"That won't do," cried the village Mayor; "haul it in again!"
"Ho! heave ho!" cried the thirty men who had hold of the rope. "Ho! heave ho!"
They had hurriedly constructed a kind of raft from a few beams, boards, and doors torn from the nearest houses, and let it go into the stream experimentally. Instantly it had been whirled round and upset, and the thirty men had enough to do to haul it on shore again.
For what had been the side of the hill was now the shore of a rushing, foaming stream. And on the hill-side half the village was already collected, and others were ever breathlessly joining the crowd. There was no danger for the village; the nearest houses stood ten or fifteen feet above the water, and it seemed impossible that it should rise so much, more especially as in the last few minutes it had already gone down about a foot. The gale had shifted more to the north, the incoming flood would be driven towards the headland; and although the storm still raged with unabated fury, it had grown a little lighter. The first comers had no need now to point out the place to the new arrivals; every one could see the whitewashed balcony on the other side, and the dark women's figures--once there were two, then again only one, who at first, said the first comers, had waved her handkerchief constantly, but now sat crouched in a corner, as if she had given up all hope, and was resignedly awaiting her fate.
And yet it seemed as if the work of deliverance must succeed. The distance was so small; a strong man could throw a stone across. They had even--foolishly--tried it, the best thrower amongst them had flung a stone, fastened to the end of a thin cord; but the stone had not flown ten feet, and with the cord had been blown away like gossamer. And now a huge wave from the other side rolled through the park, broke over the balcony, and, joining the stream, ran up to the top of the bank. The women shrieked aloud, the men looked at each other with grave, anxious faces.
"It won't do, boys!" said the Mayor; "long before we can get the raft across, the thing over there will have given way. Another such wave, and it must be knocked to pieces; I know it well, the pillars are not six inches across, and worm-eaten besides."
"And if we got to the other side and ran against it we should go to pieces and be upset ourselves," said Jochen Becker, the blacksmith.
"And there would be ten of us in the water instead of two," said Carl Peters, the carpenter.
"There is no good talking like that," said the Mayor; "we can't let them be drowned there before our very eyes. We'll take the raft thirty yards higher up, and the men must go off at once; I'll go with it myself. Haul away, my men. Ho! heave ho!"
A hundred hands were ready to drag the raft up stream. But thirty yards were not enough, it would require twice as much. Half-a-dozen courageous men had been found, too, to make the attempt; the Mayor might stay behind; who else was to command those who held the ropes? And that was the principal matter!
With long poles they steadied themselves on the raft. "Let go!" The raft shot out like an arrow into the centre of the stream.
"Hurrah!" cried those on shore, thinking the object already attained, fearing only that the raft would be carried into the park and driven against the trees.
But suddenly they came to a standstill; not a foot farther would it go, but danced about in midstream till the six men on board were forced to throw themselves down and cling fast, then darted down like an arrow against the near shore, to the spot where they had stood before. It took all the strength of the fifty men there assembled to hold it in, and it was only by the greatest exertion and with much apparent danger that the six men got safely off the raft and up the steep bank.
"This won't do, boys!" said the Mayor. "I wish the Lieutenant would come back; they are his relations. He drives us down here, and then doesn't come himself."
The slight increase of light they had had, when the driving mist was partly blown aside, had disappeared again. Hitherto the leaden sky and dense storm-driven mist had made the evening seem like night; but now the real night was drawing in. Only a very sharp eye could still distinguish the black figure on the balcony, and even the balcony itself was not visible to all. At the same time the gale decidedly increased in violence, and had again veered from north-east to south-east, while the water rose considerably in consequence of the backward flow from Wissow Head. Now might have been a good opportunity, as the velocity of the stream was thus diminished; but no one had the heart to renew the hopeless effort. If there were no means of getting a rope over to the other side and fastening it there, so that some men might pass over the frail bridge to guide the raft over from that side, there was no hope.
So thought the Mayor, and the rest agreed with him. But they had to shout it into each other's ears; no word spoken in an ordinary tone could have been heard through the fearful uproar.
Suddenly Ottomar stood amongst them. He had taken in the whole position at a glance. "A rope here!" he cried, "and lights! The willows there!"
They understood him at once; the four old hollow willow-trunks close to the edge! Let them be set on fire! It was true, if they could succeed in doing it, there would be danger to the village; but no one thought of that. They rushed to the nearest houses and dragged out armfuls of fir-wood and pitch, and thrust it all into the hollow trunks, which fortunately opened to westward. Two or three vain efforts--and then it flamed up--blazing, crackling--sometimes flaming high, sometimes sinking down again--throwing shifting lights upon the hundreds of pale faces which were all turned with anxious gaze upon the man who, with the rope round his body, was fighting with the stream.
Would he hold out?
More than one pair of rugged hands was clasped in prayer; women were on their knees, sobbing, wailing, pressing their nails into their hands, tearing their hair, shrieking aloud madly, as another fearful wave came up and rolled over him, and he disappeared in the billows.
But there he was again; he had been thrown back nearly half the distance which he had already won--in another minute he had recovered it. He had been carried down some way, too; but he had chosen his point of departure well, the summer-house was still far below him; he was traversing the stream as if by a miracle.
And now he was in the middle, at the worst place; they had known it to be that from the first. He did not seem to make any progress, but slid slowly down stream. Still the summer-house was far below him; if he could pass the centre, he might, he must succeed!
And now he was evidently gaining ground, nearer and nearer, foot by foot, in an even, slanting line towards the balcony! Rough, surly men, who had been at enmity all their lives, had grasped each other's hands: women fell sobbing into one another's arms. A gentleman with close-cut grey hair and thick grey moustache, who had just arrived, breathless, from the village, stood close to the burning willows, almost touched by the flames, and followed the swimmer with fixed gaze, and fervent prayers and promises--that all, all should be forgiven and forgotten if he might only receive him back--his beloved, heroic son. Suddenly he gave a loud cry--a terrible cry--which the storm swallowed up, and rushed down to the bank where the men stood who had hold of the rope, calling to them to "Haul in, haul in!"
It was too late.
Shooting down the current came the great pine-tree, at the foot of which the swimmer had sat half an hour ago, torn up by the storm, hurled into the flood, whirled round by the eddying waters like some monster risen from the deep, now showing its mighty roots still grasping the stone, now lifting its head, now rising erect as it had once stood in the sunshine, and the next moment crashing down over the swimmer--upon him--then, with its head sunk in the foaming whirlpool and the roots raised above, it went out from the realm of light down into the dark night.
Strangely enough, the slender cord had not been broken, and they drew him back--a dead man, at whose side, as he lay stretched on the bank, with only one broad, gaping wound upon his forehead, like a soldier who has met his death gallantly, the old man with the grey moustache knelt and kissed the dead lips of the beautiful pale mouth, and then rose to his feet.
"Give me the rope now! He was my son! And my daughter is there!"
It seemed insanity. They had seen how the young man had battled--but the old one! He threw off coat and waistcoat. He might be an old man--but he was still a strong man, with a broad powerful chest.
"If you feel that you can't keep up, General, give us a signal in good time," said the Mayor.
And now there happened what, to the people who in this one hour had seen such strange and terrible horrors, seemed a miracle. The blazing willow-stumps, which were burning now from the roots to the stiff branches, threw a light almost like day over the bank, the crowd, the stream, and the summer-house opposite--far into the flooded park up to the castle, whose windows here and there gave back a crimson reflection of the flames.
And in this light, floating down the narrow stream, on whose grassy bed the village children were wont to play, down the foaming current which had just now whirled along the branching pine-tree, like a sea-monster stretching out a hundred feelers for its prey, there came a slender well-built boat, that had just landed a strange cargo at the back entrance of the castle, as if at a quay. They had heard there how matters stood, and the man sitting at the helm had said: "My men, she is my betrothed!" And the six others, had shouted, "Hurrah for the Captain! and hurrah for his betrothed!" And now they shot past with lowered mast, and the crew holding their oars erect, as if they were bringing the Admiral on shore in his own boat. And the flag fluttered behind the man who sat at the helm, and with a light touch of his strong hand guided the willing vessel through the eddying foam to the goal which the clear keen eyes held fast, as the eagle his prey, however wildly the brave heart might beat against his bosom.
So they shot past--past the crowd who gazed breathlessly at the miracle, past the summer-house, but only a few yards. Then the man at the helm turned the boat suddenly like an eagle in its flight; and the six men took to their oars, at one stroke--and "Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!"--the oars were withdrawn again, and the boat lay alongside the balcony, over which and over the boat an immense wave reared its foaming crest towards the bank, and there breaking threw its spray up into the burning trees, covering the breathless lookers-on with a cloud of moisture.
And as the cloud dispersed, they saw in the dim light of the decaying fire that the summer-house was gone, and there was only left a shadowy boat that vanished into the darkness.
They drew a long breath then, as if from a single oppressed spirit relieved from a weight of fear. And "Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" resounded as if from a single throat, rising above even the howling storm.
The boat might disappear in the darkness, but they knew that the man sitting at the helm knew what he was about, and the six men who were with him knew what they were about; and it would return in safety, carrying the rescued from storm and flood.
The setting sun no longer stood high above the hills. In the magic glow were shining the calm pools of water which covered the immense semicircle between the Golmberg and Wissow Head. The slanting golden rays shone dazzlingly in Reinhold's eyes, as he steered his boat from the lake into the broad gulf close by the White Dune, against whose steep sides the long incoming waves were washing, while the boat glided over its broad surface, and the blades of the oars as they rose and sank in regular cadence almost touched the edge.
The eyes of the rowers were turned towards the dune as they glided by, while the scene of deliverance on the night of the storm must have recurred to every man's memory, but no one spoke a word. Not because it would have been a breach of discipline. They knew that the Captain would always allow talk that was to the purpose at the right time, even when as to-day he was in full uniform, with the Iron Cross on his broad breast; but he had pulled his cocked hat low down upon his forehead, and if he occasionally raised his eyes to see the course he was steering, they did not look gloomy--they had never seen him look gloomy yet, any more than they had ever heard a bad word from his mouth--but very grave and sad. They would not disturb the Captain's meditations.
Grave and sad meditations--graver and sadder than the honest fellows could imagine or comprehend.
What to them were the two people whom they had rescued from death on this sand-hill, with untold efforts and at the repeated risk of their own lives; what were they to them but a couple more fellow-creatures, saved as a matter of duty, and added to the others whom they had already saved that day? As to how Count Golm and the young lady had got there, and the relation in which they stood to each other--what did they care about that? But he!
He had shuddered when he found the brilliant Carla von Wallbach, whom he had seen a few days before flirting and coquetting in the light of the chandeliers, in the drawing-room at Warnow--now cowering on the storm-beaten dune, a picture of utter misery, her clothes soaked through with wet, her tender limbs shaken by icy cold, half out of her senses with terror, and hardly resembling a human creature; as he carried her to the boat, and at the moment when he laid her down, she woke from her stupor, and recognising him, shrieked wildly: "Save me from him! Save me!" and clung terrified to him--a stranger--as a child might cling to his mother, so that he had to use force to free himself!
The Count was in a hardly less pitiable condition, when two of the men carried him into the boat and laid him down near Carla; but then he suddenly started up, and at the risk of falling overboard staggered to the bow of the boat, and there sat lost in gloomy meditation, taking no notice of anything that passed, till they had worked their way to the Pölitz's farm, and prepared to take the poor wretches there into the boat through the window of the attic in which they had taken refuge. Then he had sprung to his feet, and shrieked like a madman that he would not be packed in together with those people! he would not! and had laid violent hands on the men, till he was cowed by the threat that they would tie his hands if he did not implicitly obey the Captain's orders; and then, covering his face with his hands, he had devoured his wrath in silence.
There was the attic, there was the window opening--they had been obliged to tear out the window and knock down a bit of the wall to make room. It seemed to Reinhold himself almost a miracle that he had been successful, that he had been able to save the poor creatures from this abyss of misery, and carry the most fragile human blossom through night and storm and darkness to the safe harbour of the castle where all danger was over.
The passage from the submerged farm to the castle had only lasted a few minutes--the gale had driven the boat before it like a feather--but this was the only time when even his heart had trembled, not with fear, but with tender care. His eyes grew wet as he recalled the memory now of the mother as she lay in the boat, her little one in her bosom, her head on her husband's knee, while poor Marie, full of compassion, supported in her arms the senseless Carla. What would the wretched man in the bow of the boat have thought of this sight if he ever raised his eyes? When they laid the boat alongside the back entrance of the castle, he sprang out and rushed away in furious haste, to hide himself anywhere in the darkness--like Cain fleeing from the body of his murdered brother.
And sadder and sadder grew Reinhold's thoughts. He had succeeded even in his highest hopes--he had rescued his beloved from certain death, and with her the unhappy woman who loved them both as if they had been her children, and whom they both loved and honoured as a mother. So far was all the deepest happiness; and yet! and yet!
How dearly had that happiness been bought! Could it be happiness that cost so high a price? Was there still left any happiness on earth, when sorrow in pitiless shape lay so close at hand--even as the purple shadows yonder between the battlements and projections of the castle lay close against the patches of sunlight? Did not the most apparently firm ground quake, just as the waves here were dancing over the field where the countryman used to drive his plough, over the meadow where the shepherd had tended his flock? Must they needs die--so young, so beautiful, so richly dowered with the noblest gifts and qualities? And if they must die, since they could no longer--would no longer live, since death was to them only a deliverance from inextricable entanglements--what a doubtful good seemed life which brought with it even the possibility of so terrible a fate! How could the two fathers bear it? Nobly, no doubt. And yet! and yet!
They rowed round the castle and the park, and drew near the shore at the spot where the willows had been burnt that night, and where the blackened stumps still rose above the bank. Several large and small boats lay there already from Ahlbeck, and even from villages farther distant along the coast. From all parts--from miles around--they had come, for everywhere for miles around had the story been repeated from mouth to mouth, with many variations, yet always the same--the touching story of the youth who loved a maiden; of how the two had fled from home, but could find no happiness or peace; and now both were dead, and were to be buried to-day.
Reinhold turned his steps from the shore to the village. The President had written to him that he should be at Warnow at the appointed time, and wished to speak to him before he met the family. He knew the worthy man's punctuality; and, indeed, he had hardly reached the open space in front of the inn, where a whole army of vehicles was already assembled, before a carriage drove up, from which the President alighted, and the moment he saw him came towards him with extended hand.
An expression of almost fatherly goodwill lay in his silent greeting; for the good man was too much moved to be able to speak at once, until, after walking a few steps side by side, he began, with a melancholy smile:
"Prophets both of us! Yes, my dear young friend; and what would we not give to have been found false prophets, and that our storm-floods had never come! But here they are, however. Yours, thank God, has quickly exhausted its fury; mine--God help us!--must rage for a long time yet. I wish such another valiant St. George might arise there too, to fight the dragon so boldly and save the poor victims! I am proud of you, my dear friend; there can be few people who rejoice so heartily in the gallant deeds which, by God's good help, you have performed. To have saved so many human lives--even if your betrothed had not been of the number--how happy you must be! It will not add to your happiness--I mean it will not increase the joy with which your heart must be full--but it is right and proper that such good service should meet with its proper recognition in the eyes of the world. Neither has your former conduct, which roused so much ill-feeling at the time, been forgotten. Had your advice been followed, the unfortunate harbour works at least would never have been begun, and millions and millions would have been spared to our poor country, to say nothing of the damage done. The Minister thinks that such heads should not be left idle; he has telegraphed to me, in answer to my brief report of the events here, desiring me to offer you, in his Majesty's name, the medal and ribbon of the Order of Merit given for saving life, and to ask you, in his own name, whether you are disposed to enter his office in any capacity--as Naval Councillor, I imagine; but of that you would hear from himself personally; or possibly in the Admiralty Office--the two gentlemen seem inclined to dispute over you. I think I know your answer--you would like to remain here for the present--and I should most reluctantly lose you just now. But keep yourself disengaged for the future; you owe it to the public good and to yourself. Am I not right?"
"Perfectly so," said Reinhold; "it is my warmest wish and firm resolve to serve my king and country, by land or water, wherever or however I can. Any summons that comes to me will always find me ready; although, indeed, I do not deny that I should most reluctantly leave this place."
"I can believe that," said the President. "A man like you puts his whole soul into everything, and is absorbed by his duties, be they small or great; and you have proved that great things can be done in comparatively insignificant positions. But the matter has its social side too, which it would be false heroism to overlook. The thorough appreciation of your services in the highest places will be gratifying to your poor father-in-law, and he would feel himself, besides, terribly lonely in Berlin without his daughter near him."
"How kind you are!" said Reinhold, much touched. "How you have thought of everything!"
"Have I not!" said the President, responding warmly to the pressure of Reinhold's hand. "It is wonderful! But I have the honour of being a friend of the family; you yourself acknowledged me in that capacity, when, at the same time with the official report of the events of the flood, you sent me a private account of what had concerned yourself and the family to which you now belong. I feel myself honoured by your confidence; I need not say that it will all remain buried in heart. But you did right; in such complicated affairs it is better not to trust to oneself, but to make use of the experience and judgment of one's friends. And who could be better placed than I to give advice and assistance in this case? I have thought over everything already, and settled a good deal in my own mind, and have even taken some preliminary steps, which have met with the readiest concurrence on all sides. We will speak of this more at length when you come to see me at Sundin, which you must do shortly. For to-day, as I must return immediately after the funeral, I will only say this: I am certain that the estates of your aunt the Baroness may be saved, as both Golm and the Company are bankrupt, and must be satisfied with any reasonable conditions. I shall not offer them favourable ones, you may be sure! These men, who have brought such untold misery upon thousands, deserve no mercy! Even so there will remain only the ruins of a magnificent property, for the principal part is lost for ever, I fear, with that terrible man Giraldi. Or do you not think so?"
"Indeed I do," said Reinhold. "I supposed so from the first; and the account given by the man who drove him, and whom I afterwards thoroughly questioned and examined, confirmed my supposition. The influx of the tide between Wissow Head and Faschwitz was so frightfully violent that the waters that first entered the so-formed gulf must have been emptied out by the succeeding waves as out of a basin, with everything that was floating in it. The water thus forced out would join the immense stream running westwards into the open sea between the mainland and the island, and if the corpse should ever, weeks hence, perhaps months hence, be carried to some distant shore----"
"It is a pity, a great pity," said the President; "such a magnificent property! According to my calculations, and the expressions used by that dreadful man in his last interview with the Baroness, not less than a million. How much good might have been done with it! And in your hands, too. But then it would be a terrible thing to come into such an inheritance. And the Baroness, too; are the dreadful details known to her?"
"She knows that Antonio was the murderer of my poor cousin; and she knows also that the two Italians met in their flight, and were drowned together. I hope the unutterable horror that the man's account reveals to us will remain for ever hidden from her."
"She does not believe in the son?"
"Not in the least! It is as if God in His mercy had blinded her usually quick eyes on this point. She takes the whole thing for an invention and sheer lie of Giraldi's. You may suppose that we strengthen her in this idea, and thank the fates on this ground at least for the darkness that has swallowed up what never ought to see the light of day."
"True, true!" said the President; "that is a comfort, certainly. The unhappy lady has suffered enough already. The fates have not been so merciful to your poor uncle. It is terrible to lose such a daughter--so beautiful and gifted--in such a way; but for a man such as your uncle from all I hear must be, so high-minded and upright, to be haunted by the vision of a son who is pursued whichever way he turns by warrants and detectives; for such sorrow as that I think no greatness of mind, no philosophy can be of any use; it is utterly horrible, without the least hope of consolation. Such grief cannot be alleviated by even time, which cures most troubles; death alone can bring relief; but the man will not let himself die."
"I do not know," said Reinhold; "he is one of a family who do not fear death. However differently in some points the poor man may see life, I can easily imagine that even to him the question may present itself in a form which he understands, and that he may then not hesitate for a moment in his decision."
The faintest glimmer of a sarcastic smile played round the President's delicately-cut lips; he was about to say, with some courteous periphrases, that he quite understood family pride, even when as in this case it clearly overshot the mark; but a loud shout from a rough voice close by them left him no time. The shouter was Herr von Strummin, who with Justus came so quickly down the lane which led from the High Street of the village to the parsonage, that Reinhold, who had already received notice of his friend's arrival early that morning, had no time to explain to the President the connection between the two men. However, before Herr von Strummin had offered his hand to the President, he called out:
"Allow me the honour, President, to introduce my son-in-law--Herr Justus Anders--celebrated sculptor! Gold medallist, President! Came this morning from Berlin with my daughter, in company with your aunt, Captain Schmidt. Has already by desire of the Baroness taken the arrangements into his hands, cleared out the whole of the big ground-floor saloon; looks like the church at Strummin. Yes, my dear President, an artist you know; we must all give way to him. And now, only think, President, the clergyman cannot, or rather will not, say the last words over the grave! declines doing so at the last moment! We--my son-in-law and I--have just come from him; he would not receive us--can't speak to anybody--can't speak at all! Conveniently hoarse! The parsonage of Golm, which the Count has promised him, sticks in his throat, I dare say! And it is a good mouthful--three thousand thalers a year, without the perquisites. But I should think the authorities would refuse their sanction; the toad-eating, hypocritical----"
"But, my dear Herr von Strummin!" said the President, looking round nervously.
"It is true enough!" cried Herr von Strummin; "the Count has forbidden him; the Count and he are always laying their heads together. My son-in-law----"
The two friends could not hear what Herr von Strummin, who at last, at the President's repeated request, moderated his loud voice, brought forward in further support of his views. They had dropped behind a little way, to clasp each other's hands again and again with tears in their eyes.
"Yesterday at the same hour we buried Cilli," said Justus. "Ferdinanda's Pietà, which I will finish, is to adorn her grave, and to make known to the world what a treasure of goodness, and love, and mercy lies buried there; and I will erect a monument to the two here. I told Meta my idea for doing it on the way here; she says it will be splendid; but how gladly would I really break stones for the rest of my life, as my father-in-law used to say of me, if I could awake to life again the good, the beautiful, the brave.--Your naval uniform is wonderfully becoming, Reinhold! I ought to have taken your portrait so; we must repeat it some day; the large gold epaulettes are splendid for modelling. And that parson won't read the funeral oration because the General and Uncle Ernst have determined that the two shall rest in one grave! He implored the General to alter the arrangement; they had not even been publicly betrothed! only think! But the General stood firm, and has asked your uncle to say a few words. Even that the parson won't have; but the two old gentlemen will not give in; they hold together like brothers. A telegram came just now for your uncle; I was with him when he opened it, and saw how he started; I am certain it has something to do with that unfortunate Philip, he has been arrested probably. It is terrible that your uncle must have that to bear too, on such a day as this; but he has said nothing to any one excepting the General. I saw them go aside together, and he showed him the telegram, and then they talked together for some time, and at last shook hands. Uncle Ernst, who had vowed that the hand which pressed the General's should wither! And to-day he has asked me half-a-dozen times if I believe that Ottomar's brother officers, who are expected, will really come--we have made the funeral so late on their account--it would be too sad for the General if they stayed away! As if he had no sorrows himself! He is really heroic! But your Elsa is admirable too. She loved, her brother dearly, but how quietly she moves and speaks now, and arranges everything, and has a willing ear and a kindly word for every one. 'I could not do that, you know,' says Meta; 'there is only one Elsa, you know.' Of course I know it! But there is only one Meta too; don't you think so?"
"My dear son-in-law!" cried Herr von Strummin, looking back.
"He has called me that at least a hundred times already to-day!" said Justus with a sigh, as he hastened on, lengthening his short steps.
They had reached the upper end of the deep narrow cutting, and saw the castle now immediately in front of them. It was a strange sight to the President, who had formerly known the place well, and whom Reinhold now led a few steps forward to the precipitous edge of the bank. For the stream had so washed and torn away the soil that here and there the bank positively overhung, and Reinhold could no longer find and show to the President the spot where the pine-tree had stood, whose fall had been fatal to Ottomar. Below them, between the steep bank and the castle, the stream still ran, no longer with the foaming waves and roaring whirlpools of that night of terror, but in calm transparent ripples, which met and joined together to form fresh ripples that plashed against the keels of the five large boats on which had been laid the temporary bridge that connected the head of the gorge with the old stone gateway of the castle yard. The battlements of the gateway and the great shield above, bearing the Warnow arms, shone in the evening light, as did the round tower of the castle and the higher roofs and gables, down to the sharply-cut line of the blue shadow thrown by the hillside over the receding portion of the building. And farther on to the right shone the tops of the trees in the flooded park, and beyond castle and park the still water which filled the whole immense bay, and seemed to flow without interruption towards the open sea. Under the brilliant slanting rays of the sun, the few points of the dunes still above water vanished even from Reinhold's sharp eyes; he could hardly distinguish the roofs of the Pölitz's farm, and here and there on the wide expanse the branches of a willow which formerly stood by the side of a ditch.
The President stood lost in thought; he seemed to have forgotten even Reinhold's presence.
"The day will come," Reinhold heard him murmur.
They crossed the bridge of boats, with the water gurgling and splashing against the sharp keels; through the wide gateway sounded a subdued hum of voices.
Now for the first time as they passed through the gate, they saw why the village had looked deserted. The immense courtyard was filled, particularly at the end nearest to the castle, with a crowd of nearly a thousand people, standing about in large groups, who as they respectfully made way for the gentlemen advancing to the door, took note of them curiously, and made whispered remarks upon them behind their backs. "The one next to the Captain was the President!" said those who knew him, and they were the majority, to the others. "If the President, who was the principal person in the whole province, and such a good gentleman too, who was sure to act for the best, had come here and was going to be present at the funeral, why then the parson could not possibly stay at home. And if the parson had known that the President would be here, he would never have been ill. He wouldn't get the parsonage at Golm for a long time yet, and if the Count liked to make him his domestic chaplain, why he might please himself; but whether the Count and his chaplain would be any richer than the mice in the chapel at Golm was another question. And if the Count meant to play the master here, they would soon put him out of conceit with that; but Herr Damberg said there was no chance of that; he might think himself fortunate if he came off with his life, and at any rate his property would be sequestrated!"
The four gentlemen had entered the castle. A more numerous and brilliant group which now appeared on the bridge, attracted the attention of the multitude. It was a party of officers in full uniform, followed at a little distance by a larger number of non-commissioned officers--belonging to Herr von Werben's regiment, said those who had been in the army and who had seen Ottomar in his coffin. "And the Colonel, who came first, he commanded his regiment too, and any one who had served under him in France could see that he knew how to command, by the look of his eyes and nose; and the Captain, who came next to him, was one of the Staff who had been sent here by Field Marshal Moltke himself; and the tall Lieutenant, also in the uniform of Herr von Werben's regiment, was the young Herr von Wartenberg of the Bolswitz Wartenbergs; and as for the old Bolswitz people, they had arrived more than an hour ago in their carriage with three outriders from their place ten miles off. And so how could a word be true of all the nonsense talked about young Herr von Werben, that he had not been taken to Berlin because he would not have had an honourable burial there, and now here were people coming the whole way from Berlin to assist at his funeral!"
Justus, who had readily undertaken the direction of the simple funeral ceremonies, and who now saw the officers crossing the courtyard, waited in the hall long enough to receive them, and to conduct them into the room on the right hand where the company was assembled. Then he made a sign to Reinhold to follow him, and led him through a door at the end of the hall which he opened cautiously and immediately shut behind him. "No one is allowed to enter now," said he. "What do you say to it, Reinhold?"
The lofty and handsome room had its shutters closed, but was filled with the soft light of innumerable wax candles in chandeliers and branches on the walls, and in candelabra between masses of evergreen plants and young fir-trees, which were beautifully arranged in a semicircle opening towards the entrance to the room, and surrounding the two coffins which stood on a high daïs, carpeted and covered with flowers. The walls around were adorned with old armour which Justus had rescued from the lumber-room, and fine casts from the antique, even some originals collected by a former art-loving possessor of the castle, and which he had brought together from the various rooms, and also with bouquets of leafy plants and fir-trees, between which lights were burning.
"Have not I made it splendid!" whispered Justus, "and all in these few hours this morning! How they would both have liked it--he the armour, and she the statues! But the most beautiful things here are themselves. I must call the family now, Reinhold, before we close the coffins; do you take your farewell now. You have not had so much opportunity yet as the others."
Justus disappeared through a door which led to the inner apartments; and Reinhold mounted the steps and stood between the coffins, in which they slept the sleep that knows no waking.
Yes, they were beautiful! more beautiful than they had been in life. Death seemed to have purified them from every earthly taint, that their noble natures might show themselves in all their grandeur. How grand, how fine was this maiden's face! how exquisitely sweet the youth's! And as if in dying the union of their souls had been truly accomplished, and each had lovingly given to the other what best adorned them in life, on her lips that had been so proudly closed was a tender, happy, humble smile, while from his delicate pure features death had wiped away with the restless glance of the nervous eyes and the impatient quiver of the delicate mouth, all that was imperfect and unfinished, and left nothing but the expression of heroic determination with which he had gone to his death, and to which a solemn seal was set by the broad red scar on the white forehead. There was a slight rustle in the leaves behind him; he turned and opened his arms to Elsa. She leant against him weeping: "Only for a moment," she whispered, "that I may feel your dear heart beat, and know that I have you living still, my comfort, my help!" She raised herself again. "Farewell, farewell! For the last time, farewell, my dear, dear brother! Farewell, my beautiful, proud sister, whom I should have loved so dearly!"
She kissed them both on their pale lips; then Reinhold took her in his arms and led her down from the side of the daïs, where he saw Justus and Meta standing hand in hand a little way off between the shrubs, while from the back appeared upon the daïs the General, Valerie, and Sidonie, Uncle Ernst and Aunt Rikchen, to take leave of the dead. It was a solemn yet exciting moment, the details of which Reinhold's tear-filled eyes could not seize or retain, while to Justus's keen artist's eye one touching and beautiful picture followed another--none more touching or beautiful to him, who knew these people and their circumstances so well, than the last which he saw: the General with tender care almost carrying down the steps of the daïs the utterly exhausted Valerie--she had only left her sick-room for this moment, and had covered her head with a thick lace veil--while Uncle Ernst's powerful figure, still standing above, bent down to good little Aunt Rikchen, and he passed his strong large hand soothingly over her pale, sorrowful, tear-stained cheek.
"Do you know," whispered Meta, "they are feeling now just what we did when he stood by our sleeping angel, that they must love one another very much now, you know."
Half an hour later the funeral procession moved from the gateway, from whose battlements floated in the soft evening breeze on one side the German flag, on the other a black flag, and passed over the bridge of boats, up the gully, and from there turning to the right, entered the gradually ascending road to the churchyard, which lay on the highest of the hills that had now become the shore, a few hundred paces from the village. It was a long, solemn procession.
First came village children, strewing with fir branches the sandy road before the coffins, the one adorned with palms, in which lay hidden the virgin form of the beautiful and heroic maiden, carried by sturdy pilots and fishermen from Wissow, who insisted upon bearing their Captain's cousin to her last resting-place; and the other with the warlike emblems of the man for whom she had died, and whom a merciful fate had permitted to die the death of a brave man, worthy of the decorations he had won in presence of the enemy, and which the sergeant of his troop carried behind him on a silk cushion, worthy that the gallant soldiers who had known him in his brightest days, whose shoulders his kindly hand had so often rested on in the heat of battle, by the blazing camp-fire, on the weary march, should carry him now on his way to answer to the great roll-call.
Behind the coffins came the two fathers, then Reinhold leading his Elsa, Justus with his Meta,--Sidonie and Aunt Rikchen had remained with Valerie,--the President and Colonel von Bohl, Schönau and the brilliant company of other officers, the neighbouring gentry with their wives, Herr and Frau von Strummin, the Wartenbergs, the Griebens, the Boltenhagens and Warnekows, and all the rest of the descendants of the old, long-established families; the innumerable following of landsmen and sailors, the gigantic form of the worthy Pölitz, and the stalwart figure of the head pilot, Bonsak, at their head.
A long, solemn, silent procession, accompanied step by step by the monotonous sound of the tide washing against the steep banks, and now and then the shrill cry of a gull, as skimming over the dazzling water, it seemed curiously to watch the strange sight, or a whispered word from some man to his neighbour, that even those nearest before or behind could not hear.
Such was the word that the General spoke to Uncle Ernst, as the head of the procession reached the graveyard, "Do you feel strong enough?" and that which Uncle Ernst answered, "Now for the first time I feel myself strong again."
But even Reinhold and Elsa, who walked behind them, would not have understood it if they had heard. Uncle Ernst had not shown to any one yet, excepting the General, the telegram of which Justus had spoken, the fateful message, in the dry hard style of a police official.
"Philip Schmidt, on the point of embarking to-night on board steamer 'Hansa,' from Bremerhaven to Chili, recognised, and shot himself with a revolver in his cabin; misappropriated money recovered untouched; will be buried to-morrow evening at six o'clock."
Under the broad hand which he had thrust into his overcoat lay the paper, and against it beat his mighty heart, beat in truth stronger and with revived pride, now that he might say to himself that his unhappy son was not at least one of the cowards who prized life above all things; that even for him there had been a measure of infamy which could not be over-passed, since at that moment he had spilt the cup of life--a draught too insipid and miserable for even his dishonoured lips.
The coffins had been let down into their common grave. At the head of the grave stood Uncle Ernst bareheaded, and bareheaded stood the crowd in a wide semicircle around him.
Bareheaded, silent, looking up to the stately man whose figure stood out giant-like from the hill-side in the rosy evening light.
And now he lifted his great eyes, which seemed to embrace the whole assembly in one glance, and now he raised his deep voice, whose bell-like tones carried every word distinctly to the extreme edge of the circle:
"My friends all! I may call you so, for in the presence of a great sorrow all men are friends, and in this lies the healing and saving power of a tragic fate, and also its necessity. As my shadow falls here upon you, so does every one stand between other men and the sun of fortune, and each envies the other his portion, which should, he thinks, belong to him; and he forgets that it is only an outward show that he so eagerly desires, a glittering show without warmth, and that the warmth which he should indeed desire dwells in the heart of every man, and is that alone which makes life worth having, or even possible. Woe to us poor human creatures, that we forget this for long, loveless years, forget the sublime words that love is above all, and drown the pleadings of the heart that longs for love with the hollow tinkle of our meagre knowledge and our paltry wisdom! Woe to the individual, and woe to the nation!
"Woe to the nation that forgets it, and exists for generations and centuries in crass selfishness and blind hatred, till the hereditary foe breaks into its fields, and, waking the people from their dull dreams, reminds them at length that they are brothers; and as brothers they stand by one another, as we have done on innumerable battle-fields in the most glorious and most righteous of all wars, only on returning home to begin anew the struggle over mine and thine--the wild, desolating struggle of self-advancement, that feels no shame and knows no mercy, desires no peace and gives no pardon, and respects no right but that of the victor, who scornfully tramples the conquered under foot. Oh, my friends! we have experienced this! These last years will remain noted as the most shameful, following immediately upon the most glorious in our history--a melancholy memorial and sign how low a great nation can sink.
"But our great German nation cannot, will not sink deeper.
"Let us, my friends, take this fearful storm with its desolating horrors, which have now exhausted themselves and upon which this sublime peace has come down from heaven, as a token that the storm which is now raging through German society will sweep away the poisonous vapours of self-love, and make the glorious German sun shine brighter than before; that the barren waters which now cover so many acres of young green grass will pass away, and offer a new land for fresh honest labour and honest golden fruits.
"May this hope and this assurance soften the grief for the beloved dead whom we now commit to the sacred bosom of the earth--this hope, this assurance, and the certainty that they have not died in vain; that they were blossoms struck down by the storm to warn the gardener that he must tend and cherish the noble tree more carefully.
"The call comes thus to us the elders and old men. As they died gladly and joyfully, without asking whether they might not still live, hastening to death as to a feast, so must we live without asking whether we had not rather die.
"The call comes thus to you who are younger, to you all the louder and more urgently, the longer the road stretches before you, the more powerful are the obstacles that rise in your path.
"Oh! thou bright star of day, whose last ray now shines upon us, and thou holy sea, and thou reviving earth, I take you all to witness the vow which we make at the grave of these too early dead: to renounce from this hour all littleness and meanness, to live henceforth in the light of truth, to love each other with the whole strength of our hearts! May the God of truth and love overrule all to the honour of man, and the glory of the German name!"
The voice of the speaker died away, but the echo of his words reverberated in the hearts of the hearers as they pressed silently round to offer the last honours to the dead, bathed in the reflection of the rosy glow which the sun, now set, threw up to the sky, and which the sky lovingly returned to the earth.