* * * * *The Burgrave's jaunty Jäger stood and saluted in military fashion. The Burgrave wheeled round in his chair and bent his brows. It was dark in the great stone room but for the single shaded lamp on the writing-table, which flung a pallid circle of light upon his intent countenance. So might some ancestor of his have looked, four hundred years before, as he planned with his henchmen the treachery that should rid him of an enemy."I have to report, my lord," said the fellow, "that the Count Kielmansegg's travelling carriage is ordered to be in readiness at the foot of the hill to-night.""So!" The exclamation was almost triumph.Kurtz pulled a slip of paper from the breast of his tunic and held it out."Will your lordship open it with care?" he remarked imperturbably, as the Burgrave's eye shot flames and he stretched out an eager hand. "The gracious lady has not yet seen it. And I have promised Eliza that it should not be crushed."The Burgrave held the note to the light. It was in French, and very terse:"All is arranged. I will wait for you at the entrance of the east tower at nine o'clock."The Burgrave stared at the words for an appreciable time. An apoplectic wave of blood rushed to his forehead, and the veins thereon swelled like cords. Then he folded the paper again with minute precaution and handed it back."Return it to the wench, and bid her deliver it," he said briefly. "Well, what now?""I beg pardon, my lord, but this has cost me my watch-chain to-day. And I took upon myself to promise her further two gold pieces.""Fool!" said the Burgrave, harshly. "Could you not have done as much by love-making and never cost me a kreutzer? Young men like you are scarce in these parts."The Jäger shrugged his shoulders. "She took the kisses as well," he said cynically. "What would his lordship have? Women are like that!"The other flung the coins across the table with an oath. Those were better days, of old, when a man could have his bidding done in his own castle without any such bargainings. But, as the servant wheeled and swung towards the door, his master recalled him."You have left my orders in the village? If that fiddling beggar dares present himself near my doors again, I shall have him flogged till the skin hangs in strips, and then ... and then set the dogs upon him. The miserable rapscallion; the impudent cur, to dare to play his tricks as high as my very table, to dare to break bread with my wife!"The Burgrave struck the table so that the rummer of Burgundy at his elbow splashed red upon his hand; the Jäger glanced at the empty bottle and then at his lord's inflamed countenance, and gave his soldierly response:"Zu Befehl." Then he added, the insolence of the servant who feels superior to his employer in coolness and clear-headedness piercing through his well-drilled air of subordination: "May it please your Excellency, the folk about here believe the fiddler to be some great person in disguise."The Burgrave's eyes were bloodshot this evening; the Jäger was minded of the glare of an old boar at bay."It is quite likely," he proceeded jauntily, "that the gentleman was similarly deceived.""The gentleman—the gentleman? What gentleman, you rascal?""The gracious young gentleman, the cousin of her Excellency."The Burgrave gave a savage growl:"Out of my sight!"With some additional briskness of gait, Kurtz drew the solid oak door between himself and the Chancellor.Alone, Betty's husband yielded himself to a convulsion of rage. Again he beat the table with his hands, anon tore at his bristling hair; suffocating, he wrenched the stock from his throat; broken words, curses, threats, ejaculations of self-pity escaped him. When at length he recovered his senses in some fashion, he was shaking as if from an ague. He caught up the last glassful of wine and drained it at a draught. Then he subsided heavily into his chair, and drawing unmeaning signs with his fingers through the spilt wine upon the polished oak, began slowly to repeat, half aloud, the words of the letter Kurtz had brought him."The entrance of the east tower, at nine o'clock."Suddenly a shout of laughter escaped him."The entrance of the east tower. You have chosen well, my turtle doves!"He let his head drop between his hands and sat in sodden brooding.CHAPTER XIITHE BURGRAVE'S FAREWELL"—What means this, my lord?—Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief."(Hamlet).Countess Betty had the megrims and declined to appear at supper. For a sufferer, however, she had a bright eye, and she moved about her room with the alacrity of a busy bird. She was alone, some belated notion of prudence having bade her dismiss her handmaiden during the final preparation. Her eyes were taking in wistfully the dimensions of the small travelling-bag (which was all that, in conscience, she could allow herself, since Cousin Kielmansegg would have to carry it himself down the precipitous roads) and the numberless objects which, at the last moment, seemed to her indispensable, when there came a tap at her window. She started—and only the sense of unacknowledged guilt weighing on her soul kept her from screaming aloud for help—when she perceived, pressed against the uncurtained pane, a man's face. The next instant, however, she had recognized the wandering fiddler. She hurried towards him."A message?" she cried eagerly, as she opened the casement.The man swung himself in and sat on the deep window-seat. His face was wet with rain. He gazed upon her for a second, quizzically, and when he spoke it was not in reply."Here I come," said he, "by the ivy, at the risk of my neck, I, whom your worthy lord and master threatened to have flogged and thrown to the dogs, if he caught me up here again! What a foolish plight should I be in, had I counted upon your tender heart sparing a tremor for my perils! It is enough to make a man desire to walk in by the door for the rest of his life!""But, in heaven's name," she exclaimed, having but a matter-of-fact spirit, in spite of its dainty envelope, "you did climb up all the way to tell me something. Was it not a message?"He bowed."From him?"He laid his hand on his heart. "From myself," he answered.She glanced at him and then at her bolted door in renewed alarm. He read her thought."God forbid!" quoth he, smiling with an air that put him, in his poor raiment, at an extraordinary distance above her. "I should not so presume, madam.—Are you aware," he pursued in another tone, "that your husband's confidential Jäger was in intimate conversation with Count Kielmansegg's postilion in the village to-day?""Mercy!" she cried, reading the portent."After which, my dear madam, he climbed the hill in a company that lightened the way for him, having, in fact, his arm round the trim waist of your own handmaiden."Countess Betty sank on a couch, white to her lips."Your trusted handmaiden," repeated the fiddler, emphatically."Alas! if I had hesitated," said the lady, piously turning up her eyes to the vaulted ceiling, "this would decide it; I dare not risk another night in this castle.""Taking risk for risk," said the musician, carelessly, "if I were timid, I should prefer the waiting hazard.""You mean?" she panted, round-eyed, in quick apprehension."I mean," said he, "that it is raining exceedingly hard, and that between this and the foot of the crag you will get wet, madam; so wet as to extinguish for ever the most ardent flame."The Burgravine rose with dignity. "I will have you know, sir, that I am merely accepting Count Kielmansegg's protection back to my own family, because I know I can trust to his honour.""Quite so," said Geiger-Hans, in a soothing voice. "And it is, of course, infinitely preferable to set forth by night in secret, with a handsome young man, than to summon any more aged or nearer relative to your help! A father, maybe—or a brother? But it is raining, as I say, madam, very hard. So much for the start. And I am afraid when you arrive in Austria your noble family may consider your journey ill-managed."Her bosom heaved."It is very unjust," she moaned, "that you men can do everything, whereas we poor women——" She paused on the brink of tears."Ah!" he retorted, "you women are the crystal cups that hold the honour of the house! That is why we must set you in a shrine, madam. To-night it is still sanctuary in your presence, and I can still kneel before you. To-morrow——?"The colour rushed into her face. She tried to speak with haughtiness, but her voice faltered."To-morrow—what then?""It is inconceivable how much wiser it would be for you to remain under a husband's roof on such a night!"There came a knock at the door. With squirrel nimbleness the fiddler twisted round and vanished. The Burgravine took a rapid survey of the room, whisked the bag into a cupboard, the jewel-cases on the top of it, and went to the window to close it."One moment, one moment!" she called, as the knocking was discreetly repeated, and paused with her hand on the casement. Certainly it was most uncomfortable weather! Then she opened the door. Sidonia entered."Little aunt, is your head better?""Yes, child, yes. You have supped? Is it so late?" Before the girl could answer, the bell of the castle clock began to boom nine strokes. "Nine o'clock!" shrieked the Burgravine. "What's to be done?" She struck her forehead with a distraught air. "I dare not trust that false Eliza," she murmured in her mind. Then her eye met Sidonia's candid gaze, and she caught her hand. "Listen, child; you shall do something for me. Count Kielmansegg is going away to-night."The girl's pupils widened, her face grew paler, but she did not speak."'Twas I bade him leave. Your uncle's causeless jealousy ..."The girl nodded. The Burgrave, in truth, had been no pleasant companion that night. He had drunk heavily, and alternated between glowering spells of silence and loud and almost offensive pleasantries aimed at his guest, both of which had, not unnaturally, considerably embarrassed Count Kielmansegg."'Twas my duty!" (Oh, how virtuous felt the Burgravine of Wellenshausen!) "I had promised him (poor youth, he is my cousin!) that I would bid him 'Good-bye.' But now"—(positively Countess Betty thought her niece must perceive the halo growing round her head)—"now it has struck me that if your uncle heard of it, he might misconstrue—— My dear, you must go and tell Count Steven from me——""I?" cried Sidonia, and started."You must," insisted the lady, harshly. "He is waiting in the east tower. Tell him this: 'My aunt has sent me to say "Good-bye" for her; it is better so.... It is better so.' Do not forget to say that. What are you waiting for, girl? Go! Perhaps you are afraid of the rain!" cried the Burgravine, scornfully, and seized the travelling-cloak that was lying ready on the bed. "Here, put this on; wrap the hood over your head. Now run, there is not a moment to be lost."There was, perhaps, more urgency, more fear, in her voice and manner than she had been aware of, for Sidonia, after a quick look at her, gathered the folds of the cloak about her and fled upon her errand. The Burgravine drew a long sigh of relief, then rang her hand-bell sharply."Eliza," said she to the responsive damsel, and, on the spot, froze her with a glance for the impertinent air of confederacy with which she had entered, "light up a fire and serve supper to me. My head is better. Trim the candles and give me 'La Nouvelle Héloise? How you stare, wench! Have you fallen in love, perhaps, that you do your work so ill to-day?"Steven's reflections, as he waited in the best-sheltered corner of the deserted tower, listening to the beat and gurgle of the rain, were of an unsatisfactory description. The folly of weakness is the worst of follies, the realization of it the most galling. He was about—no use in trying to blink the fact—he was about to ruin his own life; to take upon himself an intolerable burden; to commit, technically at least, a crime against hospitality; to put a stain upon his ancient name; and all without receiving in return the slightest gratification or being able to proffer, even to himself, the exoneration of any approach to passion. The mere thought of the long, intimate drive was a bore; the prospect of a possible life-long companionship with the Burgravine intolerable.Geiger-Hans, mysterious wretch that he was, had much to answer for. And yet, had Steven followed his advice (he had, in honesty, to admit this) things would not be at this pass.* * * * *She came in upon him with a rapid step and a rustle of wet garments, stopped at the mouth of the passage, and said in a loud whisper:"Are you there,Herr Graf?"As he went forward, she clutched his wrist with a cold hand."Hush," she cried, "I think I heard steps behind me!"Both listened, not daring to breathe. Oh, what a situation for a youth whose pride it had been to hold his head high in the world!Nothing was heard, however, save the wild, dismal murmur of the rain over the land, and the nearer drip and patter."No, there is nothing," he said, and reluctantly passed a limp arm round her shoulders. To his surprise, they were jerked from his touch with resentment. The next moment, however, by a mutual movement, they caught at each other; for there came an unaccountable grinding about their ears, and almost immediately the solid ground gave way under their feet."Gracious Powers! is the tower falling?" cried he.Even as he clasped the figure beside him, with the instinctive, protecting action of man for woman, he was aware that the slender thing in his arms could not be the Burgravine. But at the same instant they were sliding; and before he could do aught but throw himself backwards to avoid crushing her, they were shot with giddy swiftness down a steep incline. With a shock, his feet struck level ground; he lay dazed and breathless, her weight across his breast. Stars danced before his eyes. Vaguely, as from a great distance, he heard overhead the echo of a laugh; then a thud, and once more the grinding sound, as of heavy, rusty bars. It was the laugh that brought him to his senses; too often, lately, had that laugh rung in his ears!She raised herself in his arms."Are you hurt?" he cried as he lay."No," she answered quickly. "Don't get up!" He knew by the sudden change in her voice that she had flung the muffling hood from her head. "Don't get up! don't stir! I must find out where we are."He recognized now the young, clear tones. It was Sidonia, but he was past surprise. One thing alone stood clear out of his confusion: whatever it might be that had brought this about, he was glad, to the heart of him he was glad, it was not Countess Betty.He felt the girl struggle to her feet, heard her grope with her hands above his head. There came a moment of great stillness: he knew she was listening. Unconsciously he hearkened too, and then there grew upon them, out of the solid darkness, the cry of waters, rising up with a sort of cavernous echo as from a great depth. And, with a flash, his mind leaped back to that fearsome race of brown river that swirled so strangely from the foot of the Burg-crag, just above the village bridge. He felt his hair bristle. But when she spoke again, the sound of her voice, with its extraordinary accent of decision, roused him like a stimulant."We are safe if we but keep where we are," she said. "You may sit up if you like, but do not attempt to stand." And then she added: "You do not know the place; I do."She sat down beside him, and in the dark he felt her close presence once more with gladness."What is this place, then?" he asked, unconsciously whispering.She answered him with a simplicity which almost made him laugh:"It is the oldoubliette."Vague cruel memories of mediæval romance awoke in his brain.Oubliette! The word itself was suggestive, and not agreeably so."Anoublietteis——?" he asked."The secret trap by which the castellan of old quietly got rid of enemies or of inconvenient prisoners. You see," she proceeded, with her astounding composure, "through this tower, in former days, was the sally-port—there used to be no other way; and were any one whose existence interfered with the views of the Lord of Wellenshausen, passing out or in, it was easy to set the machinery in motion, with the result——" She broke off."Of landing him in our enviable situation," he finished pettishly."Not at all," retorted she. "It is the mercy of heaven for us that time and storm have been at work in these forgotten regions and provided us with so opportune a ledge——""What would have happened else?" he asked in a tone that strove to emulate her coolness."Sit quietly and listen."He felt her reach for a stone, felt the tension of her vigorous young body as she flung it. He heard the missile strike the rock sharply, rebound and then rebound again. Then, after a silence, rose a faint sound, the ghost of a splash, the gulp of greedy, far-off waters, infinitely sinister. He shuddered."No one knows how deep it is," said she, "nor what lies hidden there. I can tell you, when I first discovered this pit, it terrified me. Old Martin had told me of its legends, but I had laughed at him. One day, some months ago, I scrambled in from the outside, for the old tower is falling in ruin, and explored the place. But I had no notion the old trap-stone in the sally-port still worked. Now I remember," she cried with sudden sharpness, "seeing Uncle Ludo wandering about the place this evening——" She stopped suddenly, struck by a new thought."But," exclaimed the young man, "in heaven's name, what have I done, to...?" And then his uneasy conscience whipped him silent."It is a horrible trick," resumed the girl, now with a passionate ring in her voice, "you, his guest——"An indignant sob caught her in the throat. "You his guest!" she repeated. "Oh, whatever he thought of you, he should have remembered that! I can never forgive him."The guest who had meditated, however unwillingly, the betrayal of his host, blushed painfully under the cloak of blackness. He heard her swallow her tears and knew that she clenched her hands. After a while she went on more quietly:"How wise it was of Aunt Betty to tell you to go away! And, oh, how glad I am that she sent me instead of coming herself to bid you 'Good-bye.'"Steven opened his mouth, and then closed it again dumbly."You would both have been killed," she went on, sinking her voice. "Uncle Ludovic must be mad—mad with his ridiculous jealousy ... and he's been drinking overmuch. Ah, dear Lord! If I had not been with you——"She gave a shudder. He, on his side, had no words. He was silent in shame before the exquisite innocence; silent in admiration before the self-forgetting courage of this slip of a creature, who thought nothing of her own danger. "Here, indeed, is good blood—here is the spirit of race!" he thought, touched in his most sensitive chord.Presently, however, the humour of the grim situation struck him, and he laughed. There was Thistledown Betty, incapable even of acting up to her own unfaithfulness, snug in her bower, doubtless; and there was the outraged husband, gloating over his mediæval vengeance: Steven wished he could be present at their next conjugal meeting! Sidonia, childlike, echoed his laugh softly beside him in the dark. It struck him serious on the instant. The morrow seemed a terribly long way off."And now," said he, "what are we to do?""Hey, good sir!" said she, "nothing but wait. We shall not die this time, Herr von Kielmansegg; for my poor uncle"—she laughed in scorn and triumph—"he does not know, I warrant, that there is a way out of this old death-trap, since there is a way in. A way other than by the hidden lake and the barque of ancient Charon. But, till the daylight comes, sir——""Daylight!" he exclaimed, and knew not whether he were glad or sorry at the whole night's prospect."Till daylight comes, we must take patience here. For one false step would send our bodies to join the bones of the forgotten enemies of Wellenshausen.""So, then——""Then, I should say, the best thing we can do is ... to go to sleep."Again he was mute, pierced to the innermost fibre of his manliness. It was as if her child-heart had been suddenly revealed to him—its trustfulness, its simplicity, its courage."If you move a little to the right, carefully," she said, after a pause, "you will find it softer, I think. The earth has grown up there, and there are, I remember, ferns. You will really not be too uncomfortable."The girl was positively doing the honours of the familyoubliette! There came a tender smile to his lips, and almost a mist of tenderness to his eyes."But you," said he, "good fairy, guardian angel, do you never think of yourself?—Will you lean against me?" he went on, timidly.He gathered her to him. What a slight, warm thing she was! She trembled as he passed his arms round her, and he instantly desisted. "Would you rather not?""I don't know," she whispered. He thought there was a quaver as of tears catching her breath.All the chivalry in him leaped to her service. He drew back. With some difficulty he unwound his heavy cloak from himself. He was stiff and bruised, and the uncertainty of his balance in the blackness gave him an eerie sensation as of precipices yawning for him on every side."What are you doing?" she cried severely."Let me put this over you," he pleaded. "And then you can roll up your own mantle and make a pillow of it—against me, thus.""But you—but you——"She struggled against his covering hands so impetuously that he caught her with a grip of alarm. And the sound of the rock crumbling away and leaping into the gulf gave its significant warning."You must keep quiet," said he, for the first time asserting the leadership. "And you must let me hold you and cover you. It is my duty to serve you, Mademoiselle Sidonia, my right to protect you. Sleep if you can. You will be safe, for I shall watch."She remained motionless a minute and then submitted without a word. He placed his arm about her; her head drooped to his shoulder; there fell silence. In time he felt her rigidity relax, heard her quick breath grow calm and regular."You are afraid no more," he said gently."I don't think I was afraid," she answered him. Her voice had grown lazy; and, subtly, by the tone of it, he knew that she smiled. He felt ineffably proud of her confidence, ineffably protective towards her.[image]Meanwhile, up in his chamber, the Burgrave sat in sodden brooding.CHAPTER XIIITHE OUBLIETTE"Furcht bich nicht, du liebes Kindchen,Bor der bösen Geister Macht!Tag und Nacht, du liebes Kindchen,Halten Englein bei dir Wacht!"HEINE.The minutes dropped slowly into the hour.* * * * *Something raised a blood-curdling screech that went sobbing and echoing through the cavern. If he had not held her, he would have started in frank alarm. She only gave a drowsy laugh."'Tis Barbarossa, the old owl," said she.And again fell the silence, filled for him with whirling thoughts.How right had this Geiger-Hans been in his warning! How merciful had Fate been to save him from his own folly! Were he now rolling along the wet Imperial road with the Burgrave's wife, he would have had, doubtless, to clasp her much as he clasped Sidonia. Precarious as it was, his present situation was infinitely preferable. He felt like a father, holding his pretty child, all warm with tenderness; not like a dishonest, cold lover with the woman he cannot love.Sidonia's light breathing grew fainter and more rhythmic. She was asleep. He had longed, but hardly dared to hope, that she could sleep. In his heart he went down on his knees to her and thanked her, stirred by the eternal parent instinct, perhaps, but also by another emotion, tenderer still and more vital—a reverent bending of his whole manhood before the purity and trustfulness that lay in his embrace.* * * * *The night progressed with lengthening hours. He had begun to make out some kind of bearings for himself in the dark; to find, by the cold airs that occasionally blew in upon him from one direction, by the guidance of the sounds that grew in the night's stillness—the gusty increases, the placid subsidence of the rain, the rustle of leaves and twigs—in which quarter of their prison lay that opening to the outer world by which they should escape.Sometimes his mind wandered far away. Now and again he almost lost himself in a vague dream; but ever he came back with a shock to the present peril and his responsibility.And the child still slept!He began to grow weary and cold. His arm became stiff, then numb. The burden that had seemed so light upon it grew almost intolerable. Sometimes drowsiness pressed upon him, he thought himself in a nightmare, from which he must wake to find himself huddled in a corner of his travelling chaise. But he would have died sooner than disturb the sleeper.Then, at the moment when the tension of enforced immobility brought such a feeling of exasperation and oppression that he almost felt as if his wits were leaving him, he turned his head instinctively in the direction of the air current, and relief came. The rain was over. The clouds had cleared away and a patch of sapphire sky looked in upon him, framed by jagged rocks: it held two or three faint stars. He could see a branch outlined dimly against the translucence, and leaves trembling in outer freedom.Nothing more than this, and yet it was balm. The torture that gripped him subsided. He gazed and forgot the cramping of his limbs. The first stars passed slowly and vanished; others swam into his vision and formed new shapes in the peep of sky. Some were brighter, some more dim; some twinkled, one burned with a steady glow. They varied in colour, too. He had had no idea that, even through such a miserable hole, the heavens had a pageant to offer of such absorbing interest. And the passing of this pageant gave him a comforting sense of the flow of night towards morn.Once Sidonia woke with a start and a cry."I am here," he quickly said.She reared herself from his arm. It was numbed to uselessness; he caught her with the other fiercely. That pit, gaping so close by in the night, had come, during the long hours, to be to him as an unknown monster, watching, waiting for its prey. She, but half awake, gropingly passed her soft hands over his face and breast. "I dreamed you had fallen," she murmured. And then, so secure in his hold, stretched herself like a weary child, and slid a little further from him so that her head rested on his knee.His eyes had grown more accustomed to the darkness; or, perhaps, there was already a raising of the deepest veils of night, for he could almost distinguish her form as she lay. He bent over her. She was speaking dreamily: "When you were hurt in the forest, this was how your head rested on my lap." In another moment she was asleep again. His arms were free—the sense of constraint was gone. And now the time went by almost as quickly as before it had lagged. He saw with surprise that the stars were extinguished, that his patch of sky had grown pearl-grey. Rapid stirrings in the leafage without spoke of an awakening world. A bird piped. The walls of their prison began to take shape.... He saw the white glimmer of her hand in the folds of the cloak.... And then he must, after all, have slept at his post; for the next thing he knew was coming to himself, with a great spasm and seeing, in a shaft of yellow sunlight, grey rock, brown earth, and Sidonia's golden head upon his knee. And, but a yard from her little sandalled foot, the horrible black chasm. Oh, shame! he had slept, and death lurking for her! The sweat started on his forehead.* * * * *A sigh of music was blown into the cavern. Sidonia turned her head and gazed up in his face with wide, bewildered eyes."It is Geiger-Hans," she murmured, and rubbed her eyes, as though she thought she were still dreaming. Then she sat up, looked round, and memory leaped back. She smiled, yawned, and drew herself together. "Well," she said, with a sidelong glance at the pit-mouth, "we have had luck, you and I! Don't you want to get out of this, Herr von Kielmansegg?" she asked briskly, as he sat wondering at her. "Or do you think it would be a nice place to turn hermit in? See, this is the way," said she, and pointed to a narrow and most insecure ledge skirting the deep; "we shall have to crawl on hands and knees. And, sir, I think our cloaks must be sacrificed."As she spoke, she gathered them together and pushed them from her. They rolled down, and Steven almost called aloud as he heard their heavy plunge into the ambushed waters: it sounded as if some living thing had gone to its death.[image]Steven almost called aloud as he heard their heavy plunge into the ambushed waters: it sounded as if some living thing had gone to its death."I will lead," said she.Sunshine, sky, grass, wide airs! Till that moment Steven had never known what these things could mean to man. He sat on a sun-warmed rock by the side of the precipitous, all but obliterated pathway that led zigzag upwards to the broken rampart. Sidonia stood shaking and pruning herself like a bird, her hair glinting in the light. By tacit consent both paused upon this moment of physical relief before considering their next course. From above, the plaintive strain they had heard within their prison was again borne down towards them on the breeze. Sidonia's fingers, busy in her tresses, stopped. She bent her ear.[image]Sidonia stood, shaking and pruning herself like a bird, her hair glinting in the light."It is Geiger-Hans. And that is my tune. He is seeking me!"She curved her hands round her mouth and gave a long mountain cry. It rang clear and sweet, cleaving the pure morning air like the call of a bird. Instantly the restless melody stopped; and, as they stood looking up in expectation, they saw the figure of Geiger-Hans emerge on the rocks over their heads. Holding his fiddle high in the air, he came clambering down to them with the agility of a goat."Thank God!" he exclaimed, as, breathless, he drew near. "Cruel children, what a fright you have given me!"His cheek was pale under its bronze. Yet, in spite of its severity, his haggard eye was quick to note that these two were torn and dishevelled, that their smiles had the pallor which has faced death."What has happened?" cried he, in changed accents.Sidonia broke into passionate complaint. A great lassitude was upon Steven; he did not wish to stir or speak; he listened in silence, as she poured forth the story tersely, yet with the vividness of her passion."And it was Uncle Ludo did it!" she ended, with a fresh gust of anger. "We heard him laugh as we fell. And Count Kielmansegg his guest!" Her pride could not stomach the thought; it was less to her, evidently, that her relative should have endeavoured to compass the death of wife as well as guest, for her anger dropped into mere shuddering pity as she added: "Poor Aunt Betty! Just think, if she had not sent me!"Many expressions passed over Geiger-Hans' countenance as the drama unrolled itself before his quick mental vision. Thunder of anger, clouds of fear and doubt, tender admiration. He shot one lightning glance of inquiry at Steven; his brow cleared before the frank answering look.As the girl finished, the two men sought silent intercourse with each other. The eyes of both had grown soft. For herself, the little fearless creature still had no thought, far less words."Well, friends," said the fiddler at last, sitting down on the slope and wiping his forehead with his sleeve, "you may flatter yourselves that you've given me no better night than your own. First, Sir Count, having a word to say to you, I made so bold as to take a seat in your carriage, as it waited down yonder. A moist time I had of it, in company with your lordship's horses and postilion. (By the way, this same postilion hath a varied choice of oaths.) Towards the small hours our relations became strained, and we parted; he back to the Silver Stork, and I—I will not conceal it—to wandering once more in the purlieus of this hospitable strong-house. For, although nothing was more natural than that a guest should have altered his intention of departing at the last moment, my mind misgave me.""Poor Geiger-Onkel!" said Sidonia. "How wet you must be!""Nay, the night had turned fine then; it was the least of my hardships. But at dawn this restless spirit of mine set me to rousing the castle—and a fine time of it I have given them! His Excellency, however, was found dead drunk in his hall, so that I could get little out of him. The lady is convinced that you, comrade, have eloped with her niece, by some devious road——""Devious enough," said Steven, with a short laugh.But Sidonia had become grave. "I am glad, at least, that he was drunk," she said, with judicial air."I left my Lady Burgravine planning hysterics. But I have given orders in the household, as if I were master of all. No flogging of Geiger-Hans now, nor setting of dogs upon him! 'Tis I command this morning. I have marshalled his Excellency's servants: there are some half-dozen fellows searching the rocks already. And here, by the way, comes one bright youth. Observe how he looks under the brambles and the bushes. He will not leave a mouse-hole unprodded for your corpses.""Shall we not bid him get breakfast for us all?" cried Sidonia, gaily. "'Tis the least Wellenshausen can do for you this morning, Herr Graf!"She sprang upwards lightly, her small face, wan with fatigue, laughing back at them over her shoulder. The fiddler and Steven stood side by side watching her."Well," said the former, after a pause, "are you inclined to go and break bread again in the house whose stones plotted your death? Or will you take the safe way down the mountain to the cushions of your berline, and cry: 'Drive on, postilion'?"Steven regarded the speaker a moment or two before replying. It seemed to the young man as if that long, black night had cut him off from his own purblind youth. He felt himself years older, weighted with life."I am going back to the Burg," he said, and set off climbing."Hey, comrade, hey, what haste?" panted the other at his ear. "What is your purpose up there? You've been there once too often." There was a certain anxiety under the speaker's mocking air."My purpose——" began Steven, coldly. He was about to add, "concerns you not," but on second thought he wheeled round, and all that had been gathering in his heart this night escaped in words of fire. "Why do you ask?" he cried. "You know! What! are you the man to whom the souls of others lie bare? Are you a man like myself, and do you think I can leave that child now? With her little hand she held me from death. She lay in my arms and slept and trusted me. Do you think I could endure myself if I thought I had left her unprotected here? If I give my whole life to the mere guardianship of her, shall I do more than my duty? Man!" cried Steven, catching the fiddler's sunburnt wrist and shaking him, "I tell you, the child lay in my arms all night.""She is indeed a child," said the musician, quietly."And it is even for that!" exclaimed Steven. "Oh, I thought you would have understood!""Let us go up to the heights, then," said the fiddler."What, no music?" cried Sidonia, gaily, as she watched them coming, from the doorstep. "I expected to hear your fiddle chanting the song of delivery!""I have enough music in my soul this morning," replied the wanderer.
* * * * *
The Burgrave's jaunty Jäger stood and saluted in military fashion. The Burgrave wheeled round in his chair and bent his brows. It was dark in the great stone room but for the single shaded lamp on the writing-table, which flung a pallid circle of light upon his intent countenance. So might some ancestor of his have looked, four hundred years before, as he planned with his henchmen the treachery that should rid him of an enemy.
"I have to report, my lord," said the fellow, "that the Count Kielmansegg's travelling carriage is ordered to be in readiness at the foot of the hill to-night."
"So!" The exclamation was almost triumph.
Kurtz pulled a slip of paper from the breast of his tunic and held it out.
"Will your lordship open it with care?" he remarked imperturbably, as the Burgrave's eye shot flames and he stretched out an eager hand. "The gracious lady has not yet seen it. And I have promised Eliza that it should not be crushed."
The Burgrave held the note to the light. It was in French, and very terse:
"All is arranged. I will wait for you at the entrance of the east tower at nine o'clock."
The Burgrave stared at the words for an appreciable time. An apoplectic wave of blood rushed to his forehead, and the veins thereon swelled like cords. Then he folded the paper again with minute precaution and handed it back.
"Return it to the wench, and bid her deliver it," he said briefly. "Well, what now?"
"I beg pardon, my lord, but this has cost me my watch-chain to-day. And I took upon myself to promise her further two gold pieces."
"Fool!" said the Burgrave, harshly. "Could you not have done as much by love-making and never cost me a kreutzer? Young men like you are scarce in these parts."
The Jäger shrugged his shoulders. "She took the kisses as well," he said cynically. "What would his lordship have? Women are like that!"
The other flung the coins across the table with an oath. Those were better days, of old, when a man could have his bidding done in his own castle without any such bargainings. But, as the servant wheeled and swung towards the door, his master recalled him.
"You have left my orders in the village? If that fiddling beggar dares present himself near my doors again, I shall have him flogged till the skin hangs in strips, and then ... and then set the dogs upon him. The miserable rapscallion; the impudent cur, to dare to play his tricks as high as my very table, to dare to break bread with my wife!"
The Burgrave struck the table so that the rummer of Burgundy at his elbow splashed red upon his hand; the Jäger glanced at the empty bottle and then at his lord's inflamed countenance, and gave his soldierly response:
"Zu Befehl." Then he added, the insolence of the servant who feels superior to his employer in coolness and clear-headedness piercing through his well-drilled air of subordination: "May it please your Excellency, the folk about here believe the fiddler to be some great person in disguise."
The Burgrave's eyes were bloodshot this evening; the Jäger was minded of the glare of an old boar at bay.
"It is quite likely," he proceeded jauntily, "that the gentleman was similarly deceived."
"The gentleman—the gentleman? What gentleman, you rascal?"
"The gracious young gentleman, the cousin of her Excellency."
The Burgrave gave a savage growl:
"Out of my sight!"
With some additional briskness of gait, Kurtz drew the solid oak door between himself and the Chancellor.
Alone, Betty's husband yielded himself to a convulsion of rage. Again he beat the table with his hands, anon tore at his bristling hair; suffocating, he wrenched the stock from his throat; broken words, curses, threats, ejaculations of self-pity escaped him. When at length he recovered his senses in some fashion, he was shaking as if from an ague. He caught up the last glassful of wine and drained it at a draught. Then he subsided heavily into his chair, and drawing unmeaning signs with his fingers through the spilt wine upon the polished oak, began slowly to repeat, half aloud, the words of the letter Kurtz had brought him.
"The entrance of the east tower, at nine o'clock."
Suddenly a shout of laughter escaped him.
"The entrance of the east tower. You have chosen well, my turtle doves!"
He let his head drop between his hands and sat in sodden brooding.
CHAPTER XII
THE BURGRAVE'S FAREWELL
"—What means this, my lord?—Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief."(Hamlet).
"—What means this, my lord?—Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief."(Hamlet).
"—What means this, my lord?
—Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief."
(Hamlet).
(Hamlet).
Countess Betty had the megrims and declined to appear at supper. For a sufferer, however, she had a bright eye, and she moved about her room with the alacrity of a busy bird. She was alone, some belated notion of prudence having bade her dismiss her handmaiden during the final preparation. Her eyes were taking in wistfully the dimensions of the small travelling-bag (which was all that, in conscience, she could allow herself, since Cousin Kielmansegg would have to carry it himself down the precipitous roads) and the numberless objects which, at the last moment, seemed to her indispensable, when there came a tap at her window. She started—and only the sense of unacknowledged guilt weighing on her soul kept her from screaming aloud for help—when she perceived, pressed against the uncurtained pane, a man's face. The next instant, however, she had recognized the wandering fiddler. She hurried towards him.
"A message?" she cried eagerly, as she opened the casement.
The man swung himself in and sat on the deep window-seat. His face was wet with rain. He gazed upon her for a second, quizzically, and when he spoke it was not in reply.
"Here I come," said he, "by the ivy, at the risk of my neck, I, whom your worthy lord and master threatened to have flogged and thrown to the dogs, if he caught me up here again! What a foolish plight should I be in, had I counted upon your tender heart sparing a tremor for my perils! It is enough to make a man desire to walk in by the door for the rest of his life!"
"But, in heaven's name," she exclaimed, having but a matter-of-fact spirit, in spite of its dainty envelope, "you did climb up all the way to tell me something. Was it not a message?"
He bowed.
"From him?"
He laid his hand on his heart. "From myself," he answered.
She glanced at him and then at her bolted door in renewed alarm. He read her thought.
"God forbid!" quoth he, smiling with an air that put him, in his poor raiment, at an extraordinary distance above her. "I should not so presume, madam.—Are you aware," he pursued in another tone, "that your husband's confidential Jäger was in intimate conversation with Count Kielmansegg's postilion in the village to-day?"
"Mercy!" she cried, reading the portent.
"After which, my dear madam, he climbed the hill in a company that lightened the way for him, having, in fact, his arm round the trim waist of your own handmaiden."
Countess Betty sank on a couch, white to her lips.
"Your trusted handmaiden," repeated the fiddler, emphatically.
"Alas! if I had hesitated," said the lady, piously turning up her eyes to the vaulted ceiling, "this would decide it; I dare not risk another night in this castle."
"Taking risk for risk," said the musician, carelessly, "if I were timid, I should prefer the waiting hazard."
"You mean?" she panted, round-eyed, in quick apprehension.
"I mean," said he, "that it is raining exceedingly hard, and that between this and the foot of the crag you will get wet, madam; so wet as to extinguish for ever the most ardent flame."
The Burgravine rose with dignity. "I will have you know, sir, that I am merely accepting Count Kielmansegg's protection back to my own family, because I know I can trust to his honour."
"Quite so," said Geiger-Hans, in a soothing voice. "And it is, of course, infinitely preferable to set forth by night in secret, with a handsome young man, than to summon any more aged or nearer relative to your help! A father, maybe—or a brother? But it is raining, as I say, madam, very hard. So much for the start. And I am afraid when you arrive in Austria your noble family may consider your journey ill-managed."
Her bosom heaved.
"It is very unjust," she moaned, "that you men can do everything, whereas we poor women——" She paused on the brink of tears.
"Ah!" he retorted, "you women are the crystal cups that hold the honour of the house! That is why we must set you in a shrine, madam. To-night it is still sanctuary in your presence, and I can still kneel before you. To-morrow——?"
The colour rushed into her face. She tried to speak with haughtiness, but her voice faltered.
"To-morrow—what then?"
"It is inconceivable how much wiser it would be for you to remain under a husband's roof on such a night!"
There came a knock at the door. With squirrel nimbleness the fiddler twisted round and vanished. The Burgravine took a rapid survey of the room, whisked the bag into a cupboard, the jewel-cases on the top of it, and went to the window to close it.
"One moment, one moment!" she called, as the knocking was discreetly repeated, and paused with her hand on the casement. Certainly it was most uncomfortable weather! Then she opened the door. Sidonia entered.
"Little aunt, is your head better?"
"Yes, child, yes. You have supped? Is it so late?" Before the girl could answer, the bell of the castle clock began to boom nine strokes. "Nine o'clock!" shrieked the Burgravine. "What's to be done?" She struck her forehead with a distraught air. "I dare not trust that false Eliza," she murmured in her mind. Then her eye met Sidonia's candid gaze, and she caught her hand. "Listen, child; you shall do something for me. Count Kielmansegg is going away to-night."
The girl's pupils widened, her face grew paler, but she did not speak.
"'Twas I bade him leave. Your uncle's causeless jealousy ..."
The girl nodded. The Burgrave, in truth, had been no pleasant companion that night. He had drunk heavily, and alternated between glowering spells of silence and loud and almost offensive pleasantries aimed at his guest, both of which had, not unnaturally, considerably embarrassed Count Kielmansegg.
"'Twas my duty!" (Oh, how virtuous felt the Burgravine of Wellenshausen!) "I had promised him (poor youth, he is my cousin!) that I would bid him 'Good-bye.' But now"—(positively Countess Betty thought her niece must perceive the halo growing round her head)—"now it has struck me that if your uncle heard of it, he might misconstrue—— My dear, you must go and tell Count Steven from me——"
"I?" cried Sidonia, and started.
"You must," insisted the lady, harshly. "He is waiting in the east tower. Tell him this: 'My aunt has sent me to say "Good-bye" for her; it is better so.... It is better so.' Do not forget to say that. What are you waiting for, girl? Go! Perhaps you are afraid of the rain!" cried the Burgravine, scornfully, and seized the travelling-cloak that was lying ready on the bed. "Here, put this on; wrap the hood over your head. Now run, there is not a moment to be lost."
There was, perhaps, more urgency, more fear, in her voice and manner than she had been aware of, for Sidonia, after a quick look at her, gathered the folds of the cloak about her and fled upon her errand. The Burgravine drew a long sigh of relief, then rang her hand-bell sharply.
"Eliza," said she to the responsive damsel, and, on the spot, froze her with a glance for the impertinent air of confederacy with which she had entered, "light up a fire and serve supper to me. My head is better. Trim the candles and give me 'La Nouvelle Héloise? How you stare, wench! Have you fallen in love, perhaps, that you do your work so ill to-day?"
Steven's reflections, as he waited in the best-sheltered corner of the deserted tower, listening to the beat and gurgle of the rain, were of an unsatisfactory description. The folly of weakness is the worst of follies, the realization of it the most galling. He was about—no use in trying to blink the fact—he was about to ruin his own life; to take upon himself an intolerable burden; to commit, technically at least, a crime against hospitality; to put a stain upon his ancient name; and all without receiving in return the slightest gratification or being able to proffer, even to himself, the exoneration of any approach to passion. The mere thought of the long, intimate drive was a bore; the prospect of a possible life-long companionship with the Burgravine intolerable.
Geiger-Hans, mysterious wretch that he was, had much to answer for. And yet, had Steven followed his advice (he had, in honesty, to admit this) things would not be at this pass.
* * * * *
She came in upon him with a rapid step and a rustle of wet garments, stopped at the mouth of the passage, and said in a loud whisper:
"Are you there,Herr Graf?"
As he went forward, she clutched his wrist with a cold hand.
"Hush," she cried, "I think I heard steps behind me!"
Both listened, not daring to breathe. Oh, what a situation for a youth whose pride it had been to hold his head high in the world!
Nothing was heard, however, save the wild, dismal murmur of the rain over the land, and the nearer drip and patter.
"No, there is nothing," he said, and reluctantly passed a limp arm round her shoulders. To his surprise, they were jerked from his touch with resentment. The next moment, however, by a mutual movement, they caught at each other; for there came an unaccountable grinding about their ears, and almost immediately the solid ground gave way under their feet.
"Gracious Powers! is the tower falling?" cried he.
Even as he clasped the figure beside him, with the instinctive, protecting action of man for woman, he was aware that the slender thing in his arms could not be the Burgravine. But at the same instant they were sliding; and before he could do aught but throw himself backwards to avoid crushing her, they were shot with giddy swiftness down a steep incline. With a shock, his feet struck level ground; he lay dazed and breathless, her weight across his breast. Stars danced before his eyes. Vaguely, as from a great distance, he heard overhead the echo of a laugh; then a thud, and once more the grinding sound, as of heavy, rusty bars. It was the laugh that brought him to his senses; too often, lately, had that laugh rung in his ears!
She raised herself in his arms.
"Are you hurt?" he cried as he lay.
"No," she answered quickly. "Don't get up!" He knew by the sudden change in her voice that she had flung the muffling hood from her head. "Don't get up! don't stir! I must find out where we are."
He recognized now the young, clear tones. It was Sidonia, but he was past surprise. One thing alone stood clear out of his confusion: whatever it might be that had brought this about, he was glad, to the heart of him he was glad, it was not Countess Betty.
He felt the girl struggle to her feet, heard her grope with her hands above his head. There came a moment of great stillness: he knew she was listening. Unconsciously he hearkened too, and then there grew upon them, out of the solid darkness, the cry of waters, rising up with a sort of cavernous echo as from a great depth. And, with a flash, his mind leaped back to that fearsome race of brown river that swirled so strangely from the foot of the Burg-crag, just above the village bridge. He felt his hair bristle. But when she spoke again, the sound of her voice, with its extraordinary accent of decision, roused him like a stimulant.
"We are safe if we but keep where we are," she said. "You may sit up if you like, but do not attempt to stand." And then she added: "You do not know the place; I do."
She sat down beside him, and in the dark he felt her close presence once more with gladness.
"What is this place, then?" he asked, unconsciously whispering.
She answered him with a simplicity which almost made him laugh:
"It is the oldoubliette."
Vague cruel memories of mediæval romance awoke in his brain.Oubliette! The word itself was suggestive, and not agreeably so.
"Anoublietteis——?" he asked.
"The secret trap by which the castellan of old quietly got rid of enemies or of inconvenient prisoners. You see," she proceeded, with her astounding composure, "through this tower, in former days, was the sally-port—there used to be no other way; and were any one whose existence interfered with the views of the Lord of Wellenshausen, passing out or in, it was easy to set the machinery in motion, with the result——" She broke off.
"Of landing him in our enviable situation," he finished pettishly.
"Not at all," retorted she. "It is the mercy of heaven for us that time and storm have been at work in these forgotten regions and provided us with so opportune a ledge——"
"What would have happened else?" he asked in a tone that strove to emulate her coolness.
"Sit quietly and listen."
He felt her reach for a stone, felt the tension of her vigorous young body as she flung it. He heard the missile strike the rock sharply, rebound and then rebound again. Then, after a silence, rose a faint sound, the ghost of a splash, the gulp of greedy, far-off waters, infinitely sinister. He shuddered.
"No one knows how deep it is," said she, "nor what lies hidden there. I can tell you, when I first discovered this pit, it terrified me. Old Martin had told me of its legends, but I had laughed at him. One day, some months ago, I scrambled in from the outside, for the old tower is falling in ruin, and explored the place. But I had no notion the old trap-stone in the sally-port still worked. Now I remember," she cried with sudden sharpness, "seeing Uncle Ludo wandering about the place this evening——" She stopped suddenly, struck by a new thought.
"But," exclaimed the young man, "in heaven's name, what have I done, to...?" And then his uneasy conscience whipped him silent.
"It is a horrible trick," resumed the girl, now with a passionate ring in her voice, "you, his guest——"
An indignant sob caught her in the throat. "You his guest!" she repeated. "Oh, whatever he thought of you, he should have remembered that! I can never forgive him."
The guest who had meditated, however unwillingly, the betrayal of his host, blushed painfully under the cloak of blackness. He heard her swallow her tears and knew that she clenched her hands. After a while she went on more quietly:
"How wise it was of Aunt Betty to tell you to go away! And, oh, how glad I am that she sent me instead of coming herself to bid you 'Good-bye.'"
Steven opened his mouth, and then closed it again dumbly.
"You would both have been killed," she went on, sinking her voice. "Uncle Ludovic must be mad—mad with his ridiculous jealousy ... and he's been drinking overmuch. Ah, dear Lord! If I had not been with you——"
She gave a shudder. He, on his side, had no words. He was silent in shame before the exquisite innocence; silent in admiration before the self-forgetting courage of this slip of a creature, who thought nothing of her own danger. "Here, indeed, is good blood—here is the spirit of race!" he thought, touched in his most sensitive chord.
Presently, however, the humour of the grim situation struck him, and he laughed. There was Thistledown Betty, incapable even of acting up to her own unfaithfulness, snug in her bower, doubtless; and there was the outraged husband, gloating over his mediæval vengeance: Steven wished he could be present at their next conjugal meeting! Sidonia, childlike, echoed his laugh softly beside him in the dark. It struck him serious on the instant. The morrow seemed a terribly long way off.
"And now," said he, "what are we to do?"
"Hey, good sir!" said she, "nothing but wait. We shall not die this time, Herr von Kielmansegg; for my poor uncle"—she laughed in scorn and triumph—"he does not know, I warrant, that there is a way out of this old death-trap, since there is a way in. A way other than by the hidden lake and the barque of ancient Charon. But, till the daylight comes, sir——"
"Daylight!" he exclaimed, and knew not whether he were glad or sorry at the whole night's prospect.
"Till daylight comes, we must take patience here. For one false step would send our bodies to join the bones of the forgotten enemies of Wellenshausen."
"So, then——"
"Then, I should say, the best thing we can do is ... to go to sleep."
Again he was mute, pierced to the innermost fibre of his manliness. It was as if her child-heart had been suddenly revealed to him—its trustfulness, its simplicity, its courage.
"If you move a little to the right, carefully," she said, after a pause, "you will find it softer, I think. The earth has grown up there, and there are, I remember, ferns. You will really not be too uncomfortable."
The girl was positively doing the honours of the familyoubliette! There came a tender smile to his lips, and almost a mist of tenderness to his eyes.
"But you," said he, "good fairy, guardian angel, do you never think of yourself?—Will you lean against me?" he went on, timidly.
He gathered her to him. What a slight, warm thing she was! She trembled as he passed his arms round her, and he instantly desisted. "Would you rather not?"
"I don't know," she whispered. He thought there was a quaver as of tears catching her breath.
All the chivalry in him leaped to her service. He drew back. With some difficulty he unwound his heavy cloak from himself. He was stiff and bruised, and the uncertainty of his balance in the blackness gave him an eerie sensation as of precipices yawning for him on every side.
"What are you doing?" she cried severely.
"Let me put this over you," he pleaded. "And then you can roll up your own mantle and make a pillow of it—against me, thus."
"But you—but you——"
She struggled against his covering hands so impetuously that he caught her with a grip of alarm. And the sound of the rock crumbling away and leaping into the gulf gave its significant warning.
"You must keep quiet," said he, for the first time asserting the leadership. "And you must let me hold you and cover you. It is my duty to serve you, Mademoiselle Sidonia, my right to protect you. Sleep if you can. You will be safe, for I shall watch."
She remained motionless a minute and then submitted without a word. He placed his arm about her; her head drooped to his shoulder; there fell silence. In time he felt her rigidity relax, heard her quick breath grow calm and regular.
"You are afraid no more," he said gently.
"I don't think I was afraid," she answered him. Her voice had grown lazy; and, subtly, by the tone of it, he knew that she smiled. He felt ineffably proud of her confidence, ineffably protective towards her.
[image]Meanwhile, up in his chamber, the Burgrave sat in sodden brooding.
[image]
[image]
Meanwhile, up in his chamber, the Burgrave sat in sodden brooding.
CHAPTER XIII
THE OUBLIETTE
"Furcht bich nicht, du liebes Kindchen,Bor der bösen Geister Macht!Tag und Nacht, du liebes Kindchen,Halten Englein bei dir Wacht!"HEINE.
"Furcht bich nicht, du liebes Kindchen,Bor der bösen Geister Macht!Tag und Nacht, du liebes Kindchen,Halten Englein bei dir Wacht!"HEINE.
"Furcht bich nicht, du liebes Kindchen,
Bor der bösen Geister Macht!
Tag und Nacht, du liebes Kindchen,
Halten Englein bei dir Wacht!"
HEINE.
HEINE.
The minutes dropped slowly into the hour.
* * * * *
Something raised a blood-curdling screech that went sobbing and echoing through the cavern. If he had not held her, he would have started in frank alarm. She only gave a drowsy laugh.
"'Tis Barbarossa, the old owl," said she.
And again fell the silence, filled for him with whirling thoughts.
How right had this Geiger-Hans been in his warning! How merciful had Fate been to save him from his own folly! Were he now rolling along the wet Imperial road with the Burgrave's wife, he would have had, doubtless, to clasp her much as he clasped Sidonia. Precarious as it was, his present situation was infinitely preferable. He felt like a father, holding his pretty child, all warm with tenderness; not like a dishonest, cold lover with the woman he cannot love.
Sidonia's light breathing grew fainter and more rhythmic. She was asleep. He had longed, but hardly dared to hope, that she could sleep. In his heart he went down on his knees to her and thanked her, stirred by the eternal parent instinct, perhaps, but also by another emotion, tenderer still and more vital—a reverent bending of his whole manhood before the purity and trustfulness that lay in his embrace.
* * * * *
The night progressed with lengthening hours. He had begun to make out some kind of bearings for himself in the dark; to find, by the cold airs that occasionally blew in upon him from one direction, by the guidance of the sounds that grew in the night's stillness—the gusty increases, the placid subsidence of the rain, the rustle of leaves and twigs—in which quarter of their prison lay that opening to the outer world by which they should escape.
Sometimes his mind wandered far away. Now and again he almost lost himself in a vague dream; but ever he came back with a shock to the present peril and his responsibility.
And the child still slept!
He began to grow weary and cold. His arm became stiff, then numb. The burden that had seemed so light upon it grew almost intolerable. Sometimes drowsiness pressed upon him, he thought himself in a nightmare, from which he must wake to find himself huddled in a corner of his travelling chaise. But he would have died sooner than disturb the sleeper.
Then, at the moment when the tension of enforced immobility brought such a feeling of exasperation and oppression that he almost felt as if his wits were leaving him, he turned his head instinctively in the direction of the air current, and relief came. The rain was over. The clouds had cleared away and a patch of sapphire sky looked in upon him, framed by jagged rocks: it held two or three faint stars. He could see a branch outlined dimly against the translucence, and leaves trembling in outer freedom.
Nothing more than this, and yet it was balm. The torture that gripped him subsided. He gazed and forgot the cramping of his limbs. The first stars passed slowly and vanished; others swam into his vision and formed new shapes in the peep of sky. Some were brighter, some more dim; some twinkled, one burned with a steady glow. They varied in colour, too. He had had no idea that, even through such a miserable hole, the heavens had a pageant to offer of such absorbing interest. And the passing of this pageant gave him a comforting sense of the flow of night towards morn.
Once Sidonia woke with a start and a cry.
"I am here," he quickly said.
She reared herself from his arm. It was numbed to uselessness; he caught her with the other fiercely. That pit, gaping so close by in the night, had come, during the long hours, to be to him as an unknown monster, watching, waiting for its prey. She, but half awake, gropingly passed her soft hands over his face and breast. "I dreamed you had fallen," she murmured. And then, so secure in his hold, stretched herself like a weary child, and slid a little further from him so that her head rested on his knee.
His eyes had grown more accustomed to the darkness; or, perhaps, there was already a raising of the deepest veils of night, for he could almost distinguish her form as she lay. He bent over her. She was speaking dreamily: "When you were hurt in the forest, this was how your head rested on my lap." In another moment she was asleep again. His arms were free—the sense of constraint was gone. And now the time went by almost as quickly as before it had lagged. He saw with surprise that the stars were extinguished, that his patch of sky had grown pearl-grey. Rapid stirrings in the leafage without spoke of an awakening world. A bird piped. The walls of their prison began to take shape.... He saw the white glimmer of her hand in the folds of the cloak.... And then he must, after all, have slept at his post; for the next thing he knew was coming to himself, with a great spasm and seeing, in a shaft of yellow sunlight, grey rock, brown earth, and Sidonia's golden head upon his knee. And, but a yard from her little sandalled foot, the horrible black chasm. Oh, shame! he had slept, and death lurking for her! The sweat started on his forehead.
* * * * *
A sigh of music was blown into the cavern. Sidonia turned her head and gazed up in his face with wide, bewildered eyes.
"It is Geiger-Hans," she murmured, and rubbed her eyes, as though she thought she were still dreaming. Then she sat up, looked round, and memory leaped back. She smiled, yawned, and drew herself together. "Well," she said, with a sidelong glance at the pit-mouth, "we have had luck, you and I! Don't you want to get out of this, Herr von Kielmansegg?" she asked briskly, as he sat wondering at her. "Or do you think it would be a nice place to turn hermit in? See, this is the way," said she, and pointed to a narrow and most insecure ledge skirting the deep; "we shall have to crawl on hands and knees. And, sir, I think our cloaks must be sacrificed."
As she spoke, she gathered them together and pushed them from her. They rolled down, and Steven almost called aloud as he heard their heavy plunge into the ambushed waters: it sounded as if some living thing had gone to its death.
[image]Steven almost called aloud as he heard their heavy plunge into the ambushed waters: it sounded as if some living thing had gone to its death.
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Steven almost called aloud as he heard their heavy plunge into the ambushed waters: it sounded as if some living thing had gone to its death.
"I will lead," said she.
Sunshine, sky, grass, wide airs! Till that moment Steven had never known what these things could mean to man. He sat on a sun-warmed rock by the side of the precipitous, all but obliterated pathway that led zigzag upwards to the broken rampart. Sidonia stood shaking and pruning herself like a bird, her hair glinting in the light. By tacit consent both paused upon this moment of physical relief before considering their next course. From above, the plaintive strain they had heard within their prison was again borne down towards them on the breeze. Sidonia's fingers, busy in her tresses, stopped. She bent her ear.
[image]Sidonia stood, shaking and pruning herself like a bird, her hair glinting in the light.
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Sidonia stood, shaking and pruning herself like a bird, her hair glinting in the light.
"It is Geiger-Hans. And that is my tune. He is seeking me!"
She curved her hands round her mouth and gave a long mountain cry. It rang clear and sweet, cleaving the pure morning air like the call of a bird. Instantly the restless melody stopped; and, as they stood looking up in expectation, they saw the figure of Geiger-Hans emerge on the rocks over their heads. Holding his fiddle high in the air, he came clambering down to them with the agility of a goat.
"Thank God!" he exclaimed, as, breathless, he drew near. "Cruel children, what a fright you have given me!"
His cheek was pale under its bronze. Yet, in spite of its severity, his haggard eye was quick to note that these two were torn and dishevelled, that their smiles had the pallor which has faced death.
"What has happened?" cried he, in changed accents.
Sidonia broke into passionate complaint. A great lassitude was upon Steven; he did not wish to stir or speak; he listened in silence, as she poured forth the story tersely, yet with the vividness of her passion.
"And it was Uncle Ludo did it!" she ended, with a fresh gust of anger. "We heard him laugh as we fell. And Count Kielmansegg his guest!" Her pride could not stomach the thought; it was less to her, evidently, that her relative should have endeavoured to compass the death of wife as well as guest, for her anger dropped into mere shuddering pity as she added: "Poor Aunt Betty! Just think, if she had not sent me!"
Many expressions passed over Geiger-Hans' countenance as the drama unrolled itself before his quick mental vision. Thunder of anger, clouds of fear and doubt, tender admiration. He shot one lightning glance of inquiry at Steven; his brow cleared before the frank answering look.
As the girl finished, the two men sought silent intercourse with each other. The eyes of both had grown soft. For herself, the little fearless creature still had no thought, far less words.
"Well, friends," said the fiddler at last, sitting down on the slope and wiping his forehead with his sleeve, "you may flatter yourselves that you've given me no better night than your own. First, Sir Count, having a word to say to you, I made so bold as to take a seat in your carriage, as it waited down yonder. A moist time I had of it, in company with your lordship's horses and postilion. (By the way, this same postilion hath a varied choice of oaths.) Towards the small hours our relations became strained, and we parted; he back to the Silver Stork, and I—I will not conceal it—to wandering once more in the purlieus of this hospitable strong-house. For, although nothing was more natural than that a guest should have altered his intention of departing at the last moment, my mind misgave me."
"Poor Geiger-Onkel!" said Sidonia. "How wet you must be!"
"Nay, the night had turned fine then; it was the least of my hardships. But at dawn this restless spirit of mine set me to rousing the castle—and a fine time of it I have given them! His Excellency, however, was found dead drunk in his hall, so that I could get little out of him. The lady is convinced that you, comrade, have eloped with her niece, by some devious road——"
"Devious enough," said Steven, with a short laugh.
But Sidonia had become grave. "I am glad, at least, that he was drunk," she said, with judicial air.
"I left my Lady Burgravine planning hysterics. But I have given orders in the household, as if I were master of all. No flogging of Geiger-Hans now, nor setting of dogs upon him! 'Tis I command this morning. I have marshalled his Excellency's servants: there are some half-dozen fellows searching the rocks already. And here, by the way, comes one bright youth. Observe how he looks under the brambles and the bushes. He will not leave a mouse-hole unprodded for your corpses."
"Shall we not bid him get breakfast for us all?" cried Sidonia, gaily. "'Tis the least Wellenshausen can do for you this morning, Herr Graf!"
She sprang upwards lightly, her small face, wan with fatigue, laughing back at them over her shoulder. The fiddler and Steven stood side by side watching her.
"Well," said the former, after a pause, "are you inclined to go and break bread again in the house whose stones plotted your death? Or will you take the safe way down the mountain to the cushions of your berline, and cry: 'Drive on, postilion'?"
Steven regarded the speaker a moment or two before replying. It seemed to the young man as if that long, black night had cut him off from his own purblind youth. He felt himself years older, weighted with life.
"I am going back to the Burg," he said, and set off climbing.
"Hey, comrade, hey, what haste?" panted the other at his ear. "What is your purpose up there? You've been there once too often." There was a certain anxiety under the speaker's mocking air.
"My purpose——" began Steven, coldly. He was about to add, "concerns you not," but on second thought he wheeled round, and all that had been gathering in his heart this night escaped in words of fire. "Why do you ask?" he cried. "You know! What! are you the man to whom the souls of others lie bare? Are you a man like myself, and do you think I can leave that child now? With her little hand she held me from death. She lay in my arms and slept and trusted me. Do you think I could endure myself if I thought I had left her unprotected here? If I give my whole life to the mere guardianship of her, shall I do more than my duty? Man!" cried Steven, catching the fiddler's sunburnt wrist and shaking him, "I tell you, the child lay in my arms all night."
"She is indeed a child," said the musician, quietly.
"And it is even for that!" exclaimed Steven. "Oh, I thought you would have understood!"
"Let us go up to the heights, then," said the fiddler.
"What, no music?" cried Sidonia, gaily, as she watched them coming, from the doorstep. "I expected to hear your fiddle chanting the song of delivery!"
"I have enough music in my soul this morning," replied the wanderer.