Part 6

Then he finished his arrangement of Gill’s disfigured remains, and closing all the doors, threw himself upon his mattress to sleep off the fatigue of the past night and gain strength for the coming one.

IX.

_Juliet._ Oh, think’st thou we shall ever meet again? _Romeo._ I doubt it not: and all these woes shall serve For sweet discourses in our time to come. SHAKESPEARE: _Romeo and Juliet_.

The signal-light at Munkholm castle had just been extinguished, and in its place the sailor entering Throndhjem fjord saw the helmet of the soldier on guard gleam from afar in the beams of the rising sun like a planet moving in its orbit, when Schumacker, leaning on his daughter’s arm, came down as usual into the garden which surrounded his prison. Both had spent a restless night,--the old man unable to sleep, the maiden kept awake by happy thoughts. They walked in silence for a time; then the aged prisoner said, fixing a sad and serious gaze upon the lovely girl:--

“You blush and smile at your own thoughts, Ethel; you are happy, for you have no cause to blush for the past, and you smile at the future.”

Ethel blushed still deeper, and her smile faded.

“My lord and father,” she stammered in confusion, “I brought the volume containing the Edda.”

“Very well; read, my daughter,” said Schumacker; and he resumed his meditations.

Then the melancholy captive, seated on a black rock shaded by a dark fir, listened to his daughter’s sweet voice without heeding the words which she read, as a thirsty traveller delights in the murmur of the stream that quenches his fever.

Ethel read him the story of the shepherdess Allanga, who refused a king until he proved himself a warrior. Prince Ragnar-Lodbrok could not win the maid until he returned triumphant over the robber of Klipstadur, Ingulf the Destroyer.

Suddenly a sound of footsteps and the rustling of the foliage interrupted the reading and roused Schumacker from his revery. Lieutenant d’Ahlefeld appeared from behind the rock upon which they sat. Ethel’s head drooped as she recognized their tormentor, and the officer exclaimed:--

“I’ faith, fair lady, your lovely lips just uttered the name of Ingulf the Destroyer. I heard you, and I presume that you were talking of his grandson, Hans of Iceland, and that reminded you of him. Ladies love to talk of robbers. By the way, there are tales of Ingulf and his descendants which are both fearful and interesting. Ingulf the Destroyer had but one son, born of the witch Thoarka; that son also had but one son, whose mother was likewise a witch. For four centuries the race has been perpetuated thus for the desolation of Iceland, there being always a single scion, who never produces more than one offshoot. By this series of solitary heirs the infernal spirit of Ingulf has been handed down to the present day, and flourishes in the famous Hans of Iceland, who was doubtless so happy as to occupy your virgin thoughts just now.”

The officer paused for an instant. Ethel was silent from embarrassment, Schumacker from vexation. Delighted to find them willing, if not to answer, at least to listen, he added,--“The Klipstadur outlaw’s one passion is a hatred of the human race, his one thought to harm them.”

“He is wise,” abruptly remarked the old man.

“He always lives alone,” resumed the lieutenant.

“He is fortunate,” said Schumacker.

The lieutenant was charmed by this double interruption, which seemed to seal a compact for conversation.

“May the god Mithra preserve us,” he cried, “from such wise men and such fortunate men! Accursed be the evil-minded zephyr which brought the last demon of Iceland to Norway. I was wrong to say evil-minded, for they say it was a bishop to whom we owe the pleasure of possessing Hans of Klipstadur. If we may believe the story, certain Iceland peasants, having captured little Hans among the Bessestad mountains in his infancy, were about to kill him, as Astyages slew the Bactrian lion’s whelp; but the bishop of Sealholt interfered, and took the cub under his own protection, hoping to make a Christian of the devil. The good bishop tried in a thousand ways to develop his infernal intellect, forgetting that the hemlock cannot be changed into a lily even in the hot-houses of Babylon. So when the young devil grew up, he repaid all this care by escaping one fine night upon the trunk of a tree, across the seas, lighting his flight by setting the bishop’s house on fire. That’s the old women’s account of the way this Icelander came to Norway, and now, thanks to his education, he affords us a perfect type of the monster. Since then the destruction of the Färöe mines, the death of three hundred men crushed beneath the ruins, the overthrow of the hanging rock at Golyn at midnight upon the village below, the fall of Half-Broer bridge from the rocks upon the high-road, the burning of Throndhjem cathedral, the extinction of beacon-lights upon the coast on stormy nights, and countless crimes and murders hidden in Lakes Sparbo or Miösen, or concealed in the caves of Walderhog and Rylass, and in the gorges of the Dovrefjeld, bear witness to the presence of this Ahriman[7] incarnate in the province of Throndhjem. The old women declare that a new hair grows in his beard with every fresh crime; in that case his beard must be as luxuriant as that of the most venerable Assyrian magi. Yet you must have heard, fair lady, how often the governor has tried to stop the extraordinary growth of that beard.”

Schumacker again broke the silence.

“And has every effort to capture this fellow,” he asked with a look of triumph and an ironical smile, “been unsuccessful? I congratulate the chancellor.”

The officer did not understand the ex-chancellor’s sarcasm.

“Hans has hitherto proved as invincible as Horatius Cocles. Old soldiers, young militiamen, country boors, mountaineers, all fly or die before him. He is a demon who can neither be avoided nor caught; the best luck that can befall those who go in search of him is not to find him. You may be surprised, gracious lady,” he went on, seating himself familiarly beside Ethel, who drew nearer to her father, “at all my curious anecdotes concerning this supernatural being. It was not without a purpose that I collected these strange traditions. It seems to me--and I shall be pleased if you, fair lady, share my opinion--that the adventures of Hans would make a delicious romance, after the style of Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s sublime stories, ‘Artamenes,’ or ‘Clelia,’ only six volumes of which latter I have yet read, but it is none the less a masterpiece in my eyes. Of course we should have to soften our climate, dress up our traditions, and modify our barbarous names. For instance, Throndhjem, which I should call ‘Durtinianum,’ should see its forests converted, by a touch of my magic wand, into delightful groves watered by a thousand streamlets far more poetic than our hideous torrents. Our dark, deep caves should give place to charming grottos carpeted with gilded pebbles and azure shells. In one of these grottos should live a famous magician, Hannus of Thule. For you must own that the name Hans of Iceland is by no means agreeable. This giant,--you must feel that it would be absurd not to make the hero of such a work a giant,--this giant should descend in a direct line from the god Mars (Ingulf the Destroyer affords no food for imagination) and the enchantress Theona,--don’t you think I have made a happy change in the name Thoarka?--daughter of the Cumean sibyl. Hannus, after being educated by the great Magian of Thule, should finally escape from the pontiff’s palace in a car drawn by two dragons,--it would be very narrow-minded to cling to the shabby old legend of the trunk of a tree. Reaching the land of Durtinianum, and ravished by that enchanting region, he should choose it as the place of his abode and the scene of his crimes. It would be no easy matter to draw an agreeable picture of the robberies of Hans. However, we might soften their horror by an ingeniously planned love-affair. The shepherdess Alcyppe, walking one day with her lamb in a grove of myrtles and olives, should be noticed by the giant, who should suddenly yield to the magic of her eyes. But Alcyppe should love the handsome Lycidas, an officer of the militia, garrisoned in her village. The giant should be annoyed by the centurion’s happiness, and the centurion by the giant’s attentions. You can fancy, dear lady, how charming such imaginative powers might make the adventures of Hannus. I will wager my Polish boots against a pair of slippers that such a subject, treated by Mademoiselle de Scudéry, would set all the women in Copenhagen wild with delight.”

The last words roused Schumacker from the melancholy thoughts in which he had been buried during the lieutenant’s fruitless display of brains.

“Copenhagen!” he exclaimed. “What news is there from Copenhagen, sir officer?”

“None, i’ faith, that I know of,” replied the lieutenant, “save that the king has given his consent to the great marriage which is just now occupying the thoughts of both kingdoms.”

“What!” rejoined Schumacker; “what marriage?”

The appearance of a fourth speaker arrested the words on the lieutenant’s lips.

All three looked up. The prisoner’s moody features brightened, the lieutenant’s frivolous face grew grave, and Ethel’s sweet countenance, which had been pale and confused during the officer’s long soliloquy, again beamed with life and joy. She sighed heavily, as if her heart were eased of an intolerable weight, and her sad smile rested upon the new-comer. It was Ordener.

The old man, the girl, and the officer were placed in a singular position toward Ordener; they had each a secret in common with him, therefore each felt embarrassed by the presence of the other. Ordener’s return to the donjon was no surprise to Schumacker or Ethel, who were expecting him; but it amazed the lieutenant as much as the sight of the lieutenant astonished Ordener, who might have feared some indiscretion on the part of the officer in regard to the scene of the previous night, if the silence ordained by the etiquette of duelling had not reassured him. He could therefore only be surprised at seeing him quietly seated between his two prisoners.

These four persons could say nothing while together, for the very reason that they would have had much to say had they been alone. Therefore, aside from glances of intelligence and embarrassment, Ordener met with an absolutely silent reception.

The lieutenant burst out laughing.

“By the train of the royal mantle, my dear new-comer, here’s a silence by no means unlike that of the senators of Gaul when Brennus the Roman--Upon my honor, I have forgotten which were the Romans and which the Gauls,--the senators or the general. Never mind. Since you are here, help me to enlighten this worthy old gentleman as to the news. I was just about to tell him, when you made your sudden entry on the stage, about the famous marriage which is now absorbing both Medes and Persians.”

“What marriage?” asked Ordener and Schumacker with a single voice.

“By the cut of your clothes, sir stranger,” cried the lieutenant, clapping his hands, “I guessed that you came from some other world. Your present question turns my doubt to certainty. You must have landed only yesterday on the banks of the Nidder in a fairy-car drawn by two winged dragons; for you could not have travelled through Norway without hearing of the wonderful marriage of the viceroy’s son and the lord chancellor’s daughter.”

Schumacker turned to the lieutenant.

“What! Is Ordener Guldenlew to marry Ulrica d’Ahlefeld?”

“As you say,” replied the officer; “and it will all be settled before the fashion of French farthingales reaches Copenhagen.”

“Frederic’s son must be about twenty-two years old, for I had been in Copenhagen fortress a year when the news of his birth reached me. Let him marry young,” added Schumacker with a bitter smile. “When disgrace comes upon him, at least no one can accuse him of having aspired to a cardinal’s hat.”

The old favorite alluded to one of his own misfortunes, of which the lieutenant knew nothing.

“No, indeed,” said he, laughing heartily. “Baron Ordener will receive the title of count, the collar of the Order of the Elephant, and a colonel’s epaulettes, which would scarcely match with the cardinal’s hat.”

“So much the better,” answered Schumacker. Then after a pause he added, shaking his head as if he saw his revenge before him, “Some day they may make an iron collar of his fine order; they may break his count’s coronet over his head; they may strike him in the face with his colonel’s epaulettes.”

Ordener seized the old man’s hand.

“For the sake of your hatred, sir, do not curse an enemy’s good fortune before you know whether it be good fortune in his eyes.”

“Pooh!” said the lieutenant. “What are the old fellow’s railings to Baron Thorwick?”

“Lieutenant,” cried Ordener, “they may be more to him than you think. And,” he added, after a brief silence, “your grand marriage is not so certain as you suppose.”

“_Fiat quod vis_,” rejoined the lieutenant, with an ironical bow; “the king, the viceroy, and the chancellor have, it is true, made every arrangement for the wedding; but if it displeases you, Sir Stranger, what matter the lord chancellor, the viceroy, and the king!”

“You may be right,” said Ordener, seriously.

“Oh, by my faith!”--and the lieutenant threw himself back in a fit of laughter,--“this is too good! How I wish Baron Thorwick could hear a fortune-teller so well instructed in regard to the things of this world decide his fate. Believe me, my learned prophet, your beard is not long enough for a good sorcerer.”

“Sir Lieutenant,” coldly answered Ordener, “I do not think that Ordener Guldenlew will ever marry a woman whom he does not love.”

“Ha, ha! here we have the Book of Proverbs. And who tells you, Sir Greenmantle, that the baron does not love Ulrica d’Ahlefeld?”

“And, if it please you, in your turn, who tells you that he does?”

Here the lieutenant, as often happens, was led by the heat of the conversation into stating a fact of which he was by no means certain.

“Who tells me that he loves her? The question is absurd. I am sorry for your powers of divination; but everybody knows that this match is no less a marriage of inclination than of convenience.”

“At least, everybody but me,” said Ordener, gravely.

“Except you? So be it. But what difference does that make? You cannot prevent the viceroy’s son from being in love with the chancellor’s daughter.”

“In love?”

“Madly in love!”

“He must indeed be mad to be in love with her.”

“Hullo! don’t forget of whom and to whom you speak. Would not one say that the son of the viceroy could not take a fancy to a lady without consulting this clown?”

As he spoke, the officer rose. Ethel, who saw Ordener’s face flush, hurried toward him.

“Oh!” said she, “pray be calm; do not heed these insults. What does it matter to us whether the viceroy’s son loves the chancellor’s daughter or not?”

The gentle hand laid on the young man’s heart stilled the tempest raging within. He cast an enraptured glance at his Ethel, and did not hear the lieutenant, who, recovering his good-humor, exclaimed: “The lady acts with infinite grace the part of the Sabine woman interceding between her father and her husband. My words were rather heedless; I forgot,” he added, turning to Ordener, “that there is a bond of brotherhood between us, and that we can no longer provoke each other. Chevalier, give me your hand. Confess, you too forgot that you were speaking of the viceroy’s son to his future brother-in-law, Lieutenant d’Ahlefeld.”

At this name Schumacker, who had hitherto looked on with an indifferent or merely an impatient eye, sprang from his stone seat with a terrible cry: “D’Ahlefeld! A D’Ahlefeld here! Serpent! How could I fail to recognize the abominable father in his son? Leave me in peace in my cell! I was not condemned to the punishment of seeing you. It only needs, as he desired just now, that the son of Guldenlew should join the son of d’Ahlefeld! Traitors! cowards! why do they not come themselves to enjoy my tears of madness and rage? Abhorred, abhorred race! Son of d’Ahlefeld, leave me!”

The officer, at first bewildered by the sharpness of these invectives, soon lost his temper and found his speech.

“Silence, lunatic! Cease your devilish litanies!”

“Leave me! leave me!” repeated the old man; “and take my curse, my curse upon you and the miserable race of Guldenlew, which is to be allied to you!”

“By Heaven!” exclaimed the enraged officer, “you insult me doubly!”

Ordener restrained the lieutenant, who was beside himself with passion.

“Respect an old man, even if he be your enemy, Lieutenant; we have already one question to settle together, and I will answer to you for the prisoner’s offences.”

“So be it,” said the lieutenant; “you contract a double debt. The fight will be to the death, for I have both my brother-in-law and myself to avenge. Think that with my gauntlet you pick up that of Ordener Guldenlew.”

“Lieutenant d’Ahlefeld,” replied Ordener, “you espouse the cause of the absent with a warmth which proves your generosity. Would there not be as much in showing pity for an unfortunate old man to whom adversity gives some right to be unjust?”

D’Ahlefeld was one of those souls in whom virtue is kindled by praise. He pressed Ordener’s hand, and approached Schumacker, who, exhausted by his emotion, had sunk back upon the rock, in the tearful Ethel’s arms.

“Lord Schumacker,” said the officer, “you abused the privileges of your age, and I might have abused the privileges of my youth, if you had not found a champion. I enter your prison this morning for the last time, for I come to tell you that you may henceforth remain, by special order of the viceroy, free and unguarded in this donjon. Receive this good news from the lips of an enemy.”

“Go!” said the old prisoner, in a hollow voice.

The lieutenant bowed and obeyed, inwardly pleased that he had won the approving glance of Ordener.

Schumacker sat for some time with folded arms and bent head, buried in thought. Suddenly he looked up at Ordener, who stood before him in silence.

“Well?” said he.

“My lord Count, Dispolsen was murdered.”

The old man’s head again drooped upon his breast. Ordener went on: “His assassin is a noted robber,--Hans of Iceland.”

“Hans of Iceland!” said Schumacker.

“Hans of Iceland!” repeated Ethel.

“He robbed the captain,” added Ordener.

“And so,” said the old man, “you heard nothing of an iron casket, sealed with the arms of Griffenfeld?”

“No, my lord.”

Schumacker hid his face in his hands.

“I will restore it to you, my lord Count; trust me. The murder was committed yesterday morning. Hans fled toward the north. I have a guide who knows all his haunts. I have often roamed through the mountains of Throndhjem. I shall overtake the thief.”

Ethel turned pale. Schumacker rose; his expression was almost joyful, as if he believed that virtue still existed in men.

“Noble Ordener,” he said, “farewell.” And raising his hand to heaven, he disappeared among the bushes.

As Ordener turned, he saw Ethel upon the moss-grown rock, pale as an alabaster image on a black pedestal.

“Good God, Ethel!” he cried, rushing to her and supporting her in his arms, “what is the matter?”

“Oh!” replied the trembling girl in scarcely audible tones. “Oh, if you have, I do not say a spark of love, but of pity for me, sir, if you did not speak yesterday only to deceive me, if it be not to cause my death that you have deigned to enter this prison, Lord Ordener, my Ordener, give up, in Heaven’s name, in the name of all the angels,--give up your mad scheme! Ordener, my beloved Ordener!” she continued,--and her tears flowed freely, her head rested on the young man’s breast,--“make this sacrifice for me. Do not follow this robber, this frightful demon, with whom you would fight. In whose interest do you go, Ordener? Tell me, what interest can be dearer to you than that of the wretched woman whom but yesterday you called your beloved wife?”

She stopped, choked by sobs. Both arms were thrown around Ordener’s neck, and her pleading eyes were fixed upon his.

“My adored Ethel, you are needlessly alarmed. God helps the righteous cause, and the interest in which I expose myself is no other than your own. That iron casket contains--”

Ethel interrupted him: “My interest! Have I any other interest than your life? Ordener, what will become of me?”

“Why do you think that I shall die, Ethel?”

“Ah! Then you do not know this Hans,--this infernal thief? Do you know what a monster you pursue? Do you know that he is lord of all the powers of darkness; that he overthrows mountains upon towns; that subterranean caverns crumble beneath his tread; that his breath extinguishes the beacons on every rocky coast? And how can you suppose, Ordener, that you can resist this giant aided by the demon, with your white arms and feeble sword?”

“And your prayers, Ethel, and the thought that I am fighting for you? Be assured, Ethel, the bandit’s strength and power have been greatly exaggerated. He is a man like ourselves, who deals out death until he himself be slain.”

“Then you will not heed me? My words are nothing to you? Tell me, what is to become of me if you go; if you roam from danger to danger, exposing--for I know not what earthly interest--your life, which is mine, by yielding it to a monster?”

Here the lieutenant’s tales recurred anew to Ethel’s fancy, exaggerated by her love and terror. She went on in a voice broken by sobs: “I assure you, dear Ordener, they deceived you who told you that he was only a man. You should believe me rather than others, Ordener; you know that I would not mislead you. Thousands have tried to do battle with him; he has destroyed whole regiments. I only wish others would tell you the same; you might believe them and not go.”

Poor Ethel’s prayers would doubtless have shaken Ordener’s bold resolve, if he had not gone so far. The words uttered by Schumacker in his despair on the previous evening came back to him and strengthened him in his purpose.

“I might, my dear Ethel, tell you that I would not go, and yet carry out my plan; but I will never deceive you, even to console you. I ought not, I repeat, to hesitate between your tears and your true interests. Your fortune, your happiness, perhaps your life,--your very life, my Ethel,--are at stake.” And he clasped her affectionately in his arms.

“And what do I care?” she returned, weeping. “My friend, my Ordener, my delight,--for you know that you are my sole delight,--do not give me a fearful and certain misery in exchange for a slight and doubtful misfortune. What is fortune or life to me?”

“Your father’s life, Ethel, is also at stake.”

She tore herself from his arms.

“My father’s life?” she repeated in a low voice, turning pale.

“Yes, Ethel. This brigand, doubtless bribed by Count Griffenfeld’s enemies, has in his possession papers whose loss imperils the life of your father, already the object of so many attacks. I would die to win back those papers.”

Ethel was pale and dumb for some moments. Her tears were dried, her heaving breast labored painfully; she looked on the ground with a dull and indifferent gaze,--the gaze of the condemned man as the axe is lifted over his head.

“My father’s life!” she sighed.

Then she slowly turned her eyes toward Ordener.

“What you do is useless; but do it.”

Ordener pressed her to his bosom. “Oh, noble girl, let me feel your heart beat against mine! Generous friend! I will soon return. Nay, you shall soon be mine; I would save your father, that I may better deserve to be his son. My Ethel, my beloved Ethel!”