Que toutes joies et toutes honneursViennent d'armes et d'amours.
Que toutes joies et toutes honneursViennent d'armes et d'amours.
Jack's refrain, which he had hummed so continually during our ride to Austria, came into my head, and set itself to the lilt of the music. Well, I had made essay of both arms and love, and I had got little joy and less honour therefrom, unless it be joy to burn with anxieties, and honour to labour as a peasant and be deemed a common trickster!
The music ceased; the guests went homewards down the hill, laughing and singing as they went; the Castle gradually grew silent. The door of my room was unlocked and flung open, and Groder entered, bearing a candle in his hand. He set it down upon the table, and drew a long knife from a sheath which projected out of his pocket. This he held and flourished before my eyes, seeking like a child to terrify me with his antics, until Father Spaur, following in upon his heels, bade him desist from his buffoonery.
Groder cut the girdle which bound my ankles.
"March!" said he.
But my legs were so numbed with the tightness of the cord that they refused their office. Father Spaur ordered him to chafe my limbs with his hands, which he did very unwillingly, and after a little I was able to walk, though with uncertain and wavering steps.
"Should you suffer at all at Groder's hands," said the priest pleasantly, "I beg you to console yourself with certain reflections which I shared with you one afternoon that we rode together."
We proceeded along the corridor and turned into the gallery which ran round the hall. But at the head of the great staircase I stopped and drew back. The priest's taunts and Groder's insolence I had endured in silence. What they had bidden me do, that I had done; for in the miscarriage of my fortunes I was minded to bear myself as a gentleman should, without pettish complaints or an unavailing resistance which could only entail upon me further indignities. But from this final humiliation I shrank.
Below me the entire household of servants was ranged in the hall, leaving a lane open from the foot of the stairs to the door. Every face was turned towards me--except one. One face was held aside and hidden in a handkerchief, and since that hour I have ever felt a special friendliness and gratitude for the withered little Frenchwoman, Clemence Durette. Alone of all that company she showed some pity for my plight. None the less, however, my eyes went wandering for another sight. What with the uncertain glare of the torches, that sent waves of red light and shadow in succession sweeping across the throng of faces, 'twas some while or ever I could discover the Countess. That she was present I had no doubt, and at last I saw her, standing by the door apart from her servants, her face white, and her eyelids closed over her eyes.
Groder pushed me roughly in the small of the back, and I stumbled down the topmost steps. There was no escape from the ordeal, and glancing neither to the right nor to the left, I walked between the silent rows of servants. I passed within a yard of Countess Lukstein, but she made no movement; she never even raised her eyes. A carriage stood in the courtyard, and I got into it, and was followed by Michael Groder and Otto. As we drove off a hubbub arose within the hall, and it seemed to me that a ring was formed about the doorway, as though some one had fallen. But before I had time to take much note of it, a cloth was bound over my eyes, and the carriage rolled down the hill.
At the bottom, where the track from Lukstein debouches upon the main road, we turned eastwards in the direction of Meran, and thence again to the left, ascending an incline; so that I gathered we were entering a ravine parallel to the Senner Thal, but further east.
In a while the carriage stopped, and Otto, opening the door, told me civilly enough to descend. Then he took me by the arm and led me across a threshold into a room. A woman's voice was raised in astonishment.
"Wait till he's plucked of his feathers!" laughed Groder, and bade her close the shutters.
The bandage was removed from my eyes, and by the grey morning light which pierced through the crevices of the window, I perceived that I was in some rough cottage. An old woman stood gaping open-mouthed before me. Groder sharply bade her go and prepare breakfast. Otto unbound my wrists, and pointed to a heap of clothes which lay in a corner, and so they left me to myself.
I had some difficulty in putting on these clothes, since my wrists were swollen and well-nigh useless from their long confinement. Indeed, but for a threat which Groder shouted through the door, saying that he would come and assist me to make my toilet, I doubt whether I should have succeeded at all.
For breakfast they brought me a pannikin full of a greasy steaming gruel, which I constrained myself to swallow. Then they bound my hands again. Groder wrapped up the clothes which I had taken off in a bundle, and slung it on his back. Otto replaced the bandage on my eyes, and we set out, mounting upwards by a rough mountain track, along which they guided me. About noon Otto called a halt, and none too soon, for I was ready to drop with fatigue and pain. There we made a meal of some dry coarse bread, and washed it down with spirit of a very bitter flavour. 'Twas new to me at the time, but I know now that it was distilled from the gentian flower. Groder lit a fire and burned the bundle of clothes which he had brought with him, the two men sharing my jewels between them.
From that point we left the track and climbed up a grass slope, winding this way and that in the ascent. 'Twas as much as I could do to keep my feet, though Otto and Groder supported me upon either side. At the top we dipped down again for a little, crossed a level field of heather, but in what direction I know not, for by this I had lost all sense of our bearings, mounted again, descended again, and towards nightfall came to a hut. Groder thrust me inside, plucked the cloth from my face, and unbound my hands.
"'Tis a long day's journey," said he; "but what matters that if you make it only once?"
The hut wherein I passed the first month of my captivity was of a more solid construction than is customary at so great a height, and had been built by the order of Count Lukstein for a shelter when the chase brought him hitherwards. For the hillside was covered with a dense forest of fir-trees in which chamois abounded, and now and again, though 'twas never my lot to come across one, a bear might be discovered.
The hut had a sort of vestibule paved with cobble-stones and roofed with pine-wood. From this hall a room led out upon either side, though only that upon the right hand was used by the wood-cutters who dwelt here. Of these there were two, and they lived and slept in the one room, cooking the gruel or porridge, which formed our chief food, in a great cauldron slung over a rough fireplace of stones in the centre of the floor. There was no chimney to carry off the smoke, not so much as a hole in the wall; but the smoke found its way out as best it might through the door. From the hall a ladder led up through a trap-door into a loft above, and as soon as we had supped, Groder bade me mount it, and followed me himself. The wood-cutters below removed the ladder, Groder closed the trap, and, spreading some branches of fir upon it, laid him down and went to sleep. I followed his example in the matter of making my bed, but, as you may believe, I got little sleep that night. For one thing my arms and legs were now become so swollen and painful that it tortured me even to move them, and it was full two days before I was sufficiently recovered to be able to descend from the loft. By that time Otto had got him back to the valley, and I was left under the authority of Groder, which he used without scruple or intermission. Each morning at daybreak the ladder was hoisted to the loft. We descended and despatched a hasty breakfast; thereupon I was given an axe, and the four of us proceeded into the forest, where we felled trees the day long. Through the gaps in the clearings I would look across the valley to the bleak rocks and naked snow-fields, and thoughts of English meadows knee-deep in grass, and of rooks cawing through a summer afternoon, would force themselves into my mind until I grew well-nigh daft with longing for a sight of them. At nightfall we returned to the hut and partook of a meal, and no words wasted. When the meal was finished I was straightway banished to my loft, where I lay in the dark, and heard through the floor the wood-cutters breaking into all sorts of rough jests and songs now that I was no longer present to check their merriment For towards me they consistently showed the greatest taciturnity and sullen reserve. 'Twas seldom that any one except Groder addressed a word to me, and in truth I would lief he had been as silent as the rest. For when he opened his mouth 'twas only to utter some command in a harsh, growling tone as though he spoke to a cur, and to couple thereto a coarse and unseemly oath.
For a time I endured this servitude in an extraordinary barrenness of mind. Not even the thought of escape stirred me to activity. The sudden misfortune which had befallen me seemed to have numbed and dulled all but my bodily faculties. Moreover the long and arduous labour, to which I was set, wearied me in the extreme, and each evening I came back so broken with fatigue that I wished for nothing so much as to climb into my loft and stretch myself out upon my branches in the dark, though even then I was often too tired to sleep, and so would lie hour after hour counting the seconds by the pulsing of my sinews.
After a couple of weeks had gone by, however, I began to take some notice of the place of my captivity, and to seek whether by any means I might compass my escape. For I recalled, with an apprehension which quickened speedily, as I dwelt upon it, into a panic of terror, the singular prophecy and sentence which the Countess had flung at me. I began to see myself already sinking into a dull apathy, performing my daily task, with no thought beyond my physical needs, until I became one with these coarse peasants in spirit and mind.
What else, I reflected, could happen? Remote from all intercourse or companionship, with not so much as a single book to divert me, labouring with my hands from dawn to dusk, and guarded ever by ignorant boors who reckoned me not worth even their speech--what else could I become? 'Twould need far less than a lifetime to work the transformation!
But, however carefully I watched, I could by no means come at the opportunity of an evasion. At night, as I have said, Groder shared the loft with me, and slept over the trap-door; nor was there any window or other opening through which I might drop to the ground, since the roof reached down to the flooring upon every side. This roof consisted of a thatch of boughs, and of large sheets of bark superimposed upon them, and weighted down by heavy stones. One night, indeed, when Groder lay snoring, I endeavoured to force an opening through the thatch; but I had no help beyond what my hands afforded me--for they took my axe from me every night as soon as we got back to the hut--and I was compelled, moreover, to work with the greatest caution and quietude lest I should awaken my companion; so that I got nothing for my pains but a few scratches and an additional fatigue to carry through the morrow.
Nor, indeed, was my case any better in the day-time. We all worked in the same clearing, and at no single moment was I out of sight of my gaolers.
But even had I succeeded in eluding them, I doubt whether at this time I should have been any nearer the fulfilment of my desire. For I knew not so much as the direction of Lukstein, and I should only have wandered helpless amongst these heights until either I was recaptured or perished miserably upon the desolate wastes of snow.
The hut stood in the centre of a little hollow, on the brink of a torrent, and was girt about by a rim of hills. There was, indeed, but one outlet, and that a precipitous gully, through which the water rushed with a great roaring noise, and I gathered from this that it fell pretty sheer. I was the more inclined to this conjecture, since had the gully afforded a path it would have been the natural entrance into the hollow, and I knew that I had not been brought that way, else I must needs have remarked the roar of the stream sooner than I did. For that sound only came to my ears when I was but a short distance from the hut.
If you stood with your back to the door of the hut, the noise came from directly behind you. On your right rose the pine-forest wherein we laboured, very steep and dense, to the crest of a hill; on your left a barren wilderness, encumbered by stones, sloped up to the foot of a great field of snow, which grew steeper and steeper towards its summit. Here and there great masses of ice bulged out from the incline, like nothing so much as the bosses of shields. I was rather apt to underrate the size and danger of these, until one day a fragment, which seemed in comparison no greater than a pea, broke away from one of these bosses and dropped on to the slope beneath, starting, as it were, a little rillet of snow down the hillside. On the instant the hollow was filled with a great thunder, as though a battery of cannon had been discharged; and I should hardly have believed this fragment could have produced so great a disturbance, had not the Tyrolese looked across the valley, and by their words to one another assured me it was so.
In front of you, the head of this hollow was blocked up by a tongue of ice, which wound downwards like some huge dragon, and the stream of which I have spoken flowed from the tip of it, as though the dragon spewed the water from its mouth. It was then apparent to me from these observations that I had been carried into this prison by some track through the pine-forest, and I set myself to the discovery of it. But whether the wood-cutters kept aloof from it, or whether it was in reality indistinguishable, I could perceive no trace of it. At one point on the crest of the hill there was a marked depression, and I judged that there lay the true entrance; but through the gap I could see nothing but a sea of white, with dark peaks of rock tossed this way and that, and dreaded much adventuring myself that way.
It soon came upon me, however, that in whichever way I determined to make my attempt, I must needs delay the actual enterprise until the spring; for we were now in the month of November, and the snow falling very thickly, so that for some while we worked knee-deep in snow. Then one morning Groder and his comrades once more bound my hands and bandaged my eyes, and we set off to pass the winter in one of the lower valleys. On this occasion I took such notice as I could of our direction, and from the diminishing sound of the waterfall, I understood that we marched for some distance towards the head of the valley, and then turned to the right through the pine-forest. Evidently we were making for the gap in the ridge of the hill, and I determined to pay particular heed to the course which we followed down the other side. Again, however, I was led in a continual zigzag, first to the right, then to the left, and with such irregular distances between each turn that it became impossible to keep a clear notion of our direction. At times, too, we would retrace our steps, at others we seemed to be describing the greater part of a circle; so that in the end, when we finally reached our quarters, I was little wiser than at the moment of setting out.
There were some five or six cottages in the ravine whither we were come, and one of them most undeniably an inn; for though I was not suffered to go there myself--nor, indeed, had I any inclination that way--my guardians frequently brought back upon their tongues and in their faces evidence as convincing as a sign swinging above the door. In truth if the house was not an inn, it possessed the most hospitable master in the world.
None the less strictly, however, on this account was the watch maintained upon me; for if Groder and his fellows chanced to be incapacitated for the time, there were ever some peasants from the neighbouring cottages ready to fill their place; though, indeed, there was but little necessity for their zeal, for the snow lay many feet deep upon the ground, and the only path along which one could travel at all led down to the more populous parts of the valley, through which, at this time of the year, it would be impossible to escape. One could journey no faster than at a snail's pace, and would leave, besides, an unmistakable trail for the pursuers.
These winter months proved the most irksome of my captivity, my sole occupation being the plaiting of ropes from the flax which was grown about these parts. At this tedious and mechanic labour I toiled for many hours a day, in an exceeding great vacancy of spirit, until I hit upon a plan by which I might exercise my mind without hindering the work of my fingers. 'Twas my terror lest my wits should wither for lack of use that first set me on the device; since, indeed, it mattered little how or when Countess Ilga discovered that I had slain her husband. Shehaddiscovered it; that was the kernel of the matter, and the searching out of the means whereby she gained the knowledge no more than an idle cracking of the shell into little fragments after the kernel has been removed.
Many incidents, of course, became intelligible to me now that I knew whose portrait the miniature box contained. The sudden swoon of Lady Tracy in the hall at Pall Mall was now easily accounted for. The moment before I had been speaking of the miniature, and Lady Tracy knew--what I could not know--that Ilga held a proof of her acquaintanceship with the Count, and would be certain to attribute it as the cause of his death. It was doubtless, also, that piece of knowledge which drove her to such a pitch of fear that on seeing the Countess at Bristol she disclosed the story to her brother and besought his protection. I understood, moreover, the drift of the words which Marston was uttering when death took him. He meant to ask a question, not to make an explanation.
Concerning those events, however, which more nearly concerned myself I was not so clear. I had no clue whereby I could ascertain how the Countess first came to fix her suspicions upon me, and in the absence of that, my speculations were the merest conjectures. Much of course was significant to me which I had disregarded, as, for instance, the journey of Countess Lukstein to Bristol, the diagram which she had drawn on the gravel under the piazza of Covent Garden, the perplexity with which she had regarded the diagram, and the sudden start she had given when I mentioned the date of my departure from Leyden. For I remembered that she had previously remarked the Horace when she came to visit me; and in that volume the date "September 14, 1685," was inscribed on the page opposite to Julian's outline of Lukstein.
These details, now that I was aware she suspected me at that time, were full of significance, but they gave me no help towards the solving of that first question as to what directed her thoughts my way. It seemed to me, indeed, as I looked back upon the incidents of our acquaintance, that the Countess, almost from our first meeting, had begun to set her husband's death to my account.
One thing, however, I did clearly recognise, and for that recognition I shall ever be most gratefully thankful. 'Twas of far more importance to me than any academic speculations, and I do but cite them here that I may show how I came by it. I perceived that 'twas not so much any investigation on the part of the Countess which had betrayed me to her, as my own wilful and independent actions. Of my own free choice I came from Cumberland to seek her; of my own free choice I brought her to my rooms, where she saw the Horace; of my own free choice I joined her in the box at the Duke's Theatre, and so led Marston to speak of my ride to Bristol; and again of my own free choice I had persuaded Lady Tracy to enter the house in Pall Mall and confront my mistress. Even in the matter of the diagram, 'twas my anxiety and insistence to prove that Lady Tracy and I were strangers which induced me to dwell upon the date of my leaving Holland, and so gave to the Countess the clue to resolve her perplexity. In short, my very efforts at concealment were the means by which suspicion was ratified and assured, and I could not but believe that Providence in its great wisdom had so willed it. 'Tis that belief and conviction for which I have ever been most grateful; for it enheartened me with patience to endure my present sufferings, and saved me, in particular, from cherishing a petty rancour and resentment against the lady who inflicted them.
I had yet one other consolation during this winter. For at times Otto Krax would come up from the valley to inquire after the prisoner. At first he would but stay for the night and so get him back; but his visits gradually lengthened and grew more frequent, an odd friendship springing up between us. For one thing, I was attracted to him because he came from Lukstein, and, indeed, might have had speech with Countess Ilga upon the very day of his coming. But, besides that, there was a certain dignity about the man which set him apart from these rude peasants, and made his companionship very welcome. He showed his good-will towards me by recounting at great length all that happened at Lukstein, and on the eve of the Epiphany, which 'tis the fashion of this people to celebrate with much rejoicing, he brought me a pipe and a packet of tobacco. No present could have been more grateful, and it touched me to notice his pleasure when I manifested my delight. We went out of the cottage together, and sat smoking in the starlight upon a boulder, and I remember that he told me one might see upon this evening a woman in white clothing, with a train of little ragged children chattering and clattering behind her. 'Twas Procula, the wife of Pontius Pilate, he explained. 'Twas her penance to wander over the world until the last day attended by the souls of all children that died before they had been baptized, and at the season of the Epiphany she ever passed through the valleys of the Tyrol. However, we saw naught of her that night.
Early in May Groder carried me back to the hollow, and I began seriously to consider in what way I should be most like to effect my escape. At any cost I was firmly resolved to venture the attempt, and during this summer too, dreading the thought of a second winter of such unendurable monotony as that through which I had passed.
We were now set to drag from the hillside to the brink of the torrent the wood which we had felled in the autumn, so that as the stream swelled with the melting of the snows we might send the timber floating down to the valley. 'Twas a task of great labour, and since we had to saw many of the trunks into logs before we could move them, one that occupied no inconsiderable time. Indeed we had not the wood fairly stacked upon the bank until we were well into the first days of June. Meanwhile I had turned over many projects in my mind, but not one that seemed to offer me a possibility of success. I realised especially that if I sought to escape by the way we had come, I should, even though I were so lucky as to hit upon the right path, nevertheless, have to pass through the most inhabited portion of the district. And did I succeed so far, I should then find myself in the valley, close by Castle Lukstein, with not so much as a penny piece in my pocket to help me further on my way. Besides, by that route would Groder be certain to pursue me the moment he discovered my escape, and being familiar with the windings of the ravines, he would most surely overtake me. Yet in no other direction could I discover the hint of an outlet. I was in truth like a fly with wetted wings in the hollow of a cup.
It was our custom to launch the trunks endwise into the torrent, but one of them, which was larger than the rest, being caught in a swirl, turned broadside to the stream, and floating down thus, stuck in the narrow defile, through which the water plunged out of the hollow. The barrier thus begun was strengthened by each succeeding log, so that in a very short time a solid dam was raised, the water running away underneath. To remedy this, Groder bade the peasants and myself take our axes to the spot and cut the wood free.
Now this defile was no more than a deep channel bored by the torrent, and on one side of it the cliff rose precipitously to the height of a hundred feet. On the other, however, a steep slope of grass and bushes, with here and there a dwarf-pine clinging to it, ran down to a rough platform of rock, only twenty feet or so above the surface of the current. To one of these trees we bound a couple of stout ropes, and two men were lowered on to the block of timber, while the third remained upon the platform to see that the ropes did not slip, and to haul the others up. So we worked all the day, taking turn and turn about on the platform.
To this lower end of the dale I had never come before, and when the time arrived for me to rest, I naturally commenced to look about me and consider whether or no I might escape that way. Beneath me the torrent leaped and foamed in a mist of spray, here sweeping along the cliff with a breaking crest like a wave, there circling in a whirlpool about a boulder, and all with such a prodigious roar that I could not hear my companions speak, though they shouted trumpet-wise through their hands. 'Twas indeed no less than I had expected; the stream filled the outlet from side to side.
Then I looked across to the great snow-slope opposite, and in an instant I understood the position of Captivity Hollow, as, for want of a better name, I termed the place of my confinement. The slope finished abruptly just over against me, as though it had been shorn by a knife, and I could see that the end face of it was a gigantic wall of rock. I saw this wall in profile, as one may say, and for that very reason I recognised it the more surely. 'Twas singularly flat, and unbroken by buttresses; not a patch of snow was to be discovered anywhere upon its face, and, moreover, the shape of its apex, which was like the cupola upon a church belfry, made any mistake impossible. In a word, the mountain was the Wildthurm; the wall of cliff blocked the head of the Senner Thal, and the slope on which I gazed was the eastern side, which I had likened to one of the canvas sides of a tent.
If I could but cross it, I thought! No one would look for me in that direction. I could strike into one of the many ravines that led into the Vintschgau Thal to the west of Lukstein, and thence make my way to Innspruck. If only I could cross it! But I gazed at the slope, and my heart died within me. It rose before my eyes vast and steep, flashing menace from a thousand glittering points. Besides, the early summer was upon us, and the sun hot in the sky, so that never an hour passed in the forenoon but blocks of ice would split off and thunder down the incline.
The notion, however, still worked in my head throughout the day, and as we returned to the hut I eagerly scanned the upper end of our ravine, for at that point the slope of the Wildthurm declined very greatly in height. Whilst the Tyrolese went in to prepare supper I stayed by the door.
"Come!" shouted one of them at length--it was not Groder. "Come, unless you prefer to sleep fasting."
And I turned to go in, with my mind made up; for I had perceived, running upwards beside the tongue of ice which I have described, a long, narrow ridge. 'Twas neither of ice nor snow, and in colour a reddish brown, so that I imagined it to be a mound of earth, thrown up in some way by the pressure of the snow. Along that it seemed to me that I might find a path.
Groder was crouched up close to the fire, shivering by fits and starts, like a man with an ague. He glanced evilly at me as I entered the room, but said no word either to me or to his comrades, and kept muttering to himself concerning "the Cold Torment." I knew not what the man meant, but 'twas plain that he was shaken with a great fear; and even during the night I heard him more than once start from his sleep with a cry, and those same words upon his lips, "the Cold Torment."
The next morning, hearing that the barrier was well-nigh cut through, he ordered only one of the peasants to take me with him and complete the work. I was lowered on to the dam first, and laboured at it with saw and axe for the greater part of the morning. About noon, however, I took my turn upon the platform, and after I had been standing some little while, bent over the torrent, with my hand ready upon the rope, since at any moment the logs might give way, I suddenly raised myself to ease my back, and turned about.
Just above me on the slope I saw Groder's face peering over the edge of a boulder. 'Twas so contorted with malignancy and hatred that it had no human quality except its shape. 'Twas the face of a devil. For one moment I saw it; the next it dropped behind the stone. I pretended to have noticed nothing, and so stood looking everywhere except in his direction. The expression upon his face left me no doubt as to his intention. He was minded to take a leaf from my book, and precipitate the boulder upon me when my back was turned, in which case I should not come off so cheaply as he had done, for I should inevitably be swept into the torrent. The boulder, I observed, was in a line with the spot where I must stand in order to handle the rope.
What to do I could not determine. I dared not show him openly that I had detected his design, for I should most likely in that event provoke an open conflict, and I doubted not that the other peasant was within call to help him to an issue if help were needed; and even if I succeeded in avoiding a conflict, I should only put him upon his guard and make him use more precautions when next he attempted my life.
I turned me again to the torrent and took the rope in my hand, with my ears open for any sound behind me. I stooped slowly forwards, as if to watch my companion, thinking that Groder would launch the stone as soon as he deemed it impossible for me to recover in time to elude it. And so it proved. I heard a dull thud as the boulder fell forward upon the turf. I sprang quickly to one side, and not a moment too soon, for the boulder whizzed past me on a level with my shoulder, leaped across the stream, and was shattered into a thousand fragments against the opposite cliff. The man below, who had been almost startled from his footing, began to curse me roundly for my carelessness, and I answered him without casting a glance to my rear, deeming it prudent to give Groder the opportunity to crawl away into cover.
In that, however, I made a mistake, and one that went near to costing me my life, for when I did turn, after explaining that the boulder had slipped of its own weight and momentum, Groder was within ten feet of me. He had crept noiselessly down the bank, and now stood with one foot planted against it, the other upon the platform, his body all gathered together for a leap. His teeth were bared, his eyes very bright, and in his hand he held a long knife. I ran for my hatchet, which lay some yards distant, but he was upon me before I could stoop to pick it up. The knife flashed above my head; I caught at Groder's wrist as it descended and grappled him close, for I knew enough of their ways of fighting to feel assured that if I did but give his arms free play, my eyes would soon be lying on my cheeks.
Backwards and forwards we swayed upon the narrow platform with never a word spoken. Then from the torrent came a great crack and a shout. I knew well enough what was happening. The barrier was giving, the water was bursting the timber, and the peasant would of a surety be crushed and ground to death between the loosened logs. But I dared not relax my grip. Groder's breath was hot upon my face, his knife ever quivering towards my throat. I heard a few quick sounds as of the snapping of twigs, and once, I think, again the cry of a man in distress; but the roaring of the waters was in my ears and I could not be sure.
The labours of my captivity had hardened my limbs and sinews, else had Groder mastered me more easily; but as it was, I felt my strength ebbing, and twice the knife pricked into my shoulder as he pressed it down. The din of the torrent died away. I was sensible of a deathly stillness of the elements. It seemed as though Nature held its breath. Suddenly a look of terror sprang into Groder's face. He redoubled his efforts, and I felt my back give. Involuntarily I closed my eyes, and then his fingers loosened their hold. He plucked himself free with a jerk, and stood sullenly looking up the slope. I followed the direction of his gaze, and saw Otto Krax standing above me. Gradually the torrent became audible to me again; there was a rustling of leaves in the wind, and in a little I understood that some one was speaking. Groder advanced slowly across the grass and reached out the hand which held the knife. Very calmly Otto grasped it by the wrist, twisted the arm, and snapped it across his knee. What he said I could not hear, but Groder went up the slope holding his broken arm, and I saw his face no more.
Otto came down to me.
"You have never been nearer your death but once," he said.
I made no reply, but pointed to the rope at my feet. 'Twas dragging to and fro upon the platform, and the thought of what dangled and tossed in the water at the tag of it turned me sick. Otto walked to the edge and looked over. Then he drew his knife and cut the rope.
"I saw only the end of the struggle," said he. "How did it begin?"
I told him briefly what had occurred.
"'Twas you taught him the trick," he said, with a laugh; "and he bore you no good-will for the lesson."
"But what brought you so pat?" I asked.
"I was sent," he replied. "'Twas thought best I should follow."
"Follow? Follow whom?" said I.
He made no answer to my question, and continued hurriedly.
"I asked the fellow at the hut where you were, and he directed me here--not a minute too soon either. Were you working at the timber yesterday?"
"All day."
"Did Groder help?"
"No! He remained behind."
Otto gave a grunt.
"Alone?" he asked.
"Quite," I replied. "The others were with me."
We walked back to the hut together, and as on the evening before, I stopped in the doorway to examine the ridge on which my hopes were set. But I watched it to-day with a beating heart, and, let me own it, with a shrinking apprehension too, for within the last hour the possibility of my attempt had grown immeasurably real. Groder, I was certain, I should see no more. 'Twas equally certain that Otto would not remain to fill his place, and one of the peasants had been battered to death in the breaking of the dam. 'Twas doubtless an unworthy feeling, but, much as the nature of the man's end had horrified me at the time, I could not now find it in my heart to greatly regret it. I was too conscious of the fact that only a couple of gaolers were left to guard me.
Otto coming from the kitchen to join me, I deemed it prudent not to be particular in my gaze, and so taking my eyes off the ridge, which was become to me what Mahomet's bridge is to the Turk, I let them roam idly this way and that as we strolled forward over the turf. Hence it chanced that about twenty yards from the door I saw something bright winking in the verdure. I went towards it and picked it up. 'Twas a little gold cross, and, moreover, clean and unrusted. A sudden thought breaking in upon me, I turned to Otto and said:
"Otto, have you ever heard of the Cold Torment?"
Otto fell to crossing himself devoutly.
"The Cold Torment?" he asked, in awed tones. "What know you of it?" He turned towards the gap in the hillside upon our right. "Look!" said he. "You see the peak that stands apart like a silver wedge. On its summit is buried an inexhaustible treasure, and night and day through the ages seven guilty souls keep ward about it in the cold. Never may one be freed until another is condemned in its stead. The Virgin save us from the Cold Torment!"
"Ah!" said I, remarking the fervour of his prayer. "'Tis the text for a persuasive homily, and Father Spaur, I fancy, preached from it yesterday."
Otto started, and glanced about him with some fear, as though he half expected to see the priest start out of the earth.
"You know not what you say," he exclaimed.
"Who sent you to follow him?"
"Nay," he protested; "I came not to spy upon Father Spaur. We know not that he has been here. 'Twere wise not to know it."
I handed him the gold cross, and asked again:
"Who sent you after him?"
"I was not sent after him. I was bidden to come hither by my mistress."
"Ah! she sent you!" I cried. "Give the cross back to Father Spaur, and with it my most grateful thanks. He has done me better service than ever did my dearest friend."
I reasoned it out in this way. Father Spaur was bent on appropriating Lukstein and its broad lands to the Church. To that end, the Countess must, at all costs, be hindered from a second marriage. What motive could he have in prompting Groder to make an end of me, unless--unless Ilga now and again let her thoughts stray my way? And to confirm my conjecture, to rid it of presumption, I had this certain knowledge that she had sent Otto to see that I came to no harm at his hands. I should add that my speculations during the winter months had in some measure prepared me to entertain this notion. From constantly analysing and pondering all that she had said to me in the pavilion, and bringing my recollections of her change in manner to illumine her words, I had come, though hesitatingly, to a conclusion very different from that which I had originally formed. I could not but perceive that it made a great difference whether or no I had been alone upon my first coming to the Castle. Besides, I realised that there was a pregnant meaning which might be placed to the sentence which had so perplexed me: "Would that I had the strength to resist, or the weakness to yield!" And going yet further back, I had good grounds from what she had let slip to believe that there was something more than a regard for herself in the entreaty which she had addressed to me in London, that I should not tax Marston with treachery in the matter of the miniature.
Otto gave me back the cross.
"It is a mistake," said he. "Father Spaur has gone from Lukstein on a visit."
"Then," said I, "present it to your mistress. She has more claim to it than I."
That night Otto slept in the loft in Groder's place.
"You are sure," he asked, "that no one remained behind with Groder yesterday afternoon?"
"Quite," said I.
"None the less, I should sleep on the trap if I were you, and 'twere wise to carry your hatchet to bed for company."
"But they take it from me each night," I replied eagerly. "You must tell them."
"I will. But there's no cause for fear."
'Twas not at all fear which prompted my eagerness; but I bethought me if I had the loft to myself, and the axe ready to my hand, 'twould be a strange thing if I could not find a way out by the morning. Thereupon we fell to talking again of Groder's attempt upon my life, and he repeated the words which he had used at the time.
"You were never nearer your death but once."
"And when was that once?" I asked drowsily.
He laughed softly to himself for a little, and then he replied; and with his first sentence my drowsiness left me, just as a mist clears in a moment off the hills.
"Do you remember one night in London that your garden door kept slamming in the wind?"
"Well?" said I, starting up.
"You came downstairs in the dark, took the key from the mantelshelf, and went out into the garden and locked it. That occasion was the once."
"You were in the room!" I exclaimed. "I remember. The door was open again in the morning. I had a locksmith to it. There was nothing amiss with the lock, and I wondered how it happened."
Otto laughed again quietly.
"Right. I was in the room, and I was not alone either."
"The Countess was with you. Why?"
"There was a book in your rooms which she wished to see--a poetry book, eh?--with a date on one page, and a plan of Castle Lukstein on the page opposite. My mistress was at your lodging with some company that afternoon."
"True," said I, interrupting him. "She proposed the party herself."
"Well, it seems that she got no chance of examining the book then. But she unlocked the garden door. You had told her where you kept the key."
I recollected that I had done so on the occasion of her first visit.
"And so Countess Lukstein and yourself were in the room when I passed through that night."
Otto began to chuckle again.
"'Twas lucky you came down in the dark, and didn't stumble over us. Lord! I thought that I should have burst with holding my breath."
"Otto," I said, "tell me the whole story; how your suspicions set towards me, and what confirmed them."
"Very well," said he, after a pause, "I will; for my mistress consulted me throughout. But you will get no sleep."
"I shall get less if you don't tell me."
"Wait a moment!"
He filled his tobacco-pipe and lighted it. I followed his example, and between the puffs he related the history of those far-away days in London. To me, lying back upon the boughs which formed my bed in the dark loft, it seemed like the weaving of a fairy tale. The house in Pall Mall--St. James's Park--the piazza, of Covent Garden! How strange it all sounded, and how unreal!
The odour of pine-wood was in my nostrils, and I had but to raise my arm to touch the sloping thatch above my head.
"Of what happened at Bristol," he began, "you know well-nigh as much as I do, in a sense, maybe more; for I have never learnt to this day why my master, the late Count, left me behind there to keep an eye upon the old attorney and Sir Julian Harnwood's visitors. There's only one thing I need tell you. The night you came from the Bridewell, after--well, after----" He hesitated, seeming at a loss for a word. I understood what it was that he stuck at, and realising that my turn had come to chuckle, I said, with a laugh:
"The blow was a good one, Otto."
"'Twas not so good as you thought," he replied rather hotly, "not by a great deal; and for all that you ran away so fast," he repeated the phrase with considerable emphasis, "for all that you ran away so fast, I found out where you lodged. I passed the lawyer man as he was coming back alone, and remembering that I had traced him into Limekiln Lane in the afternoon, I returned there the next morning. The 'Thatched House' was the only tavern in the street, and I inquired whether a woman had stayed there overnight. They told me no; they had only put up one traveller, and he had left already. I thought no more of this at the time, believing my suspicions to be wrong, and so got me back to Lukstein. After the wedding-night I told the Countess all that I knew."
"Wait!" I said, interrupting him.
There was a point I had long been anxious to resolve, and I thought I should never get so likely an opportunity for the question again.
"Was Count Lukstein betrothed at the time that he came to the Hotwells?"
"Most assuredly," he replied, and I wondered greatly at the strange madness which should lead a man astray to chase a pretty face, when all the while he loved another, and was plighted to her.
Otto resumed his story.
"I told all that I knew: my master's anxiety concerning Sir Julian, his relief when I brought him the news hither that only a woman had visited the captive on the night before his execution, and his apparent fear of peril. My mistress broke open the gold case which you had left behind, and asked whether the likeness was the likeness of Sir Julian's visitor. I assured her it was not, but she was convinced that this Bristol pother was at the bottom of the trouble. We could find no trace of you beyond your footsteps in the snow, and the footsteps of the woman who was with you. I have often wondered how she climbed the Lukstein rock."
He paused as though expecting an answer. But I had no inclination to argue my innocence in that respect with one of Ilga's servants, and presently he continued:
"Well, a quiet tongue is wisdom where women are concerned. No one in the valley had seen you come; no one had seen you go. But my lady was set upon discovering the truth and punishing the assailant herself. So she said as little as she could to the neighbours, and the following spring took me with her to London."
"Where I promptly jumped into the trap," said I.
"You did that and more. You set the trap yourself before you jumped into it."
'Twas my own thought that he uttered, and I asked him how he came by it.
"I mean this. 'Twas my lady's hope to discover the original of the miniature, and so get at the man who was with her. But we had not to wait for that. You left something else behind you besides the miniature."
"I did," I replied. "I left a pair of spurs and a pistol, but I see not how they could serve you."
"The spurs were of little profit in our search. You have worn them since, it is true, but one pair of spurs is like another. For the pistol, however--that was another matter. It had the gunmaker's name upon the barrel, and also the name of the town where it was made."
"Leyden?" I exclaimed.
"That was the name--Leyden."
At last I understood. I recalled that evening when Elmscott presented me to Ilga, and how frankly I had spoken to her of my life.
"We journeyed to Leyden first of all," he resumed, "and sought out the gunmaker. But he did not remember selling the pistol, or, perhaps, would not--at all events, we got no help from him, and went on to London. In the beginning I believe Countess Lukstein was inclined to suspect Mr. Marston. You see he came from Bristol, and so completely did this search possess her that everything which concerned that city seemed to her to have some bearing upon her disaster. But she soon abandoned that idea, and--and--well, I know not why, but Mr. Marston left London for a time. Then you were brought to the house, and on your first visit you told her that your home was in Cumberland, where Sir Julian Harnwood lived; that you had been till recently a student at Leyden, and that there were few other English students there besides yourself. At first I think she did not seriously accuse you of Count Lukstein's death. It seemed little likely; you had not the look of it. I did not recognise you at all, and, further, my mistress herself inquired much of you concerning your actions, and you let slip no hint that could convict you."
I remembered what interest the Countess had seemed to take in my uneventful history, and how her questions had delighted me, flattering my vanity and lifting me to the topmasts of hope; and the irony of my recollections made me laugh aloud.
"Howbeit," he went on, paying no heed to my interruption--there was no great merriment in my laughter, and it may be that he understood--"Howbeit, her suspicions were alert, and then Mr. Marston came back to London. She learnt from him that you had passed through London in a great hurry one night, and from Lord Culverton that the night was in September and that your destination was Bristol. I wanted to ride there and see what I could discover, but my mistress would not allow me. I don't know, but at that time I almost fancied she regretted her resolve, and would fain have let the matter lie."
'Twas at that time also, I remembered, that the Countess treated me so waywardly, and I coupled Otto's remark and my remembrance together, and set them aside as food for future pondering.
"Then she showed you the miniature. You faced it out and denied all knowledge of it So far so good. But that same morning you brought Lady Tracy into the house, and that was the ruin of you. Oh, I know," he went on as I sought to interrupt him, "I know! You faced that matter out too. You brought Lady Tracy to bear witness that you and she were never acquainted. 'Twas a cunning device and it deceived my mistress; but you did not take me into account. I opened the door to you, and I recognised Lady Tracy as the original of the miniature. Well, I looked at her carefully, wondering whether I could have made a mistake, whether it was she whom I had seen at the Bristol prison after all. I felt certain it was not, but all the same I kept thinking about it as I went upstairs to announce you. Lady Tracy was dark; the other woman, I remembered, fair and over-tall for a woman. So I went on comparing them, setting the two faces side by side in my mind. Well, when I came back again there were you and Lady Tracy standing side by side--the two faces that were side by side in my thoughts. The sunlight was full upon you both. Lord! I was cluttered out of my senses. I knew you at once. Height, face, everything fitted. I told my mistress immediately after you had gone. She would not believe it at first; but soon after she informed me that Lady Tracy had been betrothed to Sir Julian Harnwood. That night we visited your rooms, as I have told you."
"Ay," said I, "Marston told her of his sister's betrothal in Covent Garden."
'Twas indeed at the very time that the Countess was tracing that diagram in the gravel.
"The visit to your rooms convinced Countess Lukstein."
"No doubt," said I, and I explained to him how she had traced the diagram, and my mention of the date which had given her the clue to my Horace.
"But that's not all," he laughed. "'Tis true that my mistress knew that she had seen that same plan somewhere. 'Tis true your mention of the date told her where. But the plan which my lady drew on the gravel was different from yours in one respect. It lacked the line which showed your way of ascent, the line which stood for the rib of rock."
"Well?"
"Well, you added that line yourself while you were talking."
"I did!" I exclaimed.
I could not credit it; but then I recollected how Ilga had suddenly stooped forward and obliterated the diagram with a sweep of her stick.
"Ay, Otto!" I said. "You spoke truth indeed. I set the traps myself."
"The next morning we started for Bristol. We drove to the 'Thatched House Tavern,' and with the help of a few coins wormed the truth from the chambermaid. She had told me before that a man had stayed at the inn on that particular night and I had no doubt who was the man. We knew the story; we merely needed her to confirm it."
With that he laid his pipe aside, and was for settling to sleep. But I had one more question to ask him.
"When Lord Elmscott came to find me at Countess Lukstein's apartments, he was informed I was not there, and the door of the room in which I lay was locked."
"We intended to convey you out of the country ourselves," he laughed, "and that very night. 'Twould indeed have saved much trouble had Lord Elmscott been delayed an hour or so upon the road. A boat was in waiting for us on the river."
'Twas long before I could follow Otto's example and compose myself to sleep. Using his narrative as a commentary, I read over and over again my memories of those weeks in London, and each time I felt yet more convinced that this deed had been brought home to me through no cunning of the Countess, through no great folly of mine, but simply because Providence had so willed it. As Otto said, I had set the traps myself, and bethinking me of this, I recalled a phrase which I had spoken to Count Lukstein. "I can fight you," I had said, "but I can't fight your wife." In what a strange way had the remark come true!
The next morning Otto departed from the hollow, and fearing lest he might presently despatch two other of Countess Lukstein's servants to fill up the complement of my guards, I determined to make my effort at enlargement that very night. I took my axe boldly from the corner of the room when the time came for me to mount to the loft. The peasants scowled but said nothing, and 'twas with a very great relief that I understood Otto had been as good as his word. It had been my habit of late to secrete about me at each meal some fragment of my portion of bread, so that I had now a good number of such morsels hidden away among the leaves of my bed. These I gathered together, and fastened inside my shirt, and then sat me down, with such patience as I might, to wait until the peasants beneath me were sound asleep. The delay would have been more endurable had there been some window or opening in the loft. But to sit there in the darkness, never knowing but what the sky was clouding over and a storm gathering upon the heights, 'twas the quintessence of suspense, and it wrought in me like a fever. I allowed two hours, as near as I could guess, to elapse, and then, working quietly with my axe, I cut a hole through the thatch at the corner most distant from the room of my gaolers, and dropped some twelve feet on to the ground. There was no moon to light me but the sparkle of innumerable stars, and the night was black in the valley and purple about the cheerless hills. Cautiously I made my way over the grass towards the ridge, taking the air into my lungs with an exquisite enjoyment like one that has long been cooped in a sick-room.
Whimsically enough, I thought not at all of the dangers which were like to beset me, but rather of Ilga in her Castle of Lukstein; and walking forwards in the lonely quiet, I wondered whether at that moment she was asleep.
The ridge, as I had hoped, was entirely compacted of earth and stones. 'Twas thrown up to a considerable height above the ice, and resembled a great earthwork raised for defence, such as I have seen since about the walls of Londonderry. I was able to walk along the crest for some way with no more peril than was occasioned by the darkness and the narrow limits of my path, and taking to some rocks which jutted out from the snow, about two hours after daybreak, I reached the top of the hill at noon. To my great delight I perceived that I stood, as it were, upon a neck of the mountain. To my left the Wildthurm rose in a sweeping line of ice, ever higher and higher towards the peak; to my right it terminated in a ridge of rocks which again rose upwards, and circled about the head of the ravine. I had nothing to do but to descend; so I lay down to rest myself for a while, and take my last look at Captivity Hollow and the hut wherein I had been imprisoned. The descent, however, was not so easy a matter as I believed it would be. For some distance, it is true, I could walk without much difficulty, kicking a sort of staircase in the snow with my feet; but after a while the incline became steeper, and, moreover, was inlaid with strips of ice, wherein I had to cut holes with my hatchet before I could secure a footing. Indeed, I doubt whether I should have come safe off from this adventure but for the many crags and rocks which studded the slope. By keeping close to these, however, I was able to get solid hold for my hands, the while I stepped upon the treacherous ice. Towards the foot of the mountain, moreover, the ice was split with great gashes and chasms, so deep that I could see no bottom to them, but only an azure haze; and I was often compelled to make long circuits before I could discover a passage. Once or twice, besides, when the ground seemed perfectly firm, I slipped a leg through the crust and felt it touch nothing; and taking warning from these accidents, I proceeded henceforth more cautiously, tapping the snow in front of me with the hatchet at each step.
These hindrances did so delay me that I was still upon the mountain when night fell, and not daring to continue this perilous journey in the dark, I crept under the shelter of a rock, and so lay shivering until the morning. However, I bethought me of my loft and its thatch-roof, and contrasting it with the open sky, passed the night pleasantly enough. I had still enough of my bread left over to serve me for breakfast in the morning, and since there was no water to be got, I made shift to moisten my throat by sucking lumps of ice. Late that afternoon I came down into a desolate valley, and felt the green turf once more spring beneath my feet. 'Twas closing in very dark and black. In front of me I could see the rain stretched across the hills like a diaphanous veil, shot here and there by a stray thread of sunlight; while behind, the heights of the Wildthurm were hidden by a white crawling mist. Looking at this mist, I could not but be sensible of the dangers from which I had escaped, and with a heart full of gratitude I knelt down and thanked God for that He had reached out His hand above me to save my life.
For many days I journeyed among these upland valleys, passing from hut to hut and from ravine to ravine, moving ever westwards from Lukstein, and descended finally into the high-road close to the village of Nauders. Thence I proceeded along the Inn Thal to Innspruck, earning my food each day by cutting wood into logs at the various taverns, or by some such service; and as for lodging, 'twas no great hardship to sleep in the fields at this season of the year. At Innspruck, however, whither I came in the first days of July, I was sore put to it to find employment, which should keep me from starving until such time as I could receive letters of credit from England. My first thought was to obtain the position of usher or master in one of the many schools and colleges of the town. But wherever I applied they only laughed in my face, and unceremoniously closed the door upon my entreaties. Nor, indeed, could I wonder at their behaviour, for what with my torn peasant's clothes, my bare, scarred knees, and my face, which was burnt to the colour of a ripe apple, I looked the most unlikely tutor that ever ruined a boy's education. At one school--'twas the last at which I sought employment--the master informed me that he "did his own whipping," and wandering thence in a great despondency of spirit, I came into the Neustadt, which is the principal street of the town. There I chanced to espy the sign of a fencing-master, and realising what little profit I was like to make of such rusty book-learning as I still retained, I crossed the road and proffered him the assistance of my services. At the onset he was inclined to treat my offer with no less hilarity than the schoolmasters had shown; but being now at my wits' end, I persisted, and perhaps vaunted my skill more than befitted a gentleman. 'Twas, I think, chiefly to disprove my words, and so rid himself of me, that he bade me take a foil and stand on guard. In the first bout, however, I was lucky enough to secure the advantage, as also in the second. In a fluster of anger he insisted that I should engage upon a third, and thereupon I deemed it prudent to allow him to get the better of me, though not by so much as would give him the right to accuse me of a lack of skill. The ruse was entirely successful; for he was so delighted with his success that he hired me straightway as his lieutenant, and was pleased to compliment me upon my mastery of the weapon; not but what he declared I had many faults in the matter of style, which I might correct under his tuition.
In this occupation I remained for some three months. I wrote a letter immediately to Jack Larke, but received no answer whatsoever. Each week, however, I put by a certain sum out of my wages until I had accumulated sufficient to carry me, if I practised economy, to England. In the beginning of September, then, I gave up my position; a pupil, on hearing of my purposed journey, most generously presented me with a horse, which I accepted as a loan, and one fine morning I mounted on to the animal's back and rode out towards the gates of the town.