Part 16

“He is right,” thought he; “why should I torture an unfortunate man upon mere suspicion? Let some one else undertake the task!”

The effect of these reflections was prompt; he walked up to the astonished Schumacker and pressed his hand. Then he hurriedly left the room, saying: “Count Schumacker, always preserve the same esteem for Levin de Knud.”

XXV.

_Lion_ (roaring). Oh-- _Demetrius._ Well roared, lion! SHAKESPEARE: _Midsummer Night’s Dream_.

The traveller of the present day who visits the snow-clad mountains which surround Lake Miösen like a white girdle, will scarcely find a vestige of what Norwegians of the seventeenth century knew as Arbar ruin. No one was ever able to decide the architectural period or the purpose for which this ruin, if we may give it the name, was built. As you left the forest which covered the southern shore of the lake, after climbing a slope crowned with here and there a fragment of wall or a bit of masonry once a tower, you reached an arched opening leading into the side of the mountain. This entrance, now completely closed by landslips, led into a species of gallery cut in the living rock, and piercing the mountain from side to side.

This tunnel, dimly lighted by conical air-holes made in the arched roof at regular intervals, ended in an oval hall in part excavated from the rock, and terminating in a cyclopean stone wall. Around this hall, in deep niches, were rude images carved from granite. Some of these mysterious figures, which had fallen from their pedestals, lay heaped in confusion on the ground with other shapeless rubbish, covered with grass and weeds, among which crawled lizards, spiders, and all the hideous vermin born of damp earth and ruins.

Daylight penetrated to this place only through a door opposite the mouth of the gallery. This door, viewed in a certain light, was seen to be of pointed construction, of no especial date, and evidently the work of the architect’s whim.

This door might as well have been styled a window, although it was on a level with the ground, for it opened upon a fearful precipice; and it was impossible to imagine whither a short flight of stairs which overhung the abyss could possibly lead.

The hall formed the interior of a huge turret which from a distance, seen from the other side of the precipice, looked like any high mountain peak. It stood alone, and, as has already been said, no one knew to what sort of structure it had belonged. Above it, however, upon a plateau inaccessible even to the boldest hunter, was a mass of masonry which might be taken, being so remote, either for a rounded rock or for the remains of a colossal arch. This turret and crumbling arch were known to the peasants as Arbar ruin, the origin of the name being fully as obscure as that of the buildings themselves.

On a stone in the centre of this oval hall sat a little man dressed in the skins of wild beasts, whom we have already had occasion to mention several times in the course of our story.

His back was turned to the light, or rather to the faint twilight which filtered into the gloomy turret when the sun reached high noon. This light, the strongest natural light which ever entered the tower, was not sufficient to reveal the nature of the object over which the little man was stooping. An occasional muffled groan was heard, and it seemed to proceed from this object, judging by the feeble movement which it now and then made. Sometimes the little man straightened himself, and raised to his lips a cup, by its form apparently a human skull, filled with steaming liquid of some indistinguishable hue, and drank deep draughts.

All at once he started up.

“I hear steps in the gallery, I believe; can it be the chancellor of the two kingdoms already?”

These words were followed by a horrible burst of laughter ending in a savage roar, which met with an instant response in a howl from the gallery.

“Oh, ho!” rejoined the lord of Arbar ruin; “it is not a man. But it is an enemy all the same; it is a wolf.”

In fact, a huge wolf suddenly emerged from the vaulted gallery, paused a moment, then advanced stealthily toward the man, crouching to the ground and fixing upon him burning eyes which gleamed through the darkness. The man stood with folded arms, and watched him.

“Ah! ’tis the old gray wolf,--the oldest wolf in Miösen woods! Good-morning, wolf; your eyes glitter; you are hungry, and the smell of dead bodies attracts you. You too shall soon attract other hungry wolves. Welcome, wolf of Miösen; I have always longed to make your acquaintance. You are so old that they say you cannot die; they will not say so to-morrow.”

The animal answered with a frightful yell, sprang back, and then bounded upon the little man.

He did not budge an inch. As quick as a flash, with his right arm he grasped the body of the wolf, which, standing on two legs before him, had thrown his fore-paws upon his shoulders; with his left hand he guarded his face from the gaping jaws of his enemy, seizing it by the throat with such force that the creature, compelled to raise his head, could scarcely utter a sound.

“Wolf of Miösen,” said the triumphant man, “you tear my jerkin, but your skin shall replace it.”

As he mingled with these words of victory a few words in a strange jargon, a convulsive movement made by the dying wolf caused him to stumble upon the stones which were thickly strewn over the floor. The two fell together, and the roars of the man were blended with the howls of the beast.

Obliged in his fall to relax his grasp of the wolfs throat, the man felt the sharp teeth buried in his shoulder, when, as they rolled over one another, the two combatants struck against an enormous shaggy white body lying in the darkest corner of the room. It was a bear, who waked from his heavy sleep with a growl.

No sooner were the drowsy eyes of this new-comer opened wide enough to see the fight, than he rushed furiously, not upon the man, but upon the wolf, just then victorious in his turn, seized him violently by the back, and thus freed the human combatant.

This latter, far from showing any gratitude for so great a service, rose, covered with blood, and springing upon the bear, gave him a vigorous kick, such as a master might bestow on a dog guilty of some misdemeanor.

“Friend, who called you? Why do you meddle?”

These words were interspersed with furious ejaculations and gnashing of teeth.

“Begone!” he added with a roar.

The bear, who had received at one and the same time a kick from the man and a bite from the wolf, uttered a plaintive remonstrance; then, hanging his great head, he released the famished beast, who hurled himself upon the man with fresh fury.

While the struggle was renewed, the rebuffed bear went back to his couch, sat gravely down, and gazed indifferently at the two raging adversaries, preserving the utmost silence, and rubbing first one fore-paw and then the other across the tip of his white nose.

But the small man, as the leader of the Miösen wolves returned to the charge, seized his bloody snout; then, by an unparalleled exertion requiring both strength and skill, he managed to clasp his entire jaw in one hand. The wolf struggled frantically with rage and pain; foam dropped from his compressed lips, and his eyes, distended with rage, seemed starting from their sockets. Of the two foes, the one whose bones were shattered by sharp teeth, whose flesh was rent by cruel claws, was not the man but the wild beast; the one whose howl was most savage, whose expression was most fierce, was not the animal but the man.

Finally, the latter, collecting all his strength, exhausted by the aged wolf’s prolonged resistance, squeezed his muzzle in both hands with such force that blood gushed from the creature’s nose and mouth; his flaming eyes grew dim, and half closed; he tottered, and fell lifeless at his victor’s feet. The feeble twitching of his tail and the convulsive and occasional shudder which shook his entire frame, alone showed that he was not yet quite dead.

All at once a final quiver ran through the expiring frame, and all signs of life ceased.

“There you lie, dead, old wolf,” said the little man, kicking him contemptuously. “Did you think that you could live on after you had encountered me? You will hasten no more with muffled step across the snow, following the scent and the track of your prey; you are food for wolves or vultures now yourself; you have devoured many a lost traveller on the shores of Miösen during your long life of murder and carnage; now you yourself are dead, you will eat no more men. ’Tis a pity!”

He took up a sharp stone, crouched beside the wolf’s warm, palpitating body, broke the limbs at their joints, severed the head from the shoulders, slit the skin from head to heel, stripped it off, as he might remove his own waistcoat, and in the twinkling of an eye nothing was left of the much-dreaded wolf of Miösen but a bare and bleeding carcass. He flung his trophy over his shoulders, bruised with bites, turning inside out the skin, still reeking and stained with long streaks of blood.

“Needs must,” he muttered, “dress in the skins of beasts; that of a man is too thin to keep out the cold.”

As he thus talked to himself, more hideous than ever beneath his loathsome burden, the bear, tired no doubt of inaction, furtively approached the other object lying in the shadow, to which we referred in the beginning of this chapter, and a crunching of bones, mingled with faint, agonized moans, soon rose from this gloomy quarter of the hall. The small man turned.

“Friend!” cried he in threatening tones; “ah, you good-for-nothing Friend! Here, come here!”

And picking up a huge stone, he hurled it at the monster’s head. The creature, stunned by the blow, reluctantly tore himself from his prey, and crawled, licking his bloody chaps, to fall panting at the little man’s feet, lifting his huge head and wriggling, as if to ask pardon for his rash act.

Then ensued between the two monsters--for we may well apply that name to the dweller in Arbar ruin--an exchange of significant growls. Those of the man expressed anger and authority; those of the bear, entreaty and submission.

“There,” said the man at last, pointing with his crooked finger to the flayed body of the wolf, “there is your victim; leave mine to me.”

The bear, after smelling at the wolf’s carcass, shook his head discontentedly, and turned his eye toward the man who seemed to be his master.

“I understand,” said the latter; “that is too dead for you, while there is still life in the other. You are refined in your pleasures, Friend,--quite as much so as a man; you like to have your food retain its life until the instant when you tear it limb from limb; you love to feel the flesh expire beneath your teeth; you enjoy nothing unless it suffers. We are alike; for I am not a man, Friend; I am superior to that wretched race; I am a wild beast like you. How I wish that you could speak to me, comrade Friend, to tell me whether my joy equals that which thrills your bearish soul when you devour a man’s heart. But no; I should be loath to hear you speak, lest your voice should recall to me the human voice. Yes, growl at my feet with that growl which makes the stray goatherd tremble among the mountains; it pleases me as the voice of a friend, because it proclaims you his enemy. Look up, Friend, look up at me; lick my hands with that tongue which has drunk so often of human blood. Your teeth are white like mine: it is no fault of ours if they be not red as a new-made wound; but blood washes away blood. More than once from the depths of some dark cave I have seen the maidens of Kiölen or Oëlmœ bathe their bare feet in some mountain torrent, singing the while in sweet tones; but I prefer your hairy snout and your hoarse cries to those melodious voices and satin-smooth faces; for they terrify mankind.”

As he said this, he sat down and yielded his hand to the caresses of the monster, who, rolling on his back at his master’s feet, lavished all sorts of endearments upon him, like a spaniel displaying his pretty tricks before the sofa of his mistress.

Stranger yet was the intelligent attention with which he seemed to follow his master’s words. The singular monosyllables with which the latter interspersed them seemed particularly intelligible to his understanding; and he showed his comprehension by rearing his head suddenly, or by a vague rumbling noise in the back of his throat.

“Men say that I shun them,” resumed the little man; “but it is they that shun me; they do through fear what I should do through hate. Still, you know, Friend, that I am always glad to come across a man when I am hungry or thirsty.”

All at once he saw a red glow start into life in the depths of the gallery, growing brighter by degrees and faintly tinting the damp old walls.

“Here comes one now. Talk of the Devil and you see his horns. Hullo, Friend!” he added, turning to the bear; “hullo! get up!”

The animal instantly rose.

“Come, I must reward your obedience by gratifying your appetite.”

With these words, the man stooped toward the object lying on the ground.

The cracking of bones broken by a hatchet was heard; but no sigh or groan was now blended with it.

“It seems,” muttered the small man, “that there are but two of us left alive in Arbar hall. There, good Friend, finish the feast which you began.”

He flung toward the aforementioned outer door what he had detached from the object stretched at his feet. The bear threw himself upon his prey so rapidly that the swiftest eye could not have been sure that the fragment was indeed a human arm, clad in a bit of green stuff of the same shade as the uniform worn by the Munkholm musketeers.

“Some one is coming,” said the little man, keeping his eye on the light, which was steadily advancing. “Comrade Friend, leave me alone for a moment. Ho there! Away with you!”

The obedient beast rushed to the door, backed down the steps outside, and disappeared, bearing off his disgusting booty with a satisfied howl.

At the same instant a tall man appeared at the mouth of the tunnel, whose sinuous depths still reflected a dim light. He was wrapped in a long brown cloak, and carried a dark-lantern, which he turned full on the small man’s face.

The latter, still seated on his stone with folded arms, exclaimed: “Ill befall you, you who come hither guided by an idea, and not by instinct!”

But the stranger, making no reply, seemed studying him carefully.

“Look at me,” he continued, raising his head; “an hour hence you may have no voice left with which to boast that you have seen me.”

The new-comer, moving his light up and down the little man’s person, seemed even more surprised than frightened.

“Well, what astonishes you so much?” rejoined the little man, with a laugh like the breaking of bones. “I have legs and arms like your own; only my limbs will not like yours serve to feed wildcats and crows!”

The stranger at length replied, in a low but confident voice, as if he only feared being heard from without: “Hear me; I come, not as an enemy, but as a friend.”

The other interrupted, “Then why did you not strip off your human form?”

“It is my purpose to do you a service, if you be he whom I seek.”

“You mean, to ask a service. Man, you waste your breath. I can do no service to any save those who are weary of life.”

“By your words,” replied the stranger, “I am sure that you are the man I want; but your stature--Hans of Iceland is a giant. You cannot be he.”

“You are the first who ever doubted it to my face.”

“What! can it be?” And the stranger approached the little man. “But I always heard that Hans of Iceland was of colossal height.”

“Add my renown to my height, and you will see that I am taller than Mount Hecla.”

“Indeed! Tell me, I pray, are you really Hans, a native of Klipstadur in Iceland?”

“It is not in words that I should answer that question,” said the little man, rising; and the look which he cast at the rash stranger made him start back several paces.

“Confine yourself, I beg, to answering it by that glance,” he replied in a voice of entreaty, casting a look toward the exit, which showed his regret that he had ever entered; “I came here in your interests alone.”

Upon entering the hall, the new-comer, having but a glimpse of the person whom he accosted, had retained his self-possession; but when the master of Arbar rose, with his tigerish visage, his thick-set limbs, his bloody shoulders, but half concealed by a skin still green, his huge hands armed with claws, and his fiery eyes, the bold stranger shuddered, like an ignorant traveller who thinks he is handling an eel and feels the sting of a viper.

“My interests?” repeated the monster. “Have you come to tell me of some spring which I may poison, some village I may burn, or some Munkholm musketeer I may slaughter?”

“Perhaps. Listen: The miners of Norway are in a state of revolt. You know what disaster follows in the train of revolt.”

“Yes,--murder, rape, sacrilege, fire, and pillage.”

“All these I offer you.”

The little man laughed.

“I should not wait for you to offer them.”

The brutal sneer accompanying these words made the stranger again shudder. He went on, however:--

“In the name of the miners, I offer you the command of the insurrection.”

The small man was silent for an instant. All at once his dark countenance assumed an expression of infernal malice.

“Does the offer really come from them?” said he.

This question seemed to embarrass the new-comer; but as he was sure that he was unknown to his terrible interlocutor, he readily recovered himself.

“Why have the miners rebelled?”

“To throw off the burden of the royal protectorate.”

“Only for that?” replied the other in the same mocking tone.

“They also wish to free the prisoner of Munkholm.”

“Is this the sole purpose of the movement?” repeated the small man in a voice which confused the stranger.

“I know of no other,” he stammered.

“Oh, you know of no other!”

These words were pronounced in the same sarcastic tone. The stranger, to hide the embarrassment which they caused him, hastily drew from beneath his cloak a heavy purse which he flung at the monster’s feet.

“Here is your pay as commander-in-chief.”

The small man spurned the purse with his foot.

“I will not have it. Do you imagine that if I wanted your gold or your blood I should wait for your permission to gratify my desire?”

The stranger made a gesture of surprise, almost of terror.

“It is a present from the royal miners.”

“I will not have it, I tell you. Gold is useless to me. Men will sell their soul, but they do not sell their life. That must be taken by force.”

“Then I may tell the miners that the terrible Hans of Iceland accepts their leadership, but not their gold?”

“I do not accept it.”

These words, uttered in curt tones, seemed to strike the pretended envoy from the rebellious miners very unpleasantly.

“What?” he asked.

“No!” repeated the other.

“You refuse to take part in an expedition which presents so many advantages?”

“I am quite able to pillage farms, lay waste villages, and massacre peasants or soldiers, single-handed.”

“But consider that by accepting the offer of the miners you are assured of a free pardon.”

“Does this offer also come from the miners?” asked the other, with a laugh.

“I will not disguise from you the fact,” replied the stranger, with an air of mystery, “that it comes from an important personage who is deeply interested in the insurrection.”

“And is this important personage so sure that he will himself escape hanging?”

“If you knew who he is, you would not shake your head so significantly.”

“Indeed! Well, who is he?”

“I may not tell you.”

The small man stepped forward and clapped the stranger on the shoulder, still with the same sardonic sneer.

“Shall I tell _you_?”

The man wrapped in the cloak gave a start; it was a start of both fright and wounded pride. He was prepared for neither the monster’s abrupt proposal, nor for his savage familiarity.

“I am only laughing at you,” added the brigand. “You little guess that I know all. This important personage is the Lord High Chancellor of Norway and Denmark; and you yourself are the Lord High Chancellor of Norway and Denmark.”

It was indeed he. On reaching Arbar ruin, toward which we left him journeying with Musdœmon, he had been unwilling to intrust to any one else the task of securing the brigand, by whom he was far from supposing himself known and expected. Never, even after years had elapsed, did Count d’Ahlefeld, with all his power and all his diplomacy, discover how Hans of Iceland acquired his information. Was it through Musdœmon’s treachery? True, it was Musdœmon who suggested to the noble count that it would be well to see the brigand in person; but what profit could he derive from his perfidy? Had the bandit captured upon some one of his numerous victims, papers relating to the chancellor’s schemes? But Frederic d’Ahlefeld was, with the sole exception of Musdœmon, the only living being acquainted with his father’s plans, and frivolous as he was, he was not quite so senseless as to expose such a secret. Moreover, he was in garrison at Munkholm, at least so the chancellor supposed. Those who read the close of this scene, without being any better able to solve the problem than was Count d’Ahlefeld, will see how much truth there was in this latter hypothesis.

One of Count d’Ahlefeld’s most marked characteristics was his great presence of mind. When he heard himself so abruptly named, he could not repress an exclamation of surprise; but in the twinkling of an eye, his pale, proud features lost their expression of fear and astonishment, and recovered their usual calm composure.

“Well, yes,” said he, “I will be frank with you; I am indeed the chancellor. But I hope you will be equally frank with me.”

A burst of laughter interrupted him.

“Have I waited to be urged to tell you my name, or to tell you your own?”

“Tell me with the same sincerity how you found me out?”

“Have you never heard that Hans of Iceland can see through mountains?”

The count tried to insist.

“Consider me as a friend.”

“Your hand, Count d’Ahlefeld,” said the little man, with brutal familiarity. Then he stared the minister in the face, exclaiming: “Could our two souls escape from our bodies at this moment, I fancy that Satan would hesitate to decide which of the two belonged to the monster.”

The haughty noble bit his lip; but between his fear of the robber and his desire to secure him as his tool, he managed to disguise his resentment.

“Do not imperil your own interests; accept the command of the rebellion, and trust to my gratitude.”

“Chancellor of Norway, you count on the success of your schemes, like an old woman who dreams of the gown which she will spin from stolen hemp, while the cat’s claws tangle her spindle.”

“Reflect once more, before you reject my offers.”

“Once more, I, the brigand, say to you, Lord Chancellor of both kingdoms, No!”

“I expected a different answer, after the eminent service which you have already rendered me.”

“What service?” asked the robber.

“Was it not you who murdered Captain Dispolsen?” replied the chancellor.

“That may be, Count d’Ahlefeld; I do not know him. Who is he?”

“What! did not the iron casket which he had in charge fall to your share?”

This question seemed to sharpen the robber’s memory.

“Stay!” said he; “I do remember that man and his iron casket. It was on Urchtal Sands.”

“At least,” rejoined the chancellor, “if you could restore that casket to me, my gratitude would be unbounded. Tell me what has become of that casket, for I am sure it is in your possession.”

The noble minister laid such stress upon this request that the brigand was struck by it.

“So, then, that iron casket is of the utmost importance to your Grace, my Lord Chancellor?”

“Yes.”

“What shall my reward be if I tell you where it is?”