Part 4

“If he had added, ‘Coward with coward,’” Ordener replied, “I should assuredly never have the distinguished honor of measuring weapons with you.”

“I would not hesitate, most worthy shepherd, if you did but wear a uniform.”

“I have neither lace nor fringes, Lieutenant; but I wear a sword.”

The proud youth, flinging back his cloak, set his cap firmly on his head and grasped his sword-hilt, when Ethel, roused by such imminent danger, seized his arm and clasped his neck, with an exclamation of terror and entreaty.

“You are wise, my pretty mistress, if you do not want your young coxcomb punished for his temerity,” said the lieutenant, who at Ordener’s threats had put himself upon his guard without any show of emotion; “for Cyrus was about to quarrel with Cambyses,--if it be not too great an honor to compare this rustic to Cambyses.”

“For Heaven’s sake, Lord Ordener,” said Ethel, “do not make me the cause and witness of such a misfortune!” Then lifting her lovely eyes to his, she added, “Ordener, I implore you!”

Ordener slowly replaced his half-drawn blade in its scabbard, and the lieutenant exclaimed,--

“By my faith, Sir Knight,--I do not know whether you be a knight, but I give you the title because you seem to deserve it,--let us act according to the laws of valor, if not of gallantry. The lady is right. Engagements like that which I believe you worthy to enter upon with me should not be witnessed by ladies, although--begging this charming damsel’s pardon--they may be caused by them. We can therefore only properly discuss the _duellum remotum_ here and now, and as the offended party if you will fix the time, place, and weapons, my fine Toledo blade on my Merida dagger shall be at the service of your chopping-knife from the Ashkreuth forges or your hunting-knife tempered in Lake Sparbo.”

The “duel adjourned,” which the officer suggested was usual in the North, where scholars aver that the custom of duelling originated.

The most valiant gentlemen offered and accepted a _duellum remotum_. It was sometimes deferred for several months, or even years, and during that space of time the foes must not allude by word or deed to the matter which caused the challenge. Thus in love both rivals forbore to see their sweetheart, so that things might remain unchanged. All confidence was put in the loyalty of a knight upon such a point; as in the ancient tournament, if the judges, deeming the laws of courtesy violated, cast their truncheon into the arena, instantly every combatant stayed his hand; but until the doubt was cleared up, the throat of the conquered man must remain at the selfsame distance from his victor’s sword.

“Very well, Chevalier,” replied Ordener, after a brief reflection; “a messenger shall inform you of the place.”

“Good!” answered the lieutenant; “so much the better. That will give me time to go to my sister’s wedding; for you must know that you are to have the honor of fighting with the future brother-in-law of a great lord, the son of the viceroy of Norway, Baron Ordener Guldenlew, who upon the occasion of this ‘auspicious union,’ as Artamenes has it, will be made Count Daneskiold, a colonel, and a knight of the Order of the Elephant; and I myself, who am a son of the lord high chancellor of both kingdoms, shall undoubtedly be made a captain.”

“Very good, very good, Lieutenant d’Ahlefeld,” impatiently exclaimed Ordener, “you are not a captain yet, nor is the son of the viceroy a colonel; and swords are always swords.”

“And clowns always clowns, in spite of every effort to lift them to our own level,” muttered the soldier.

“Chevalier,” added Ordener, “you know the laws of duelling. You are not to enter this donjon again, and you are not to speak of this affair.”

“Trust me to be silent; I shall be as dumb as Mutius Scævola when he held his hand on the burning coals. I will not enter the donjon again, nor permit any Argus of the garrison to do so; for I have just received orders to allow Schumacker to go unguarded in future, which order I was directed to convey to him to-night,--as I should have done had I not spent most of the evening in trying on some new boots from Cracow. The order, between you and me, is a very rash one. Would you like to have me show you my boots?”

During this conversation Ethel, seeing that their anger was appeased, and not knowing the meaning of a _duellum remotum_, had disappeared, first softly whispering in Ordener’s ear, “To-morrow.”

“I wish, Lieutenant d’Ahlefeld, that you would help me out of the fortress.”

“Gladly,” said the officer, “although it is somewhat late, or rather very early. But how will you find a boat?”

“That is my affair,” said Ordener.

Then, chatting pleasantly, they crossed the garden, the circular courtyard, and the square court, Ordener escorted by the officer of the guard, meeting with no obstacle; they passed through the great gate, the ordnance-room, the parade-ground, and reached the low tower, whose iron doors opened at the lieutenant’s order.

“Good-by, Lieutenant d’Ahlefeld,” said Ordener.

“Good-by,” replied the officer. “I declare that you are a brave champion, although I do not know who you are or whether those of your peers whom you may bring to our meeting will be entitled to assume the position of seconds, and ought not rather confine themselves to the modest part of witnesses.”

They shook hands, the iron grating was closed, and the lieutenant went back, humming an air by Lully, to enjoy his Polish boots and French novel.

Ordener, left alone upon the threshold, took off his clothes, which he wrapped in his cloak and fastened upon his head with his sword-belt; then, putting into practice Schumacker’s principles of independence, he sprang into the still, cold waters of the fjord, and swam through the darkness towards the shore, in the direction of the Spladgest,--a point which he was almost sure to reach, dead or alive.

The fatigues of the day had exhausted him, so that it was only with great difficulty that he landed. He dressed himself hastily, and walked towards the Spladgest, which reared its black bulk before him, the moon having been for some time completely veiled.

As he approached the building he heard the sound of voices; a faint light shone from the opening in the roof. Amazed, he knocked loudly at the square door. The noise ceased; the light disappeared. He knocked again. The light reappeared, and he saw a black figure climb out of the hole in the roof and vanish. Ordener knocked for the third time with the hilt of his sword, and shouted: “Open, in the name of his Majesty the King! Open, in the name of his Serene Highness the Viceroy!”

The door opened slowly, and Ordener found himself face to face with the pale features and tall, thin figure of Spiagudry, who, his clothes in disorder, his eyes fixed, his hair standing erect, his hands covered with blood, held a lamp, whose flame trembled less visibly than his long and lanky figure.

VI.

_Pirro._ Never!

_Angelo._ What! I believe you would try to play the virtuous man. Wretch! If you utter a single word--

_Pirro._ But, Angelo, I beseech you, for the love of God--

_Angelo._ Do not meddle with what you cannot prevent.

_Pirro._ Ah! When the Devil holds one by a single hair, as well yield him the entire head. Unhappy that I am!

EMILIA GALOTTI.

An hour after the young traveller with the black plume left the Spladgest, night fell, and the crowd dispersed. Oglypiglap closed the outer door of the funereal structure, while his master, Spiagudry, gave the bodies deposited within a final sprinkling. Then both withdrew to their scantily furnished abode, and while Oglypiglap slept upon his wretched pallet, like one of the corpses intrusted to his care, the venerable Spiagudry, seated at a stone table covered with old books, dried plants, and fleshless bones, was buried in grave studies which, although really very harmless, had done no little to give him a reputation among the people, for sorcery and witchcraft,--the disagreeable consequence of science at this period.

He had been absorbed in his meditations for some hours, and, ready at last to exchange his books for his bed, he paused at this mournful passage from Thormodr Torfesen: “When a man lights his lamp, death is beside him ere it be extinguished.”

“With the learned doctor’s leave,” he muttered, “he shall not be beside me to-night.”

And he took up his lamp to blow it out.

“Spiagudry!” cried a voice from the room where the corpses lay.

The old man shook from head to foot. Not that he believed, as another might have done in his place, that the gloomy guests of the Spladgest had risen in revolt against their master. He was enough of a scholar to be proof against such imaginary terrors; and his alarm was genuine, because he knew the voice which called him only too well.

“Spiagudry!” angrily repeated the voice, “must I come and pull off your ears before I can make you hear me?”

“Saint Hospitius have mercy, not on my soul, but on my body!” said the terrified old man; and with a step both hastened and delayed by fear, he moved towards the second side door, which he opened. Our readers have not forgotten that this door led into the mortuary.

His lamp lit up a strange and hideous scene,--on the one hand, the thin, tall, stooping figure of Spiagudry; on the other, a short, stout man, dressed from head to foot in the skins of wild beasts, still stained with dried blood, standing at the feet of Gill Stadt’s corpse, which, with the dead bodies of the young girl and the captain, occupied the background. These three mute witnesses, buried in shadow, were the only ones who could behold, without flying in horror, the two living beings who now entered into conversation.

The features of the little man, thrown into vivid relief by the light, were singularly wild and fierce. His beard was red and bushy, and his forehead, hidden under an elkskin cap, seemed bristling with hair of the same color; his mouth was large, his lips thick, his teeth white, sharp, and far apart, his nose hooked like an eagle’s beak; and his grayish-blue eyes, which were extremely quick, flashed a side glance at Spiagudry, in which the ferocity of a tiger was only tempered by the malice of a monkey. This singular character was armed with a broadsword, an unsheathed dagger, and a stone axe, upon whose long handle he leaned; his hands were covered with thick gloves made of a blue fox-skin.

“That old ghost keeps me waiting a long time,” said he, as if talking to himself; and he uttered a sound like the roar of a wild beast.

Spiagudry would certainly have turned pale with fright, had he been capable of turning paler than he was.

“Do you know,” continued the little man, addressing him directly, “that I come from Urchtal Sands? Do you

want to change your straw bed for one of these beds of stone, that you keep me waiting thus?”

Spiagudry trembled more than ever; the two solitary teeth left to him chattered in his head.

“Excuse me, master,” said he, bending his long back to a level with the little man; “I was asleep.”

“Do you want me to make you acquainted with a far sounder sleep than that?”

Spiagudry’s face assumed an expression of terror, the only thing which could be more comic than his expression of mirth.

“Well! what is it?” continued the little man. “What ails you? Is my presence disagreeable to you?”

“Oh, my lord and master!” replied the old keeper, “there can surely be no greater happiness for me than to see your Excellence.”

And the effort which he made to twist his frightened face into a smile would have unbent the brow of any but the dead.

“Tailless old fox, my Excellence commands you to hand over the clothes of Gill Stadt.”

As he uttered this name, the little man’s fierce, mocking features grew dark and sad.

“Oh, master, pardon me, but I no longer have them!” said Spiagudry. “Your Grace knows that we are obliged to turn over the property of all workers in the mine to the Crown, the king inheriting by right of their being his wards.”

The little man turned to the corpse, folded his arms, and said in a hollow voice: “He is right. These miserable miners are like the eider duck;[5] their nests are made for them, but their down is plucked from them.”

Then raising the corpse in his arms and hugging it to his heart, he began to utter wild yells of love and grief, like the howls of a bear caressing her young. With these inarticulate sounds were blended, at intervals, a few words in a strange lingo, which Spiagudry did not understand.

He let the corpse drop back upon the stone, and turned towards the guardian.

“Do you know, accursed sorcerer, the name of the ill-fated soldier who was so unlucky as to be preferred by that girl to Gill?”

And he kicked the cold remains of Guth Stersen.

Spiagudry shook his head.

“Well! by the axe of Ingulf, the first of my race, I will exterminate every wearer of that uniform!” and he pointed to the officer’s dress. “He on whom I must be avenged will surely be of the number. I will burn down the entire forest to consume the poisonous shrub that it contains. I swore it on the day that Gill died, and I have already given him a companion that will delight his corpse. Oh, Gill! so there you lie, lifeless and powerless,--you who outswam the seal, outran the deer; you who outwrestled the bear in the mountains of Kiölen. There you lie motionless,--you who traversed the province of Throndhjem, from the Orkel to the Lake of Miösen, in a single day; you who climbed the peaks of the Dovrefjeld as the squirrel climbs the oak. There you lie mute and dumb, Gill,--you who on the stormy summits of Kongsberg sang louder than the thunder’s roar. Oh, Gill! so it is in vain that for your sake I filled up the Färöe mines; in vain for your sake I burned the Throndhjem cathedral. All my labor is in vain, and I shall never see the race of the children of Iceland, the descendants of Ingulf the Destroyer, perpetuated in you; you will never inherit my stone axe; but you leave me the legacy of your skull, from which I may henceforth drink sea-water and the blood of men.”

With these words he seized the corpse by the head, exclaiming: “Help me, Spiagudry!” And pulling off his gloves, he displayed his broad hands, armed with long, hard, crooked nails, like the claws of a wild beast.

Spiagudry, seeing him about to hew off the corpse’s head with his sword, cried out with unconcealed horror, “Good heavens! master! A dead man!”

“Well,” calmly responded the little man, “would you rather have me sharpen my blade upon a living one?”

“Oh, let me entreat your Grace--How can your Excellency commit such profanation? Your Worship--Sir, your Serenity would not--”

“Are you done? Do I require all these titles, living skeleton, to believe in your deep respect for my sabre?”

“By Saint Waldemar! By Saint Usuph! In the name of Saint Hospitius, spare the dead!”

“Help me, and do not talk of saints to the devil!”

“My lord,” continued the suppliant Spiagudry, “by your illustrious ancestor, Saint Ingulf--”

“Ingulf the Destroyer was an outlaw like myself.”

“In the name of Heaven,” said the old man, falling on his knees, “whose anger I would spare you!”

Impatience overcame the little man. His dull gray eyes flashed like a couple of live coals.

“Help me!” he repeated, flourishing his sword.

These words were uttered in the voice which might beseem a lion, could he speak. The keeper, shuddering and half dead with fright, sat down upon the black stone slab, and held Gill’s cold, damp head in his hands, while the little man, by means of sword and dagger, removed the crown with rare skill.

When his task was done, he gazed at the bloody skull for some time, muttering strange words; then he handed it over to Spiagudry, to be cleaned and prepared, saying with a sort of howl,--

“And I, when I die, shall not have the comfort of thinking that an heir to the soul of Ingulf will drink sea-water and the blood of men from out my skull.”

After a mournful pause, he added,--

“The hurricane is followed by a hurricane, each avalanche brings down another avalanche, but I shall be the last of my race. Why did not Gill hate every human face even as I do? What demon foe to the demon of Ingulf urged him into those fatal mines in search of a handful of gold?”

Spiagudry, who now returned with Gill’s skull, interrupted him: “Your Excellency is right; even gold, as Snorri Sturleson says, may often be bought at too high a price.”

“You remind me,” said the little man, “of a commission I have for you; here is an iron casket which I found upon yonder officer, all of whose property, as you see, did not fall into your possession; it is so firmly fastened, that it must contain gold,--the only thing precious in the eyes of men. You will give it to widow Stadt, in Thoctree village, to pay her for her son.”

He drew a small iron box from his reindeer-skin knapsack. Spiagudry received it with a low bow.

“Obey my orders faithfully,” said the little man, with a piercing glance; “remember that nothing can prevent two demons from meeting; I think you are even more of a coward than a miser, and you will answer to me for that box.”

“Oh, master, with my soul!”

“Not at all. With your flesh and bones.”

At this moment the outer door of the Spladgest echoed with a loud knock. The little man was amazed; Spiagudry tottered, and shaded his lamp with his hand.

“Who is there?” growled the little man. “And you, old villain, how you will shake when you hear the last trump sound, if you shiver so now!”

A second and louder knock was heard.

“It is some dead man in haste to enter,” said the little man.

“No, master,” muttered Spiagudry, “no corpses are brought here after midnight.”

“Living or dead, he drives me hence. You, Spiagudry, be faithful and be dumb. I swear to you, by the spirit of Ingulf and the skull of Gill, that you shall see the dead bodies of the entire regiment of Munkholm pass through your hostelry in review.”

And the little man, binding Gill’s skull to his belt, and drawing on his gloves, hurried, with the nimbleness of a goat, and by the help of Spiagudry’s shoulders, through the opening in the roof, where he vanished.

A third knock shook the whole Spladgest, and a voice outside commanded him to open in the name of the king and viceroy. Then the keeper, moved alike by two different terrors,--one of which might be called the terror of memory, and the other of hope,--hurried toward the low door, and opened it.

VII.

In the pursuit of such pleasure as may be found in temporal felicity, she wore herself out, on rough and painful paths, without ever attaining her object.--_Confessions of Saint Augustine._

Returning to his closet after leaving Poël, the governor of Throndhjem ensconced himself in a big easy-chair, and to distract his thoughts directed one of his secretaries to read over the petitions presented to the government.

Bowing low, the secretary began:--

“1. The Rev. Dr. Anglyvius prays that a substitute may be provided for the Rev. Dr. Foxtipp, the head of the Episcopal library, on account of his incompetency. The petitioner does not know who should take the place of the said incompetent doctor; he would merely state that he, Dr. Anglyvius, has for a long time exercised the functions of librari--”

“Send the rascal to the bishop,” interrupted the general.

“2. Athanasius Munder, priest and chaplain to the prisons, asks pardon for twelve penitent convicts on the occasion of the glorious marriage of his Grace, Ordener Guldenlew, Baron Thorwick, Knight of the Dannebrog, son of the viceroy, and the noble lady Ulrica d’Ahlefeld, daughter of his Grace the lord high chancellor of the two kingdoms.”

“Lay it on the table,” said the general. “I pity convicts.”

“3. Faustus-Prudens Destrombidès, Norwegian subject and Latin poet, asks leave to write the epithalamium for the said noble pair.”

“Ah, ha! The worthy man must be growing old, for he is the same man who wrote an epithalamium in 1674, for the marriage planned between Schumacker, then Count of Griffenfeld, and Princess Louisa Charlotte of Holstein-Augustenburg,--a marriage which never took place. I fear,” muttered the governor, “that Faustus-Prudens is destined to be the poet of broken matches. Lay his petition on the table, and go on. Inquire, on behalf of the said poet, if there be not a vacant bed at the Throndhjem hospital.”

“4. The miners of Guldbrandsdal, the Färöe Islands, Sund-Moer, Hubfallo, Roeraas, and Kongsberg, petition to be released from the costs of the royal protectorate.”

“These miners are restless. I hear that they are even beginning to grumble at our long delay in answering their petition. Let it be laid aside for mature consideration.”

“5. Braal, fisherman, declares, in virtue of the Odelsrecht,[6] that he persists in his intention of buying back his patrimony.

“6. The magistrates of Nœs, Loevig, Indal, Skongen, Stod, Sparbo, and other towns and villages of Northern Throndhjem, pray that a price may be set upon the head of the assassin, thief, and incendiary, Hans, said to be a native of Klipstadur, in Iceland. Nychol Orugix, executioner for the province of Throndhjem, who claims that Hans is his property, opposes the petition. Benignus Spiagudry, keeper of the Spladgest, to whom the corpse should belong, supports the petition.”

“That robber is a very dangerous fellow,” said the general, “particularly now that we are threatened with trouble among the miners. Issue a proclamation offering a thousand crowns reward for his head.”

“7. Benignus Spiagudry, doctor, antiquary, sculptor, mineralogist, naturalist, botanist, lawyer, chemist, mechanic, physicist, astronomer, theologian, grammarian--”

“Why,” broke in the general, “is not this the same Spiagudry who keeps the Spladgest?”

“Yes, to be sure, your Excellency,” replied the secretary,--“keeper, for his Majesty, of the institution of the Spladgest, in the royal city of Throndhjem, sets forth that he, Benignus Spiagudry, discovered that the stars called fixed are not lighted by the star called the sun; _item_, that the real name of Odin is Frigg, son of Fridulf; _item_, that the marine lobworm feeds on sand; _item_, that the noise of the inhabitants drives the fish away from the coast of Norway, so that the means of subsistence are growing less in proportion to the increase of the population; _item_, that the fjord known as Otte-Sund was formerly known as Limfjord, and only took the name of Otte-Sund after Otho the Red cast his spear into it; _item_, he sets forth that it was by his advice and under his direction that an old statue of Freya was changed into the statue of Justice, which now adorns the market-place in Throndhjem, and that the lion found at the feet of the idol has been turned into a devil, symbolizing crime; _item_--”

“Oh, spare me the rest of his eminent services! Let me see,--what does he want?”

The secretary turned over several pages, and went on:

“Your most humble petitioner feels that he may justly petition your Excellency, in return for so many useful labors in the domain of science and literature, to increase the reward to ten escalins for every corpse, male or female, which cannot but be gratifying to the dead, as proving the value set upon their bodies.”

Here the door opened, and the usher in a loud voice announced, “The noble lady, Countess d’Ahlefeld.”

At the same time a tall woman, wearing the small coronet of a countess, richly dressed in scarlet satin trimmed with gold fringe and ermine, entered, and accepting the hand which the general offered her, seated herself beside him.

The countess was perhaps fifty years old. Age had added little to the furrows with which pride and ambition had long since marked her face. She looked at the old governor haughtily, and with an artificial smile.