mayor. I insist--I command you."
"It is my place to issue commands here," exclaimed Boleslav loftily.
Then the old man changed his tactics, and, by cringing, tried to soften the disciplinarian's heart.
"Herr Captain, have compassion on a wretched father. I have known you since you were a little boy, who sat on my knee, and I always, always was fond of you. Isn't it true, you people? Wouldn't any of us have willingly given our lives for theJunker?"
Had his corpulency permitted, he would have thrown himself at Boleslav's feet. On seeing his son hustled away, he ran after him in despair, and made a futile attempt to hold him back by the coattails. But the door was promptly closed on him.
"Give me the key!" shouted Boleslav.
The old man hurled himself on the steps, and pounded the oak panels of the door with his fists.
The key was delivered up by the flügelman and his companions.
"Your name?"
"Michael Grossjohann!" the Schrandener answered curtly.
"And yours," turning to the two others. "Franz Malky."
"Emil Rosner."
He entered the names in his pocket-book.
"You three will keep watch on the prisoner through the night, and are answerable for him with your heads."
Old Merckel, finding the church door did not yield to his furious onslaughts, came to his senses, and squinting askance at Boleslav, sneaked off in the direction of the parsonage. The latter thought he knew what he wanted there.
"Three more of you," he continued, "will kindly guard the vestry door, the key of which I have not got in my possession, and take care that no one goes in and out except the barber, who is to bandage the prisoner's wound."
Three voices quivering with suppressed anger assured him his orders should be obeyed.
"Now then, to business!" he exclaimed. "According to the lists the village of Schranden is capable of supplying troops to the number----." And the mobilisation began.
Two hours later Boleslav quitted the gaping crowd, who glowered at him with a sort of stony superstitious awe, as if he were a magician, and as he crossed the open common he felt as if he had just left a cage of wild beasts, the duty of taming which, had fallen to his share. The danger seemed safely over for the present. "Having mastered them to-day, they won't dare to mutiny to-morrow," he thought, and revelled in the joyous sensation of having won a victory.
Now he had only to take leave of Regina, and his troubles would be at an end. The world was all before him once more; an unknown future seemed to be enticing him onwards with bugle-peals and battle-cries.
"Regina! now for Regina!" welled up in him with such jubilation, from the depths of his soul, that he was frightened at himself. He took a round by the wood before approaching the Cats' Bridge, to brace and harden his nerves for this last and most arduous encounter.
The sun pierced the topmost boughs of the trees. Over the tender young green of the meadows floated a shadowy haze, and an odour of fermenting slime rose from the damp ditches. Only the fir-wood looked as dark and mysterious as in winter, with scarcely a light-green spike peeping anywhere from its black, bare branches.
He threw himself on the mossy ground and watched the sunbeams glint through the purple haze that hung over the surrounding thicket.
Once again he reviewed the daring enterprise of the last few hours, and the thickly curtained windows of the parsonage recurred to his memory. How careful she had been to keep herself out of his sight and reach, and how well she had succeeded! Surely she must know what had brought him into the village--must know that to-morrow he would quit it, perhaps never to return.
Had she no longing to see him just once before his departure, and to wish him God speed? The hour she had told him to wait patiently for, was it not time it came to-day? What availed the letter he wore close to his heart, if the hand that penned it was refused to him? Her image was now quite effaced from his heart; it could no longer lead him to battle, unless the impression was renewed.
"If she loves me, she will send for me. If she doesn't send for me, she must be lost to me for ever."
Having arrived at this conclusion he left the wood and bent his footsteps in the direction of the river. The park, in its new spring dress of lightest green, smiled him a welcome. A shimmering crown of silver rested on the tall poplars, and the dark masses of ivy glistened on their slender trunks.
How beautiful was this home, that had been a source of such infinite pain and sorrow! How his whole being yearned for that impoverished dwelling where he had lodged like a criminal! Was this longing owing to the woman who had voluntarily shared his loneliness and wretchedness, and who had tried to make her own misery the foundation of a new happiness for him?
But he had no reason to fear what was to come. He felt that since the Fatherland had summoned him, he was safe from all weak and vicious instincts. Even long before this he believed he had completely freed himself from her influence. Their relations now were merely those of master and servant.
One more night, and the priest's curse would be remembered only as an old man's idle babble. Yet what would become of her? She must look after herself. He had provided for her future. No one could say he was bound to do more. And to-day he would renew his bounty twofold or threefold, so that she would stand in the position of a wealthy widow. When thousands of women and children would perish of hunger in broken-hearted distress, without any one heeding their fate, why should he concern himself so much about deserting this one strange girl and leaving her in solitude?
He steeled and hardened his heart, for it had begun to beat faster....
And as he mounted the steep ascent to the Cats' Bridge, he caught sight of the familiar figure among the bushes above, illumined by the setting sun.
"Regina," he called. But she did not move.
"Come and meet me, Regina!"
Then with elevated shoulders she slowly glided nearer, the fingers of her left hand outspread, and pressed against her breast.
He looked at her, and was horrified. "My God!" he exclaimed, "how changed you are!"
Her appearance was wild and distraught in the extreme. Her clothes were torn, her hair, which under the frequent use of the comb had begun to fall into such splendid glossy waves, once more hung over her forehead and cheeks in a shaggy, unkempt mass. Her eyes shone with feverish, almost uncanny lustre from dark-blue cavities, and she dared not raise them to his.
"She is pining away," something cried in him. "She will die, because of you." He took hold of her hand and it lay limply in his palm.
"Regina, do speak. Aren't you glad that I've come back?"
She ducked her head, as she had been in the habit of doing when she instinctively expected blows instead of kind words.
He stroked her rough, dry hair. "Poor thing!" he said. "You must have had a dreadfully dull time of it, with not a human soul to speak to----"
She shrank from his touch and was still silent.
"Why did you not write and tell me that you found it so terribly lonely?"
She shook her head, and then said timidly, "It wasn't the loneliness."
"What was it then?"
She looked at him nervously and said nothing.
"Well, what was it?"
"I ... I thought ... you weren't coming back."
"But, you foolish girl, didn't I write and say I was?"
"Yes, you wrote and said, 'I am coming perhaps in about ten days,' and I went to the Cats' Bridge, and there I waited day and night-day and night--but you didn't come. And then three weeks afterwards you wrote again, 'I shall come home perhaps in about ten days.' And you never came, and then I thought you were only putting me off with promises ... so as not to break it to me suddenly that you weren't coming back at all. And I thought you repented being good to me, because I didn't deserve it, and because I----" She broke off and buried her face for a moment in her hands.
"But your letter was so sensible."
"Yes,Herr," she faltered. "Would it have done formeto write differently?"
He bit his lip, and stared before him into the lacework of the young green foliage. Did she suspect what would befall her in a few hours?
"But now all is right again, isn't it?" he asked unsteadily.
With a cry she sank on the ground, and clinging to his knees exclaimed, "Yes, oh yes,Herr. When you are here everything is right, everything is different. If you were to go away again,Herr, what should I do?"
No, she suspected nothing. The heaviest, most crushing blow of all was in store for her. He felt as if there were a thunderbolt concealed in his sleeve, which the next time he stirred would descend and shatter her to fragments. But he had still time to dispose of as he pleased. A few hours to devote to this poor creature, in which to revive and make her happy again before signing her death-warrant, and in which she would unconsciously gather up strength for the ordeal.
"Stand up, Regina," he said gently. "Let us enjoy ourselves, and not think of the future."
Then they walked side by side through the dusky garden, the neatly kept paths of which were strewn with white gravel, and skirted, like glittering rivulets, the smooth turf. The shrubs exhaled an indescribable fragrance, the breath of spring mingled with the scent of dying things, and in the tree-tops that waved above their heads, they heard the subdued whispering twitter of home-coming birds.
"How beautifully everything has come out here since I went away!" he exclaimed.
"Yes,Herr," she answered. "It has never been so beautiful as it is now."
"It has become so all at once?" he asked, smiling. He looked at her sideways and noticed the hollows in her cheeks. But an exquisite colour was already tinging them.
She has begun to live again, he thought to himself, and it seemed as if the next few hours were to be the last vouchsafed to him too of a vanishing happiness.
"In spite of everything, you have worked hard," he said, striving to retain his tone of condescending patronage, and he pointed to the neat borders in which auriculas and primroses were planted.
She gave a proud little laugh. "I thought to myself you should find everything in order if youdidcome back,Herr."
"But you have neglected yourself, Regina. How is that?"
She turned her face away, blushing hotly.
"Shall I tell the truth,Herr?" she stammered.
"Of course," he said.
"I thought ... I ... was ... going to die ... and so ... it wouldn't matter."
He was silent. It was as if she poured forth an ocean of infinite love with every word, and that its waves rolled over him.
The lawn on the farther side of the Castle, sloping gently down to the park, now opened before his gaze. There stood the weather-beaten socket of the Goddess Diana's pedestal. Regina had collected the pieces and put them together again, but the torso had been beyond her strength to lift, and it lay in the grass, while the head, with its blank white eyes, looked down on it. A few steps farther on, a dark four-cornered patch stood out in relief from the emerald turf. That was the spot where he had first seen her busily employed in digging a grave for her seducer, whom every one else refused to bury.
"I left it as it was--in memory of me," she said apologetically, pointing to the turned-up clods that, now overgrown with grass, had joined and formed a bank.
Then they walked on towards the undergrowth that surrounded the cottage like a thick hedge.
"And I have mended the glass roof too," she said.
"Ah! indeed!"
Their eyes met for a moment, and then they both quickly looked in front of them again. There was an aspect of peaceful welcome about the little house. Its window panes had caught a ray of the departing sunlight, while all else lay buried in deepest shadow.
A sense of contentment at being at home, and of gladness that this was his home, overcame him, and for a moment allayed his gnawing restlessness.
"Go," he said, "and cook me something for supper; I am hungry and exhausted after a long ride."
He remembered his horse for the first time, and wondered where it had galloped to. Then the next instant he forgot it again.
"And make yourself neat," he continued. "I should like you to look your best when you come to table."
"Yes,Herr--I'll try."
They separated in the vestibule. He went into the sitting-room, and she to her kitchen. He threw himself with a deep sigh on the sofa, that creaked beneath his weight. Everything seemed the same as on the night he had left it, except that the curtain had been taken away from the corner by the stove, and the couch removed; the portrait of his grandmother, too, had disappeared. The shot which grazed Regina's neck had proved its final destruction, and reduced it to ribbons.
One of the windows was open. The strange perfume of fermenting earth, which to-day he could not get out of his nostrils, flooded the apartment. But here it might possibly come from a lime heap, which had been shovelled up at the gable end of the house.
From minute to minute his unrest increased. Why shorten for him and her the all too scanty time? He could tolerate solitude no longer, and got up with the intention of going into the kitchen, but when on the threshold he saw her cowering on the hearth with naked shoulders, mending her jacket by the firelight,--he retreated, shocked. But in a few seconds she came herself to open the door to him, fully dressed.
"Is there anything I can do for you,Herr?" she asked respectfully.
"Show me where you have repaired the roof," he replied, not being able to think of anything else to say. He praised her work, without looking at it. Then he took up a position on the hearth and stared at the tongues of flame in the grate. By this time it was nearly dark, and the firelight flickered on the rush walls.
"I'll help you to cook," he said.
"Ah,Herr! You are laughing at me," she answered. But her face lighted up with pleasure.
"What am I to have for supper?"
"There isn't much in the house,Herr. Eggs and fried ham--a fresh salad--and that's all."
"I shall thank God if I----" he stopped abruptly.
He had nearly betrayed the secret of which as yet she had no suspicion, and she should not, must not, suspect anything. Till the dawn of to-morrow her felicity should last.
"Very well, make haste," he laughed, while his throat contracted in anxious suspense, "else I shall expire of hunger."
"The water must boil first,Herr."
"All right, we'll wait, then." He squatted on one of the wooden boxes. "And, Regina," he went on, "come here; do you know I am not satisfied with your appearance even now? Your hair----"
"I've not had time to comb it yet,Herr."
"Comb it now at once, then."
She flashed at him a look of shy entreaty.
"While you are here,Herr?" she asked hesitatingly.
"Why not? Have you become prudish all in a minute?"
"It wasn't that----"
"Then don't stand on ceremony."
She went into the far corner of the apartment, where her bed stood, and with a quick movement loosened the floating wealth of tresses till they hung below her hips. In the middle of her combing, aware that his eyes were fixed on her in admiration, she suddenly spread out her arms, as if overcome with shame and joy, and threw herself on her knees by the bed, burying her face in the pillows.
He waited silently till she got up. When her hair was done she went to the hearth and busied herself among the pots and kettles, without looking at him.
"Tell me, Regina, what have you been doing with yourself all this time?"
She shook her head. "Bockeldorf was the same as ever; besides the grocer and his wife, I never saw a single soul. During the floods I didn't go once down to the village. As I told you in my letter, I had to starve for a time, but I didn't mind. And then, during the last few weeks, some letters have come, from Wartenstein, and Königsberg too--and to-day one--from----"
"Ah, never mind! I'll look at them later, when you've brought some light."
What concern had he with the outer world to-day, when he had burnt the bridges that connected him with his past, and nothing remained of all he had suffered and lived through?
Then when the supper table was spread, and the lamp shone at him from Regina's hand, he crossed over with her to the sitting-room.
"You have not laid a place for yourself," he remarked.
"May I,Herr?"
"Of course you may."
"And,Herr, what wine?"
He drew a long breath--"None!"
And so once more they sat opposite each other in the soft lamp-light, as they had so often done on winter evenings, when the snow was driven against the window panes, and gales shook the roof and rattled in the beams. Now grey moths flapped gently to and fro, bringing with them into the room whiffs of the balmy outer air, and the rising moon, which was full for the first time since Easter, shimmered through the young foliage.
He pushed his plate away. Not a morsel could he eat. The precaution of leaving the wine in the cellar had done no good, for the excitement he had wished to shun was, notwithstanding, creeping over him. He took a stolen glance at Regina, and trembled. Her eyes rested on him in such a transport of happiness, that she seemed oblivious of everything in heaven and earth, except the fact that he was sitting near her. Every trace of sorrow and distress had vanished from her face as if by magic. Its curves had taken a new roundness, a new freshness bloomed in her cheeks. But what struck him as most lovely in her, was the languorous, yielding tenderness of her whole being, as if she had loosened herself from the trammels of earth and floated in space.
"Regina," he whispered. His heart seemed throbbing violently in his throat. A voice of warning rose within him, saying, "Take care. Be on your guard--this is the last time she will lead you into temptation."
"The last time!" came a melancholy echo.
"Yes; she will die--perish of heart-sickness and unsatisfied longing."
The scar on his under-lip began to burn.
"Take her in your arms and then kill her; that will save her all further misery," was the next thought that rushed through his brain. "But it would be literal madness to do such a thing," he added to himself, shuddering.
And again their eyes met and sank in each other's depths. Their souls knew of no resistance, even though their bodies still sought despairingly for weapons of defence.
"Save yourself!" cried that warning voice again. "Think of the curse! Keep yourself pure and unspotted for the Fatherland!"
He tried to think of words to speak that would break the spell of blissful enchantment; but none would occur to him. Then he rose and walked to the open window to bathe his hot brow in the cool night air. "Speak--act--end this silence," he exhorted himself. He thought of the letters she had spoken of.
"Give me the letters," he said. His voice sounded harsh.
She fetched a packet of white covers, which she laid by his plate. He opened the first he came to, and stared vacantly at the unfolded sheet. Would it not be better to allude now to the unavoidable? Why spare her allusion to a parting which was inevitable? But he put the idea from him in horror. "Till midnight she shall be happy. Take her in your arms, and then----"
"His Hochwohlgeboren the Freiherr Boleslav von Schranden is hereby informed that his appeal for an inquiry into the causes and events which eventually led to the destruction by fire of Castle Schranden, on the 6th of March 1809, is receiving attention, and that a day has been appointed for----"
With a discordant laugh he tossed the communication to one side, and fumbled for the next letter. His eye fell on Helene's handwriting. A feeling almost of aversion shot through him. What did she want now? Why disturb him at this the eleventh hour?