XIX.

XIX.

CHRISTIAN reached the manor of Waldemora before the major, who set out at once to join him, but who had to put himself at the head of his little troop, and to give them orders, had succeeded in making more than half the distance. He found the doors of the courts open, and the whole place brilliantly illuminated, as usual during the festivities. There was a great deal of bustle and confusion on the staircase, but of an unusual kind. No more beautiful ladies elegantly dressed, no more handsome gentlemen with powdered hair, were now to be seen, moving gayly to and fro to the sound of Rameau’s music, and exchanging, as they met, stately bows or gracious smiles. In their place were busy servants carrying trunks, and making all haste to load sleighs. Almost all the visitors at the chateau were preparing to depart. Some were whispering in low voices in the corridors, while others had shut themselves up in their rooms to take a few hours’ repose, after giving orders for the journey.

What was occurring? Every one was so agitated, that Christian, booted, with his head bare, his coat torn and stained with blood, and his hunting-knife in his belt, was scarcely noticed. The servants made way for him instinctively, without asking themselves who was this belated hunter, taking them by storm in this way, and seeming resolved to knock them all down rather than be kept waiting a single second.

Christian accordingly crossed the hunting-gallery, where a number of persons, with faces strangely agitated, were wandering restlessly about. Among them he recognized several who had been pointed out to him at the ball as the baron’spresumptuousheirs. They seemed very much excited, were whispering together, and anxiously watching a certain door, as if expecting every instant to see it thrown open by the bearer of some important intelligence.

Without giving them time to observe him closely, or to understand what he was doing, Christian crossed this door, which he concluded would lead to the baron’s apartments; but, as he was passing through quite a long corridor, he heard horrible groans. He hurried on in the direction from which they came, and, entering an open door, found himself in the presence of Stangstadius, who was sitting quietly reading a paper by a little lamp with a shade, and who did not seem in the least disturbed by the fearful lamentations which could be heard in this room even more distinctly than in the corridor.

“What is that?” said Christian, seizing him by the arm. “Is it here that they torture people?”

Christian’s appearance was certainly rather formidable, especially as he had laid his hand upon his knife. The illustrious geologist started up in great terror, crying:

“What is the matter? Whom do you want? Whom are you speaking of?”

“The baron’s apartment?” said the young man laconically, and with such a tone of authority that even Stangstadius did not venture to discuss the matter further.

“That way!” he said, pointing to the left. Having thus replied, he returned to his reading, very glad to see Christian withdraw, and saying to himself that the baron had strange bandits in his service, and that you met people in his rooms whom you would not care to encounter in the middle of a wood.

Christian crossed another room, and came to a door that was fastened. He forced it open with one violent thrust. He felt, at that moment, as if he could have broken down the gates of hell.

A gloomy spectacle was presented to his view. The baron, in frightfulconvulsions, was struggling in the agony of death; around him stood Johan, Jacob, the physician, and Pastor Akerstrom, and it was all these four persons could do to keep him from throwing himself out of his bed, and rolling on the floor. They were so entirely absorbed by the patient, who was in a terrible crisis of pain, that they did not hear Christian come in, notwithstanding the noise he made, and did not know of his presence until the dying man, whose face was turned towards him, cried, with an accent of anguish and terror impossible to describe:

“There he is—there he is—there—my brother!”

At the same instant his mouth contracted, his teeth clenched, cutting his tongue, from which the blood spurted. He threw himself back so suddenly and violently, that he escaped from the hands that were trying to hold him, and, with his head thrown back, fell with a terrible crash against the wall of his alcove. He was dead!

While the minister, the physician, and honest Jacob, all of them pale with terror, exchanged the solemn words, “All is over!” Johan, who, during the whole scene, had preserved the most astonishing presence of mind, looked at Christian and recognized him. For the last hour he had been impatiently waiting to learn the result of the attempt at Stollborg, but had not been able to quit the dying man for a single instant. Christian’s presence showed him that it had failed. Johan felt that he was lost. His only safety was in flight, even if he should return at a later day to submit to the new master of Waldemora, or to try and make away with him, with the assistance of the accomplices upon whom he could still rely. Whatever he might determine hereafter, he only thought now of escaping, but this was no longer possible. Christian was pressing too hard upon him; at the threshold of the door he seized him by the collar, and with such a vigorous grasp, that the wretch, pale and suffocated, fell upon his knees, imploring pardon.

“Stenson!” said Christian. “What have you done with Stenson?”

“Who are you, monsieur, and what are you doing?” cried the minister,in a severe tone. “Is this a time, at this solemn moment, and in the presence of a man whose soul is even now appearing before the supreme tribunal, to commit deeds of violence?”

While the minister was speaking, Jacob was trying to disengage Johan from Christian’s grasp; but the young man’s fearful excitement had increased his strength tenfold, and it would have required more than the combined strength of the three persons present to force him to release his prize.

At the sound of the tumult Stangstadius rushed in, leaving the passage free to the heirs, resolved to be satisfied as to the baron’s real condition, and to the servants, who had been on the watch, and who hurried in, to hear the dying man’s last groan.

“Who are you, monsieur?” repeated the minister, by whom Christian had allowed himself voluntarily to be disarmed, but without releasing his prey.

“I am Christian Goefle,” he replied, as well from compassion for the poor heirs, as because he felt the necessity of being prudent in their company; “I come on the part of M. Goefle, my relative and my friend, to demand old Adam Stenson, whom this wretch has perhaps assassinated.”

“Assassinated?” cried the minister, shrinking back in terror.

“Oh, he is quite capable of it!” cried the heirs, who were crowding in, and who hated Johan.

Without paying any further attention to the incident, they crowded around thedear deceased, stifling the poor physician with their numbers, assailing him with eager questions, and feasting their eyes upon the spectacle of the baron’s hideously disfigured face, which still terrified them, in spite of their joy.

However, they moved aside with some deference to admit the impassible Stangstadius, who came with a glass to make the final test, while declaring right and left that the doctor was an ass, who could not tell whether a man was dead or not. If Christian had not been so busy with his own affairs, he would have heard several voices exclaim, “Isthere no hope?” in a tone that signified clearly enough, “Heaven grant that he is really dead!” But Christian had no thought to bestow upon his inheritance; he wanted to see Stenson, and he demanded that Johan should produce him immediately, or should conduct him himself into the old man’s presence.

“Let the man go,” said the minister; “you are strangling him. He is not in a condition to answer you.”

“I am not strangling him at all,” replied Christian, who, in fact, had taken great pains not to endanger the fellow’s life, since he was in possession of important secrets which he wished to discover.

Meanwhile, the cunning Johan took advantage of M. Akerstrom’s kindness. Unwilling to reply, he pretended to faint. The minister blamed Christian for his brutality; and the servants, who one and all felt very uneasy about their own fate if the redressers of wrongs should begin their office, seemed much more inclined to defend their comrade than to submit to the authority of an unknown.

When a sufficient number of Johan’s adherents had gathered around him to enable him to resume his audacity, he quickly recovered his consciousness, and cried out in a resounding voice, that was heard above the tumult of the apartment:

“Monsieur Minister, I denounce an intriguant and an impostor, who has come here with an infernal forged romance to pass himself off as the only heir of the barony. You hate me!” he added, addressing the heirs; “very good! give me up to his vengeance; and now that the master is dead, you will no longer have any one to baffle the infamous machinations of M. Goefle; for he it is who has brought forward thischevalier d’industrie, and who boasts that he will make his rights prevail over all of yours.”

If a thunderbolt had fallen upon them it could not have produced greater terror and consternation in the persons present, than Johan’s words; but, as he had anticipated, this first stupor was followed by a sudden reaction. Christian tried to speak—for the physician calledupon him to justify or to explain himself—but his voice was drowned in a chorus of insults and maledictions.

“Drive him out! drive him out ignominiously!” cried the cousins and nephews of the deceased.

“No no!” cried Johan, supported by his accomplices, who understood perfectly well that the day of revelations had come, and that it was necessary to reduce the avengers to silence. “Make him a prisoner! To the tower with him! To the tower!”

“Yes, yes, to the tower with him!” bellowed the Baron de Lindenwald, who was perhaps the keenest in the hunt, and the most rapacious of all the heirs.

“No, kill him!” cried Johan, venturing everything to gain his end.

“Yes, kill him! throw him out of the window!” echoed the infuriated group, frenzied by their diabolical passions.

The chamber of the dead man had become the theatre of a tumultuous and scandalous scene. The servants rushed upon Christian, who could not defend himself, since the minister, with the best intentions in the world, had thrown himself before him, declaring that he would lose his own life rather than see a murder accomplished in his presence.

The physician, Jacob, and two of the heirs, an old man and his young son, placed themselves also by Christian’s side, out of respect for the minister, and from their natural honor and good feeling. Stangstadius, hoping to calm the passions of the incensed assailants by the authority of his name and his eloquence, threw himself between them and this little group; but they took no notice of him, and crowded against Christian with such force that the young man, more impeded than assisted by his feeble champions, was pushed steadily, step by step, towards the window, which Johan had just thrown open. This wretch, with his eye on fire and mouth foaming with rage, never stopped for a single instant vociferating threats and denunciations, so as to prevent the terror and madness of his party from growing cold.

As they looked upon this frightful man, who threw off, at last, hismask of hypocritical mildness, and showed the tiger beneath, with all his bloodthirsty instincts, the minister and physician were struck with terror. Faint and trembling, they recoiled, or rather fell back upon Christian, while two of the most determined blackguards among the servants seized him adroitly by the legs, for the purpose of lifting him up and throwing him out backwards. All would have been over with him in another moment, when Major Larrson, the lieutenant, the corporal, M. Goefle, and the four soldiers, rushed into the room.

“Obey the law!” cried the major, going up to Johan. “In the name of the king, I arrest you.”

Handing him over to Corporal Duff, he added, addressing the lieutenant:

“Allow no one to leave the room!”

No one ventured to dispute the authority of an officer of the indelta, and amid the silence that followed, occasioned both by fear and respect, Larrson gazed around him, and saw the baron, motionless, upon his bed. He approached, looked at him attentively, and took off his hat, saying:

“Death is the messenger of God!”

Then he replaced it upon his head, as he added:

“May God pardon the Baron de Waldemora!”

Several voices were now raised to implore the major’s assistance in putting down intriguants and impostors; but he ordered all to be silent, declaring that the first explanation of the strange scene he had discovered on entering, must be made by the minister.

“Would it not be more suitable,” rejoined the minister, “to listen to this explanation in another apartment?”

“Yes,” said the major, “out of respect to the dead, we will go into the baron’s cabinet. Corporal, see that the persons present pass out in single file, and that no one remains, or leaves the room by any other door. Monsieur Minister, will you be so good as to pass first, with Doctor Stangstadius and the baron’s physician?”

Christian pointed out the old Count de Nora and his son, who had tried so loyally to defend him, and the major allowed them to pass freely,and, when questioning them in their turn, showed them the greatest respect.

The examination of facts was very minute; but, as soon as it was completed, the major lost no time in complying with the wish of the impatient Christian, and of M. Goefle. He ordered, at once, that old Stenson should be delivered from the tower, where Jacob declared that he had been grieved to see him conducted an hour before. Christian would have gone to him immediately, but the major forbade this, and, without giving any explanation of his conduct, ordered that Stenson should be immediately taken back to Stollborg, and reinstated in his residence with all possible respect, but without being allowed to communicate with any human being. Whoever should violate these instructions was threatened with the severest penalties. He then ordered Johan and four lackeys, who, the minister declared, had attempted Christian’s life, to be taken to prison in Stenson’s place. Those who had been contented with insulting him, and who hastened to deny the fact, were reprimanded, and threatened with being handed over to justice in case the offence should be repeated.

There was no danger of that. In spite of the small number of men with the major at this moment, every one felt that he had the law and right upon his side, as well as courage and determination. They took it for granted, also, from his bearing, that he had sent word to his company, and that at any moment the indelta might be represented in force at the chateau.

In the absence of any other magistrate, for the deceased chatelain, in virtue of his privileges, had assumed entire control in the canton, and, for the present, was left without a successor, the major called upon the minister of the parish, and M. Goefle, to assist him: the one as possessing both civil authority and moral influence, and the other as a legal adviser. He had all the keys brought, and intrusted them to Jacob, whom he appointed major-domo and guardian of the chateau, assigning to him the special assistance of two soldiers, so that he might oblige the other servants to respect his authority in case of necessity. He intrusted the care of superintending the baron’sobsequies to the physician, and declared that he would now immediately proceed, with the minister, M. Goefle, the lieutenant, and four witnesses to be appointed by the heirs, to look for a will, although Johan had declared that the baron had made no will.

The heirs, who were very much alarmed and irritated at first, became more tranquil when they saw that neither the major, nor M. Goefle, nor Christian, referred to a new competitor. There were about a dozen of them, all very badly disposed towards each other, although they had necessarily been very closely associated, since they had been equally eager to pay court to the baron, and exert a strict surveillance over the common prey. The old Count de Nora, the poorest of them all, was the only one who had preserved his dignity with his relatives, and his integrity in his relations with the baron.

No will which the baron could have made would have affected Christian’s rights. M. Goefle’s expressive looks, and a few whispered words, gave Christian to understand that they were instituting this search merely to quiet the rapacious band of heirs, and gain time until they were ready to act openly. Christian comprehended also, from the expressive silence of his friends about him, that the time had not come to make himself known, and that, for the moment, his rightful claims, and the accusations brought against him by Johan, were to be equally ignored.

The heirs, as may be supposed, had accepted this situation joyfully. Their fears were quite allayed by M. Goefle’s apparent indifference—which they regarded as a practical denial of Johan’s assertions—and by the air of perfect security which Christian very naturally assumed from the moment that he was satisfied as to Stenson’s fate. Christian seconded still further the wishes of his friends by declining to accompany them in their search for the will; and as his presence was no longer required in the cabinet, the examination being over, he went into the hunting-gallery, and soon forgot everything except his anxiety to find out what had happened to Margaret. Suddenlyhe saw Countess Elveda coming into the gallery.

She recognized him while still at a distance, and came to meet him.

“Ah, ah!” she said gayly; “you have not gone, then, or you have returned, Monsieur Phantom? And in what a costume, to be sure! Have you just come from hunting in the middle of the night?”

“Exactly, madame,” replied Christian, who saw, from the cheerfulness of Margaret’s aunt, how little she knew or cared about her niece’s escapade. “I have been hunting bears a long way off, and have returned only to hear of the event—”

“Oh yes! the baron’s death!” said the countess, lightly. “It is all over, I trust, and one can venture to breathe again. I have been very unfortunate, for my part! From my rooms, you could hear all his dying groans. I was obliged to take refuge with Olga, and that young person entertained me with a different sort of music. That poor girl is very nervous, and when I informed her that instead of seeing the marionettes we should be obliged either to start for our homes in the fog, or to remain in the house of a dying man until he would be good enough to give up the ghost, she fell into frightful convulsions. Those Russians are so superstitious! At last we are quiet again, but I am going to take my departure at once, notwithstanding, for I hear they are going to ring a great bell, which is only rung at the death or birth of the seigneurs of the domain. I shall make my escape, therefore, for it will be impossible to sleep, and that bell tolling for the dead would make me desperately gloomy. Isn’t that it now?”

“I think it is,” replied Christian; “but don’t you intend to take the countess with you—your niece?”

He added, with the most perfect apparent frankness and simplicity:

“I am really very stupid to be unable to recall her name.”

“You are very artful!” replied the countess, laughing. “You must have been courting her the other evening, since you challenged thebaron for her sake. Ah well, I am not at all shocked! such things belong to your age; and, after all, I was by no means displeased by your boldness in defying the baron, who was a very wicked man. You have good qualities—I am a judge—and I see now how unsuited to your character were the lessons in diplomacy and prudence that I gave you at our first meeting. You are in a different road; for there are two ways that lead to success—skill and courage. Good! you perhaps have chosen the shortest, that of the wrong-headed and audacious. You must go to Russia, my dear. You are handsome and bold. I have spoken to the ambassador about you, and he has plans for you. Do you understand me?”

“Not the least in the world, madame.”

“Oh, it is plain enough! Orloff cannot remain in favor forever, and there are certain interests that may come into conflict with his—you understand now? So, then, don’t think of my niece, for you can aspire to a more brilliant fortune; and as, for the moment, you are nothing, not even M. Goefle’s nephew, for he refuses to acknowledge you even for an illegitimate child, I warn you that I will have the door shut in your face if you come to my house with the foolish notion of pleasing Margaret. On the other hand, I shall expect to see you in Stockholm so as to present you to the ambassador, who will take you into his service. Au revoir, then!—or stay—I will take you with me!”

“Really?”

“Certainly I will. I can do so without the least inconvenience, since I am going to leave my niece here. Frightened by the groans of the dying man, she has gone to pass the night at the parsonage, with her friend Mademoiselle Akerstrom; or at least that is what her governess pretends. It doesn’t matter; wherever the little coward has taken refuge, Mademoiselle Potin is to take her back to Dalby to-morrow, under the charge of Peterson, an old family servant. M. Stangstadius has promised me, also, to accompany them. The child will be heart-broken, for she flatters herself that she is coming with me toStockholm; but she is still too young: she will do nothing but commit blunders in society. Her débût is put off until next year.”

“So,” said Christian, “she must pass still another year all alone in her old manor?”

“Ah, I see that she has been confiding her sorrows to you. It is a very touching story, and it is to save you from being afflicted with it that I shall carry you off in my sleigh. Stay, I will give you an hour to get ready, and will come for you in this gallery. Is it agreed?”

“I am not at all sure,” replied Christian, boldly. “I warn you that I am very much in love with your niece.”

“Well, so much the better, if it lasts!” resumed the countess. “When you have passed several years in Russia, and have won sufficient roubles, and peasants, and estates, I will not say no, if you persist.”

The countess withdrew, persuaded that Christian would be punctual at the rendezvous.

She had no sooner disappeared than Mademoiselle Potin, who had been watching them, slipped up to Christian to remonstrate with him severely. She had been very anxious about Margaret, and had sought her everywhere.

“Luckily,” added the governess, “she has just come in with her friend Martina, whose mother, supposing her detained in our apartment, was not uneasy about her; but it troubles me to have to tell so many falsehoods to conceal Margaret’s imprudences, and I declare to you that I will reveal everything to the countess, unless you give me your word of honor that you will leave the chateau and the country immediately.”

Christian comforted good Mademoiselle Potin by assuring her that she should have no further cause of displeasure; and, well knowing how impossible it would be to comply with her wishes, he waited what was next to occur.

At one o’clock in the morning the major’s company arrived, silently, and with despatch. Information of the fact was given to him, and he declared the search for the will at an end. They had found nothing, to the great satisfaction of most of the heirs, who preferred trustingto their legal claims rather than to the doubtful benevolence of the deceased.

“Now, gentlemen,” said the major, “I must beg you to follow me to Stollborg, where I have reason to believe that a will has been confided to M. Stenson.”

They all rushed eagerly to the door of the room, but he detained them.

“Permit me,” he said; “under the present circumstances, a very grave responsibility rests upon the minister, upon M. Goefle, and myself, and I must proceed with great rigor, according to the duties of my office, to call together as large a number of responsible witnesses as can be found, and to see that all things are conducted in an orderly and satisfactory manner. Be so good as to accompany me to the hunting-gallery, where the other witnesses ought by this time to be assembled.”

In fact, in accordance with the major’s orders, all the guests at the new chateau had been requested to adjourn to the hunting-gallery. This virtual command was very annoying to many of them, who were already all prepared for their departure, but the indelta spoke in the name of the law, and they submitted.

Countess Elveda, eager to get off, and always very active, was the first to appear. She found Christian asleep on the sofa.

“What!” she cried, “is that your way of making ready for a journey!—And what are you doing here?” she added, addressing Margaret, who came in with her governess.

“I am sure I don’t know,” replied Margaret, “I am obeying a general order.”

Soon after Olga arrived, and then followed the minister’s family. M. Stangstadius, the ambassador and his suite, in a word, all the guests assembled at Waldemora, and most of them in very ill-humor at having been detained at the very moment of starting, or else at having been aroused from their sleep. They grumbled bitterly, and railed against the gloomy bell, which might have been let alone, they said, until every one had gone.

“But what is the matter? What do they want with us?” cried the dowagers. “Has the baron given orders that we are to keep on dancing here after his death, or are we condemned to see him laid out on his bed of state? For my part, I had rather be excused. How do you feel?”

“Who is that young man who has just gone out?” said the ambassador to Countess Elveda. “Is it not our young adventurer?”

“Yes, that is our adventurer,” she answered; “some one just handed him a note. It seems that the order by which we are detained does not apply to him.”

In fact, Christian had received a few lines from M. Goefle to the following effect:

“Return to Stollborg, and dress yourself quickly in the costume that you wore at the ball last evening. Wait for us in the bear-room. Clear up the rubbish on the staircase, and conceal the breach in the wall with the maps.”

Tea and coffee were served to the company in the hunting-gallery, and, in about a quarter of an hour, all the persons designated by the major and the minister, together with the baron’s heirs, and a large number of the servants and principal vassals of the domain, proceeded to Stollborg, where Christian, suitably attired, did the honors of the bear-room, with the help of Nils, the dannemans, father and son, and Ulphilas, who had been set at liberty after a few hours’ imprisonment. We may as well say, in passing, that Ulphilas never knew why this punishment had been inflicted upon him by M. Johan; he never understood, either before, or during, or after the occurrence of the events we have narrated, the drama enacted in Stollborg.

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