The park trees rocked and rustled in the wind, which now, towards evening, threatened to become a storm. It drove the red and yellow leaves whirling through the air, and a gray, cloud-covered sky looked down upon the autumnal earth.
Maia came back alone from her brother's resting-place, while Cecilia still lingered there. It had required persuasion to induce the former to go at all. In the midst of life's sunny springtime, the young girl felt a secret horror of all connected with death and burial. Existence beckoned to her, and happiness by the side of the man she loved.
On her way back she came past the Rose Lake, where Oscar had first confessed his love to her. Today, indeed, the spot looked very different from what it had done on that May-day in the splendor of sunshine and spring. Dry leaves covered the ground, and the reeds lining the shore were likewise withered and dry, while the lake itself looked black and uninviting in the dull light of that stormy day. No sweet singing of birds any longer sounded from the thicket, laid bare as it was by autumnal blasts; all was lifeless and still, while the mountain-chain, that had once looked so dreamily blue from the distance, was wrapped to-day in a dense fog.
Involuntarily Maia's steps were arrested here; she gazed fixedly upon the sadly altered spot, and, shivering, drew her mantle closer around her shoulders. Then she heard approaching steps, and the next minute Oscar von Wildenrod emerged from the coppice.
"I have been all through the park looking for you, Maia," said he, petulantly, "and had despaired of finding you."
"I was with Cecilia at Eric's grave," replied the young girl. "She is still there."
"So much the better, for what I have to say is for yourself alone. Will you listen to me?"
Without waiting for an answer, he drew her down upon the bench, over which the beech now stretched her ghostlike arms, half-stripped as they were of their foliage. Not till now had Maia observed that he wore hat and overcoat, and that his features had a strangely disordered expression.
"Nothing bad has happened, has there?" she asked in great agitation. "Papa----"
"The matter does not concern him, but me, or rather both of us. Maia, I have something serious--hard to tell you. You are to show me, now, whether your love for me stands firm. You love me still, do you not? You once gave yourself fully to me, on this very spot. I thought, then, I was asking your hand only for happiness, for a life full of sunshine and joy--have you the courage to share sorrow with me also?"
Maia was stunned, as it were, by this torrent of words; she shuddered.
"Oscar, for heaven's sake, tell me what you mean? You distress me unutterably by these dark hints."
"I ask of you a sacrifice--a great, heavy sacrifice. Will you make it for my sake?"
"If you ask it. Everything, everything that you want!"
"Suppose that I were to ask you to leave father and home, to go with me far away into a foreign land--would you follow me?"
"Father! Home!" repeated the young girl, mechanically. "But we stay here at Odensburg."
"No. I must begone--will you go with me?"
"I--I do not understand you," said Maia, trembling in every limb.
He threw his arm around her and drew her to him. His face was as pale as death, and in his eyes glowed that threatening flame which had so alarmed her when they first met.
"I told you once of my earlier life," he began, "of a wild, restless pursuit of fortune, that seemed ever to flee before me, until I finally found it here in possessing you--do you remember that?"
"Yes," whispered Maia. Did she remember it! It had been the same hour in which he had declared his love for her.
"I could not unveil that past to your pure child-eyes," continued Wildenrod, his voice sinking into a whisper; "and cannot to-day either, but there is a shadow in it-----"
"A misfortune--was it not?" The question had a dispirited sound.
"Yes--a misfortune, that deprived me of my profession, and enticed me into evil and guilt. I had cast all this from me and wanted to begin a new life, here at your side. But again the old shadow looms up, and threatens me again--yes, threatens to snatch you from me, Maia."
"No, no, I am not going to leave you, whatever has happened, or may happen!" cried Maia, vehemently, clinging to him. "My father is lord of Odensburg, he will protect you."
"No, your father will dissolve our engagement, and part us irrevocably. Stern man that he is, with his rigid principles, he would rather see you dead than at the side of a husband whose past is not what it should he. There is only one way for you to be preserved to me, one single one--but you must have courage."
"What--what am I to do?" she stammered, powerless under the ban of his eyes and his voice. He stooped lower down to her and these words streamed hotly and passionately over his lips: "You are my betrothed--I have the right to claim you as my wife! Let us fly from Odensburg, and just as soon as we cross the German boundary line, I shall lead you to the altar. Then nobody, not even your father, will have the right to take you from me--no power can stand against our marriage. And you will be mine indissolubly."
Oscar von Wildenrod knew very well that a marriage of this kind was null and void in the eyes of the law; but what cared he for that, if it only satisfied Maia and made her believe herself to be his wife? Then Dernburg would have to consent; for the sake of the honor of his name, he could not admit that his daughter had lived for a while in a foreign land with a man who was not her husband, and the legal forms could be gone through with hereafter. After all, his claim to Odensburg might yet be made good. Was not Maia still her father's heir? Hence upon her hand depended freedom and wealth.
It was a wild, crazy scheme, suggested to the Baron by despair. Meanwhile it was practicable, if Maia only gave her consent. But now, in horror, she started back, releasing herself from his arms.
"Oscar! What is it that you ask of me?"
"My salvation!" he exclaimed, vehemently. "I am lost if I stay--you alone can save me. Go with me, Maia; be my wife, my shield, and I shall thank you for it on my knees. Only two paths are left to me now--the one with you leads to life, the other without you----"
"To death!" shrieked Maia. "Oh, how dreadful! Oh! no, no, Oscar, you are not to die. I am going with you, wherever you choose."
A cry of joy escaped his lips; he overwhelmed his betrothed with passionate caresses. "My Maia! I knew it. You would not forsake me, even though all others forsook me. And now, come! we have no time to lose."
"Now? This very hour?" asked Maia, shuddering. "Am I to see my father no more?"
"Impossible! You would betray yourself! We must leave on the spot. The carriage is in waiting to carry us to the station, at the gate in the rear of the park; I have with me my papers and a sum of money. In the excitement prevailing to-day at Odensburg, our departure will not be noticed. I shall see to it that they find not a trace of us, until I can announce our union to your father."
Maia's eyes were fixedly riveted upon the speaker, but hers were no longer glad, innocent child-eyes; there was an expression in them that Oscar could not fathom.
"Not say farewell to my father?" repeated she, mechanically. "Not even that, when I am giving him up forever?"
"Not forever," said Wildenrod, soothingly. "Your father will be reconciled to us. I shall take upon myself alone all the blame and responsibility of this step. We shall come back."
"Not I!" said the young girl, softly. "I shall die of that life in a foreign land, of separation from my father, of that--that dreadful thing, which you will not name before me. Oh, your love will be my death!"
"Maia!" cried he, interrupting her in angry surprise, but she would not be diverted, and continued:
"Somehow, I have always known it. When you first entered our house, and I looked into your eyes for the first time, a sense of distress came over me, as though I were standing on the edge of a precipice and must fall down. And this sense of distress has come ever again, even in that hour when you told me that you loved me, even in the midst of the happiness of these last weeks. I did not want to know the meaning of it, have struggled against it and clung to my supposed happiness. Now you point me to the abyss, and I--I must plunge down."
"And still you are willing to go with me?" asked Oscar, slowly: it was as though breath failed him.
"Yes, Oscar! You say that I can save you, how dare I hesitate?"
She laid her head upon his breast, with a low, heart-rending sob, in which the young creature buried her happiness. Wildenrod stood there, motionless, and looked down upon her: from the beech-tree withered leaves rained slowly down upon the pair.
At last Maia straightened herself up and dried her tears. "Let us go--I am ready!"
"No!" said Oscar, almost rudely, while he let her out of his arms.
The young girl looked at him in surprise.
"What did you say?"
He took off his hat and stroked his forehead, as though he would wipe something away. Suddenly his features appeared to be strangely altered: a few minutes before they had portrayed all the fierce passionateness of his nature, now they were cold and stolid in their calmness.
"I perceive that you are right," said he, and his voice sounded unnaturally composed. "It would be cruel to hinder you from taking leave of your father. Go to him and tell him--what you choose."
"And you?" asked Maia, astonished at this sudden change of mind.
"I shall wait for you here. It is better, perhaps, that you should speak to him once more, ere we venture upon that last desperate measure. Perhaps you will succeed in changing his mind."
It was only a faint glimmer of light that he showed her, but no more was needed for the rekindling of bright hopes in Maia's heart.
"Yes, I shall go to papa!" she cried. "I shall implore him on my knees not to part us. You cannot have done anything so dreadful, so unpardonable, and he will and shall hear me. But--would it not be better for you to go with me?"
"No, it would be in vain! But now go! go!--time is precious."
He urged her almost anxiously to leave, and yet when she actually did turn to go, he suddenly stretched out to her both arms.
"Come to me, Maia! Tell me once more that you love me, that you wanted to go with me, in spite of everything?"
The young girl flew back to him again and nestled up to him.
"You dread lest I should not stand firm? I'll share everything with you, Oscar, though it were the worst. Nothing can separate us. I love you beyond everything."
"Thank you!" said he, fervently. Suppressed feeling quivered in his voice; from his eyes, too, that sinister glare had departed, and they now beamed with unutterable tenderness. "Thank you, my Maia! You have no idea what a freeing, absolving influence that speech has had upon me, what a boon you bestow upon me in its utterance. Perhaps you are about to learn from your father's lips what I cannot tell you. If all of you, then, condemn and cast me from you forever, then remember that I loved you, loved you devotedly. How much I never realized until this moment--and I shall prove it to you."
"Oscar, you stay here?" asked Maia, agonized by a dark foreboding.
"I stay at Odensburg, my word for it--and now, go, my dear!"
He kissed his betrothed once more and then released her. She walked slowly away: on the edge of the thicket, she turned around. Wildenrod was still standing there motionless gazing after her; but he smiled, and that quieted the anxiety of the young girl, who now moved briskly forward into the fog, where she was soon lost in the gathering mist.
Oscar followed the slender form with his eyes until she had vanished, then he went slowly back to the bench and tentatively laid his hand upon his breast-pocket. There rested his papers, the sum of money he carried on his person, and--something else, that he had provided for all emergencies. Now, here it was safe ... but no, not here, not so near to the house! Then what mattered one hour the more or the less--night suited his purpose better.
"Poor Maia!" said he, softly. "You will weep bitterly, but your father will fold you in his arms. You are right: such a life and my guilt would kill you.--You shall be saved. I am going alone--to destruction!"
The Dernburg family burying-ground lay in the rear of the park. It was no showy mausoleum, but merely a peaceful spot, encircled by dark fir-trees. Plain marble memorial stones adorned the green hillocks that were mantled in ivy. Here rested Dernburg's father and wife, and here his son Eric had also found a resting-place.
The young widow still lingered alone at the grave, but the ever-increasing violence of the wind warned her that it was time for her, too, to be going. She had just stooped down to readjust the fresh wreath that she had laid on the grave, and was now rising, when all of a sudden she gave a start. Egbert Runeck had emerged from the fir-trees and stood opposite to her. He had evidently had no idea of meeting her here, but quickly composed himself, and said, with a bow: "I beg your pardon, lady, if I disturb you. I expected to find the place solitary!"
"Are you at Odensburg, Herr Runeck?" asked Cecilia, without concealing her surprise.
"I was calling upon Herr Dernburg, and could not let the opportunity pass by without visiting the burial-place of the friend of my youth. It is the first, and probably will be the last, time that I see it."
As he spoke his eye scanned furtively the young widow's figure that was draped in black: then he drew near the grave and looked down upon it long and silently.
"Poor Eric!" said he, after a while. "He had to depart so early, and yet--it is an enviable fate, to die thus in the midst of happiness!"
"You are mistaken--Eric did not die happy!" said Cecilia, in a low tone.
"You believe that he was conscious of approach of death and felt the pangs of parting? I heard, though, that the hemorrhage came upon him in apparently full health, and that he never recovered consciousness."
"I do not know; for me, there was something mysterious in Eric's last moments," replied Cecilia, dejectedly. "When he once more opened his eyes, shortly before he died, I saw that he recognized me. That look still pursues me; I cannot get rid of it. It was so full of woe and reproach, as though he had known or suspected----" she suddenly broke off.
"What could he have suspected?" asked Runeck, impulsively.
Cecilia was silent here; least of all could she say what she feared.
"My brother thinks it is imagination," she then replied evasively. "He may be right, and yet I can never recall that moment but with a sharp, keen pang."
She bowed distantly to Egbert and was on the point of going; he evidently struggled with himself, then made a movement as though to detain the young widow.
"I believe it will be better to prepare you, lady, for the news that you will hear when you reach the house. Baron von Wildenrod has left for good?"
"My brother?" cried Cecilia, her anxieties at once aroused. "And you here at Odensburg? What have you done?"
"Fulfilled a painful duty!" he gravely replied. "Your brother has left me no choice. He was warned through you--he should have been satisfied with what he had already accomplished--Maia ought not to be sacrificed! I have opened her father's eyes."
"And Oscar? He has gone off you say--where to?"
"That nobody knows as yet. He will certainly communicate with you after a while; you stand as high as ever in the affections of your father-in-law. He knows that not the slightest reproach attaches to you."
"The question here is not about myself, is it?" cried the young woman, vehemently. "Do you think that I can live quietly here at Odensburg, with my brother a wanderer upon the face of the earth, once more a prey to those inimical forces that have already brought him so low? You have done your duty--yes, thoroughly well! What asks a stern nature like yours, about whom and what has been crushed in the process?"
"Cecilia!" interposed Runeck, his tone betraying the torture he endured while listening to these reproaches. But Cecilia paid no heed and continued with increasing bitterness:
"Maia's hand and love would have saved Oscar, that I do know, for there was in him as mighty a power for good as for evil. Now he has been hurled back into the old life; now he is lost."
"Through me--is that what you would say?"
She did not answer, but the reproachful glance that she cast upon the young engineer was bitter in the extreme. Proudly but sadly he stood before her.
"You are right," said he, harshly. "Destiny has certainly condemned me to bring woe and misery upon all that I hold dear. I had to wound in the cruelest manner the man who had been more than a father to me. I had likewise to inflict no less a blow upon poor little Maia's heart. But the hardest of all was what I had to do to you, Cecilia, and for which you now condemn me!"
He waited in vain for a reply. Cecilia persisted in her silence. There was a rushing and roaring around the pair, as at that time when they stood at the foot of the Whitestone. Mysteriously came this roaring as from a far distance; on, on it came, ever swelling stronger and then sinking and dying away with the breath of the wind. But now the autumn storm howled furiously among the trees, half-bare of foliage as they were; the first gray shadows of evening began to steal upward, and what mingled with that rushing and roaring was not the peaceful Sabbath bells as before, but strange and dismal noises. A far-off and confused murmur it was, too undecided to determine what it was, for again and again it was swallowed up by the storm. But now the wind lulled for a few minutes, when it came across more loudly and distinctly. Cecilia drew herself up and listened intently. "What was that? Did it come from the house?"
"No, it seemed to come from the works," declared Runeck. "I heard it a while ago."
Both now listened, with bated breath, and suddenly Egbert exclaimed, with a start:
"I hear the voices of men! It is the raging of an angry mob. Something is going on over at the works--I must go over!"
"You, Herr Runeck? What would you there?"
"Protect the master of Odensburg from his people! I best know how they have been goaded and set against him. If he shows himself now, he is no longer safe among his workmen."
"For Heaven's sake!" cried Cecilia, horrified.
"Fear nothing!" Runeck hastened to assure her. "So long as I stand by his side, no one will come near him. Woe to him who risks it!"
Cecilia had sprung forward: a few minutes before she had believed that she could not pardon her brother's accuser, and now all that supposed hatred was swallowed up in anguish over him, overhislife. She flew forward and embraced his arm with both hands.
"Egbert!"
He was in the act of hurrying away, but now stood still as though spellbound.
"Cecilia! Do you call me thus?"
"Do you mean to brave that infuriated mob over there? Oh, you court death!" cried the young widow, beside herself. "Egbert, think of me and my mortal anxiety about you!"
With an impetuous shout of joy, Egbert wanted to draw his beloved to him, but his eye fell upon her mourning garb and upon the grave of his old friend, and he only drew her hand silently to his lips; but a bright ray of happiness lit up his face, as he said softly,
"Iwillthink of it--farewell, Cecilia!" With that he rushed off.
That evening the Odensburg works had been the theater of wild and stormy scenes. The moderation and circumspection with which the officers sought to keep down the angry excitement on the part of the mass of the workmen, and to maintain quiet and order among those dismissed, had been in vain; all was wrecked by the aggressive bearing of that party which Landsfeld secretly guided, and at the head of which stood Fallner here at the works.
To-day the Socialist leader had found it altogether necessary to come himself to Odensburg, a thing that he usually avoided; for he knew this time what was at stake.
Most of the workmen had already come to their senses, more than half of them having determined to resume work on the morrow, and to submit to the conditions of the chief. The effect of this example upon the others was to be foreseen. It was of importance, then, to incite to scenes of violence, cost what it would, in order that reconciliation be made impossible. And in this he had already succeeded.
The works were full of waving, noisy masses of men, who, by way of preliminary, were threatening one another. Fallner and his adherents hurled terms of opprobrium against the opposite party: "Cowards! Traitors! Hounds!" they cried, in a confused medley of invective, and those they attacked were not slow in returning the compliment. They threw it up to their comrades that they had been goaded into insurrection, and that a conclusion had been forced upon them which they had not liked. As yet fists played only a secondary part, but it was felt that a bloody encounter might ensue at any moment, and unchain all the fury of the excited multitude.
In the superintendent's building the officers had to sustain a regular siege. From the now closed workshops and bureaux, the younger ones had taken refuge here with their superiors, who were themselves thoroughly nonplused. The measures taken had proved themselves inefficacious. They were just now consulting as to the wisest thing to do.
"There is no help for it, we must call in the master," said the director. "He was determined, whether or no, to interfere in case of necessity--I am at my wits' end now."
"For Heaven's sake no!" objected Winning. "He ought not to show himself. He will hardly be in the mood to speak kindly to the people, and if he meets them with asperity, then the worst is to be feared."
"What are those men out there after, anyhow?" cried Dr. Hagenbach, who was likewise present, because he feared that his medical services might be needed. "Whom are they threatening? Herr Dernburg? Us? Or are they quarreling among themselves?"
"I presume they themselves know least of all," replied the upper-engineer. "You may depend, their leader Landsfeld is at the bottom of it. He is to be in Odensburg to-day, when we may certainly expect matters to take a grave aspect."
"So much the less can I assume any longer the responsibility all by myself," declared the director. "I shall tell our chief that we are no longer masters of the situation. He can then do what he chooses."
He started for the telephone, when all of a sudden the noise ceased. He hushed quite suddenly, only a few individual voices being heard; then these too were silent and a deathlike silence prevailed. The officers hurried to the window, in order to see what was going on.
"There is the master!" exclaimed Winning. "I thought that he would appear without summons, if he heard that tumult."
"But how he does look!" added Hagenbach, in a whisper. "I fear that nature will give way."
"Let us open the doors, so that he can retreat here in case of necessity," said the director, who had likewise come up. "He is quite alone, not even Wildenrod is with him. We must go to him! Quick, gentlemen!"
The doors were opened that had been locked from the inside, but the officers could neither reach their chief, nor he them--a dense mass of men stood between, and held the square before the house. The attempt of the director and his colleagues, to break through this living wall, was vain--the workmen standing nearest assumed so threatening an attitude, the gentlemen desisted, so as not to tempt to a deed of violence that would have immediately reacted against Dernburg.
He had made use of the little by-path that led from the Manor to the superintendent's building, without going near the works. Nobody had seen his approach, and now he suddenly stood among his workmen as if he had sprung from the ground. The whole force of his personal presence was shown at this moment--his bare appearance had the most subduing effect upon the just now fiercely excited multitude, who suddenly stood, as it were, spellbound. All eyes were directed toward that tall form, with darkly knitted eyebrows; all waited for the first word from his mouth. His glance slowly swept over the crowd that he had once swayed by a single nod, and who now withstood him thus. Still he spoke not, for it seemed as though utterance had failed him.
Unfortunately it happened that Landsfeld, with Fallner, was in immediate proximity to him. There, in front of the superintendent's building, where they had cooped in the officers, the rashest of his followers had found themselves together, the Socialist leader had taken his stand. Dernburg's appearance seemed to him to be neither surprising nor undesired; on the contrary, there flashed into his eyes a look as of satisfaction, as he whispered to Fallner, who was constantly at his side, as a sort of adjutant:
"There is the old man! I knew that he would not stay quietly at home while the devil was to pay over at his works. Now the ball begins to roll!"
Finally Dernburg began to speak: his voice was loud and firm, and the deep silence round about caused every word to be distinctly heard.
"What means this noise here at the works? There is no reason for it. You gave warning, and I have had the workshops closed and shall keep them closed. You have been paid your wages, so now go home!"
The workmen were startled; they had been accustomed to their chiefs speaking shortly and dictatorially, but this cold, contemptuous tone they heard from his lips now for the first time. They felt it at once, without being able exactly to account for it.
Now Landsfeld deemed that the hour had come for his personal interference. "You and the rest follow me," was his brief command to Fallner, and then, without further ceremony, he turned to Dernburg.
"The question here is not one of pay," he began, with insolent mien. "What the workmen want of you, Herr Dernburg, they have already communicated to you. Those unjust dismissals are to----"
"Who are you? Who gives you the right to put in a word here?" interrupted Dernburg, although he knew the speaker by sight as well as that person knew him.
"My name is Landsfeld," was the haughty reply. "I think that suffices for my justification."
"Intermeddling from without I do not brook. Leave Odensburg on the spot!"
This order sounded proud and contemptuous. Landsfeld retired a step and measured from head to foot the man who stood before him, unsupported, and yet dared to speak thus.
"Such an order I shall not heed," answered he, scornfully. "I stand here in the name of my party, which Odensburg matters very nearly concern. Comrades! do you recognize me as your proxy? Am I to speak for you?"
Fallner and his men, who had followed their leader and encircled him on all sides, answered with stormy approval, while the others remained silent. Landsfeld triumphantly raised his head.
"You hear it! I tell you, then, that the conditions imposed by you before the resumption of work are shameful and degrading. I declare the man that submits to them to be a coward and traitor."
"And I declare that I have nothing to do with you or the like of you," cried Dernburg, extremely provoked by this challenge. "I made conditions for my workmen, to whom alone I shall re-open the works--with men of your stamp I have nothing at all to do."
Landsfeld started up, enraged. "With men of my stamp? We are indeed only worms in the eyes of this high and mighty lord? Comrades! do you put up with this?"
He did not appeal in vain to his comrades. Abusive words and threats were hurled at Dernburg, who was ever more closely wedged in by the mob. Cut off from any assistance, at any instant he might look for the worst.
Then were heard in the distance loud clamor and shouts, not of a fierce and menacing kind, though, but as if some one was being joyfully received, Now they could even distinguish an enthusiastic "huzza" that was loud and long-drawn-out, and continually came nearer. "Long live Runeck! Long live Egbert Runeck!" sounded from all quarters, and, through the midst of the densely-packed masses, a way was opened for the engineer, who rapidly drew near.
Breathless from his impetuous walk, he placed himself by Dernburg's side with an air that showed plainly enough that he was determined to stand by him and fall with him. He looked defiance at Landsfeld, who returned his glance with a scornful shrug of the shoulders.
"Are you actually here, my dear fellow?" he murmured. "If youwillbreak your own neck, then I need not do it for you."
Runeck, meanwhile, had taken a rapid survey of the situation; he recognized its peril, and seized the sole means that had promise of safety.
"Back from the house!" was his order to the workmen who held the superintendent's office beleaguered. "Do you not see that Herr Dernburg wants to get to his officers? I'll escort him; make room!"
The people were surprised, shocked at the part taken; they obeyed, however, and began to retire. The square in front of the house was gradually emptied, and if Dernburg were once there in the midst of his officers, he would be also in safety. If Runeck, then, remained at his side, the whole affair would wind up peacefully. But this did not at all fit into Landsfeld's plan, and again he struck in.
"What means this?" he cried in a sharp stentorian voice. "Our delegate takes part against us, and ranges himself on the enemy's side, does he? Herr Runeck! your place is with us. You have to represent us--or do you mean to turn traitor?"
That evil word "traitor" immediately took effect, and a low threatening murmur became audible. Now Runeck lost the moderation that he had hitherto found it hard enough to preserve in face of Landsfeld's effrontery.
"You yourselves are traitors and villains if you assault the man who has helped you in every way that he could," he thundered. "Back from him! whoever touches him, I shall strike to the ground!"
His bearing was wild and threatening, so that all shrank back save Landsfeld only.
"Suppose you try that on me, then?" he yelled, rushing forward to attack Dernburg, but in the same minute, felled by a powerful blow of Egbert's fist, he sank to the ground with a loud outcry, where he lay with blood streaming over him.
The sudden lightning-like deed unchained all the passions of the raging mob.
With a fierce shout, Fallner and his fellows rushed upon Runeck, who threw himself in front of Dernburg and covered him with his body. For a few minutes his gigantic strength held out against the assailants, but the end of this unequal contest was to be foreseen. Then suddenly a knife flashed in Fallner's uplifted hand, a mighty thrust--and Egbert fell down, bleeding.
But this time the deed had a different effect from what it had had before, the multitude standing paralyzed, as it were, by horror. Suddenly the monstrous character of the whole proceeding seemed to strike them. Fallner himself stood there motionless, as though shocked by his own deed. The tumult was hushed; nobody hindered Dernburg, who, with pale face and compressed lips, slowly stooped down and took the unconscious Egbert in his arms.
Meanwhile, seeing that the square in front of the house was clear, the officers made a renewed attempt to force their way to the chief; it had only succeeded in a measure, but they already found themselves quite near to him, when that bloody incident supervened. Doctor Hagenbach, with quick presence of mind, profited by it to accomplish their end. "Room for the surgeon!" cried he, pressing forward. "Let me through!"
This word availed; a narrow path was opened for him in the densely-packed throng, and the officers crowded after; in a few minutes Dernburg was surrounded by them. But he did not concern himself on that score; he knelt by Egbert, whose head he supported, and when the doctor now stooped down and examined the wound, he asked softly, in a tone of deep distress:
"Is he--mortally wounded?"
"Very severely!" said Hagenbach, loudly and earnestly. "He must be conveyed somewhere instantly."
"To the Manor-house!" suggested Dernburg.
"Yes, indeed, that is best." He quickly put on a bandage, and then turned, in passing, to the bleeding Landsfeld, in order to examine him as well.
"There is no danger here!" he called aloud to the bystanders. "The blow has only stunned the man. Carry him into the house--he will soon again come to his senses--there is no cause for uneasiness about him. But Runeck--he is badly hurt!"
His manner showed that he feared the worst, and this decided the mood of the multitude. There arose an agitated murmur, that was transmitted from mouth to mouth, until it reached the ranks of those who had stood too far off to see what had been going on. And now, when Egbert was picked up and borne away, a movement of horror passed through the throng of human beings. They saw their deputy, whom they had elected in defiance of their chief, and lifted upon the shield with loud rejoicings lying lifeless and covered with blood, in the arms of the officers, who bore him away, and their chief walked by his side and held in his the hand of the unconscious young man. No request was needed to induce them to make way: all moved silently aside, when the melancholy procession came past--not a word, not a sound was to be heard. A silence as of death fell upon all those thousands.
Meanwhile, in the Manor-house they were awaiting in terrible anxiety the issue of the noise and commotion, that were plainly audible as coming from the works. When Maia came from the park, her father had already gone forth to quell the workmen, and she could not, therefore, talk with him. She took refuge with Cecilia, wanting to unbosom herself to her, but had found her in such grief and distress, that it was useless to expect from her attention and sympathy.
"Leave me, Maia!" pleaded the young widow in accents of despair. "Only leave me now! Later, I will listen to everything you have to say, and advise you, too, but now I can think of nothing, and feel nothing buthisdanger!" So saying, she rushed out upon the terrace, whence one could overlook the works.
Poor Maia's heart grew still heavier.Hisdanger! By that she could only mean her father, to whom Cecilia, too, was tenderly devoted. Was he actually in such sore peril when among his workmen?
Thus more than an hour had elapsed, and Maia could stand it no longer. What was Oscar to think of her staying away? He would believe that she had wavered in her resolution, and was minded to let him go alone to destruction. Shemustgo back to him, if only for a few minutes, in order to tell him that it was impossible to speak with her father now! With quickening breath she hurried into the park, which already lay shadowed in twilight gloom. There who should come to meet her but her father.
Dernburg, with his attendants, had selected the shortest way, the same little by-path which he had used awhile ago on his way to the works, and which could not be seen from the terrace either. Through the movement of the stretcher and pain of the wound Egbert had been brought back to consciousness: his first question had reference to Landsfeld. Hagenbach assured him that the man's wound was insignificant and did not involve the slightest danger, and a deep sigh of relief showed how much comfort this assurance gave the young engineer. Maia, who at first only saw her father, threw herself impetuously on his bosom.
"You live, papa, you are saved! Thank God, now all will be well!"
"Yes, I am saved--at this price!" said Dernburg in a whisper, while he pointed behind him. Now, for the first time, the young girl caught sight of the wounded man, and uttered a shriek of horror.
"Hush, my child!" admonished Dernburg. "I did not want to frighten you. Where is Cecilia?"
"Out on the terrace. I must run and tell her; she is almost distressed to death about you," whispered Maia, with a glance at the friend of her youth, that was full of anguish, for he looked like one dying. Then she hurried off to her sister-in-law.
Dernburg had Egbert carried into his own chamber, and helped to lay him on the bed, while Dr. Hagenbach exerted himself in his behalf, and gave a few directions to the servant-man who came hurrying in. Then the door opened, and in Maia's company appeared Cecilia. Without disturbing herself about witnesses, without even seeing them, with a wild movement, she rushed up to the couch, and there fell upon her knees.
"Egbert, you had promised me to live!" she cried despairingly, "and yet you sought death."
Dernburg stood there as though struck by lightning. He had never had even the faintest suspicion of this love, and now one unguarded moment betrayed everything to him.
"I did not want to die, Cecilia, assuredly not," said Egbert, faintly. "But there was no other possibility of savinghim."
His eye turned upon Dernburg, who now approached, and continued to look from one to the other, as though dazed.
"Is that the way it stands between you two?" asked he, slowly.
The young woman did not answer; she only clasped Egbert's right hand in both her own, as though she feared that they might be parted. He tried to speak, but Dernburg would not allow him to make the effort.
"Be tranquil, Egbert," said he, earnestly. "I know that Eric's betrothed was sacred from your approach: you need not assure me of that; and after his death, you have to-day, for the first time, entered Odensburg. My poor boy! That interposition has been fatal to you--you have been obliged to pay for it with your heart's blood."
"But this blood has forced me from that chain!" cried Egbert, with a return of his old fire. "You, none of you, have any idea how hard I have found it to wear. Now it is broken--I am free!"
He sank back, exhausted, and now Dr. Hagenbach asserted himself. In the most decided manner, he forbade any talking, and any further agitation of exciting topics, in the presence of the wounded man, from whom he did not conceal the perilous in his situation.
Dernburg looked upon his daughter-in-law, who, with folded hands, looked entreatingly at him, and he understood the silent appeal.
"Egbert, then, needs entire repose," said he, earnestly, "and self-sacrificing care. I commit him to you, Cecilia--you will be the best nurse here!" Once more he stooped down to the wounded man, exchanged a few whispered words with the surgeon, and then went into his office. Maia, who had hitherto stood silent in the doorway, now followed him, but she approached her father as shyly and timidly as though she had some grievous fault of her own to confess.
"Papa, I have something to say to you," she whispered, with downcast eyes. "I know you have already gone through terrible experiences to-day--but I cannot wait. Somebody out in the park is awaiting your decision and mine--I must convey it to him. Will you hear me?"
Dernburg had turned to her. Yes, indeed, what he had gone through with that day was hard, but this was the hardest of all. He held out both arms, and folding his darling to his heart, said in a breaking voice:
"My little Maia! My poor, poor child----"