Part 3

Monkey, paroquets, combs, and ribbons, all were ready to receive Lieutenant Frederic. His mother had sent, at great expense, for the famous Scudéry’s latest novel. By her order it had been richly bound, with silvergilt clasps, and placed, with the bottles of perfume and boxes of patches, upon the elegant toilet-table, with gilded feet, and richly inlaid, with which she had furnished her dear son Frederic’s future sitting-room. When she had thus fulfilled the careful round of petty maternal cares which had for a moment caused her to forget her hate, she remembered that she had now nothing else to do but to injure Schumacker and Ethel. General Levin’s departure left them at her mercy.

So many things had happened recently at Munkholm of which she could learn but little! Who was the serf, vassal, or peasant, who, if she was to credit Frederic’s very ambiguous and embarrassed phrases, had won the love of the ex-chancellor’s daughter? What were Baron Ordener’s relations with the prisoners of Munkholm? What were the incomprehensible motives for Ordener’s most peculiar absence at a time when both kingdoms were given over to preparations for his marriage to that Ulrica d’Ahlefeld whom he seemed to disdain? And lastly, what had occurred between Levin de Knud and Schumacker? The countess was lost in conjectures. She finally resolved, in order to clear up all these mysteries, to risk a descent upon Munkholm,--a step to which she was counselled both by her curiosity as a woman and her interests as an enemy.

One evening, as Ethel, alone in the donjon garden, had just written, for the sixth time, with a diamond ring, some mysterious monogram upon the dusty window in the postern gate through which her Ordener had disappeared, it opened. The young girl started. It was the first time that this gate had been opened since it closed upon him.

A tall, pale woman, dressed in white, stood before her. She gave Ethel a smile as sweet as poisoned honey, and behind her mask of quiet friendliness there lurked an expression of hatred, spite, and involuntary admiration.

Ethel looked at her in astonishment, almost fear. Except her old nurse, who had died in her arms, this was the first woman she had seen within the gloomy walls of Munkholm.

“My child,” gently asked the stranger, “are you the daughter of the prisoner of Munkholm?”

Ethel could not help turning away her head; she instinctively shrank from the stranger, and she felt as if there were venom in the breath which uttered such sweet tones. She answered: “I am Ethel Schumacker. My father tells me that in my cradle I was called Countess of Tönsberg and Princess of Wollin.”

“Your father tells you so!” exclaimed the tall woman, with a sneer which she at once repressed. Then she added: “You have had many misfortunes!”

“Misfortune received me, at my birth, in its cruel arms,” replied the youthful captive; “my noble father says that it will never leave me while I live.”

A smile flitted across the lips of the stranger, as she rejoined in a pitying tone: “And do you never murmur against those who flung you into this cell? Do you not curse the authors of your misery?”

“No, for fear that our curse might draw down upon their heads evils like those which they make us endure.”

“And,” continued the pale woman, with unmoved face, “do you know the authors of these evils of which you complain?”

Ethel considered a moment, and said: “All that has happened to us is by the will of Heaven.”

“Does your father never speak to you of the king?”

“The king? I pray for him every morning and evening, although I do not know him.”

Ethel did not understand why the stranger bit her lip at this reply.

“Does your unhappy father never, in his anger, mention his relentless foes, General Arensdorf, Bishop Spolleyson, and Chancellor d’Ahlefeld?”

“I don’t know whom you mean.”

“And do you know the name of Levin de Knud?”

The recollection of the scene which had occurred but two days before, between Schumacker and the governor of Throndhjem, was so fresh in Ethel’s mind that she could not but be struck by the name of Levin de Knud.

“Levin de Knud?” said she; “I think that he is the man for whom my father feels so much esteem, almost affection.”

“What!” cried the tall woman.

“Yes,” resumed the girl; “it was Levin de Knud whom my father defended so warmly, day before yesterday, against the governor of Throndhjem.”

These words increased her hearer’s surprise.

“Against the governor of Throndhjem! Do not trifle with me, girl. I am here in your interests. Your father took General Levin de Knud’s part against the governor of Throndhjem, you say?”

“General! I thought he was a captain. But no; you are right. My father,” added Ethel, “seemed to feel as much attachment for this General Levin de Knud as dislike for the governor of Throndhjem.”

“Here is a strange mystery indeed!” thought the tall, pale woman, whose curiosity increased momentarily. “My dear child, what happened between your father and the governor?”

All these questions wearied poor Ethel, who looked fixedly at the tall woman, saying: “Am I a criminal, that you should cross-examine me thus?”

At these simple words the stranger seemed thunderstruck, as if she saw the reward of her skill slipping through her fingers. She replied, nevertheless, in a tremulous voice: “You would not speak to me so if you knew why and for whom I come.”

“What!” said Ethel; “do you come from him? Do you bring me a message from him?” And all the blood in her body rushed to her fair face; her heart throbbed in her bosom with impatience and alarm.

“From whom?” asked the stranger.

The young girl hesitated as she was about to utter the adored name. She saw a flash of wicked joy gleam in the stranger’s eye like a ray from hell. She said sadly:--

“You do not know the person whom I mean.”

An expression of disappointment again appeared upon the stranger’s apparently friendly face.

“Poor young girl!” she cried; “what can I do to help you?”

Ethel did not hear her. Her thoughts were beyond the mountains of the North, in quest of the daring traveller. Her head sank upon her breast, and her hands were unconsciously clasped.

“Does your father hope to escape from this prison?”

This question, twice repeated by the stranger, brought Ethel to herself.

“Yes,” said she, and tears sparkled on her cheek.

The stranger’s eyes flashed.

“He does! Tell me how; by what means; when!”

“He hopes to escape from this prison because he hopes ere long to die.”

There is sometimes a power in the very simplicity of a gentle young spirit which outwits the artifices of a heart grown old in wickedness. This thought seemed to occur to the great lady, for her expression suddenly changed, and laying her cold hand on Ethel’s arm, she said in a tone which was almost sincere: “Tell me, have you heard that your father’s life is again threatened by a fresh judicial inquiry? That he is suspected of having stirred up a revolt among the miners of the North?”

The words “revolt” and “inquiry” conveyed no clear idea to Ethel’s mind. She raised her great dark eyes to the stranger’s face as she asked: “What do you mean?”

“That your father is conspiring against the State; that his crime is all but discovered; that this crime will be punished with death.”

“Death! crime!” cried the poor girl.

“Crime and death,” said the strange lady, seriously.

“My father! my noble father!” continued Ethel. “Alas! he spends his days in hearing me read the Edda and the Gospel! He conspire! What has he done to you?”

“Do not look at me so fiercely. I tell you again I am not your enemy. Your father is suspected of a grave crime; I am here to warn you of it. Perhaps, instead of such a show of dislike, I might lay claim to your gratitude.”

This reproach touched Ethel.

“Oh, forgive me, noble lady, forgive me! What human being have I ever seen who was not an enemy? I have doubted you. You will forgive me, will you not?”

The stranger smiled.

“What, my girl! have you never met a friend until to-day?”

A hot blush mantled Ethel’s brow. She hesitated an instant.

“Yes. God knows the truth, we have found a friend, noble lady,--one only!”

“One only!” said the great lady, hastily. “His name, I implore. You do not know how important it is; it is for your father’s safety. Who is this friend?”

“I do not know,” said Ethel.

The stranger turned pale.

“Is it because I wish to serve you that you trifle with me? Consider that your father’s life is at stake. Tell me, who is this friend of whom you speak?”

“Heaven knows, noble lady, that I know nothing of him but his name, which is Ordener.”

Ethel uttered these words with that difficulty which we all feel in pronouncing before an indifferent person the sacred name which wakes within us every emotion of love.

“Ordener! Ordener!” repeated the stranger, with singular agitation, while her hands crumpled the white embroideries of her veil. “And what is his father’s name?” she asked in a troubled voice.

“I do not know,” replied the girl. “What are his family and his father to me? This Ordener, noble lady, is the most generous of men.”

Alas! the accent with which these words were spoken revealed Ethel’s secret to the sharp-sighted stranger.

She assumed an air of calm composure, and asked, without taking her eyes from the girl’s face: “Have you heard of the approaching marriage of the viceroy’s son to the daughter of the present lord chancellor, d’Ahlefeld?”

She was obliged to repeat her question before Ethel’s mind could grasp an idea which did not interest her.

“I believe I have,” was her answer.

Her calmness, and her indifferent manner, seemed to surprise the stranger.

“Well, what do you think of this marriage?”

It was impossible to note the slightest change in Ethel’s large eyes as she replied: “Nothing, truly. May their union be a happy one!”

“Counts Guldenlew and d’Ahlefeld, the fathers of the young couple, are both bitter enemies of your father.”

“May their marriage be blessed!” gently repeated Ethel.

“I have an idea,” continued the crafty stranger. “If your father’s life be really threatened, you might obtain his pardon through the viceroy’s son upon the occasion of this great marriage.”

“May the saints reward you for your kind thought for us, noble lady; but how should my petition reach the viceroy’s son?”

These words were spoken in such good faith that they drew a gesture of surprise from the stranger.

“What! do you not know him?”

“That powerful lord!” cried Ethel. “You forget that I have never been outside the walls of this fortress.”

“Truly,” muttered the tall woman between her teeth. “What did that old fool of a Levin tell me? She does not know him. Still, that is impossible,” said she; then, raising her voice: “You must have seen the viceroy’s son; he has been here.”

“That may be, noble lady; of all the men who have been here, I have never seen but one,--my Ordener.”

“Your Ordener!” interrupted the stranger. She added, without seeming to notice Ethel’s blushes: “Do you know a young man with noble face, elegant figure, grave and dignified bearing? His expression is gentle, yet firm; his complexion fresh as that of a maiden; his hair chestnut.”

“Oh!” cried poor Ethel, “that is he; it is my betrothed, my adored Ordener! Where did you meet him? He told you that he loved me, did he not? He told you that he has my whole heart. Alas! a poor prisoner has nothing but her love to give. My noble friend! It was but a week ago,--I can see him still on this very spot, with his green mantle, beneath which beats so generous a heart, and that black plume, which waved so gracefully above his broad brow.”

She did not finish her sentence. The tall stranger tottered, turned pale, then red, and cried in her ears in tones of thunder: “Wretched girl, you love Ordener Guldenlew, the betrothed of Ulrica d’Ahlefeld, the son of your father’s deadly foe, the viceroy of Norway!”

Ethel fell fainting on the ground.

XXXVII.

_Caupolican._ Walk so cautiously that the earth itself may not catch your footfall. Redouble your precautions, friends. If we arrive unheard, I will answer for the victory.

_Tucapel._ Night veils all; fearful darkness covers the earth. We hear no sentinel; we have seen no spies.

_Ringo._ Let us advance!

* * * * *

_Tucapel._ What do I hear? Are we discovered?

LOPE DA VEGA: _The Conquest of Arauco_.

“I say, Guldon Stayper, old fellow, the evening breeze is beginning to blow my hairy cap about my head rather vigorously.”

These words were spoken by Kennybol, as his eyes wandered for a moment from the giant who marched at the head of the insurgents, and half turned toward a mountaineer whom the accident of a disorderly progress had placed beside him.

His friend shook his head and shifted his banner from one shoulder to the other, with a deep sigh of fatigue, as he answered:--

“Hum! I fancy, Captain, that in these confounded Black Pillar gorges, through which the wind rushes like a torrent let loose, we shall not be as warm to-night as if we were flames dancing on the hearth.”

“We must make such rousing fires that the old owls will be scared from their nests among the rocks in their ruined palace. I can’t endure owls. On that horrid night when I saw the fairy Ubfem she took the shape of an owl.”

“By Saint Sylvester!” interrupted Guldon Stayper, turning his head, “the angel of the storm beats his wings most furiously! Take my advice, Captain Kennybol, and set fire to all the pine-trees on the mountain. It would be a fine sight to see an army warm itself with a whole forest.”

“Heaven forbid, my dear Guldon! Think of the deer, and the gerfalcons, and the pheasants! Roast the game, if you will, but do not burn it alive.”

Old Guidon laughed: “Oh, Captain, you are the same devil of a Kennybol,--the wolf of deer, the bear of wolves, and the buffalo of bears!”

“Are we far from Black Pillar?” asked a voice from the huntsmen.

“Comrade,” replied Kennybol, “we shall enter the gorge at nightfall; we shall reach the Four Crosses directly.”

There was a brief silence, during which nothing was heard but the tramp of many feet, the moaning of the wind, and the distant song of the regiment of iron-workers from Lake Miösen.

“Friend Guldon Stayper,” resumed Kennybol, when he had whistled an old hunting-song, “you have just passed a few days at Throndhjem, have you not?”

“Yes, Captain; my brother George, the fisherman, was ill, and I took his place in the boat for a short time, so that his poor family might not starve while he was ill.”

“Well, as you come from Throndhjem, did you happen to see this count, the prisoner--Schumacker--Gleffenhem--what is his name, now? I mean that man in whose behalf we have rebelled against the royal protectorate, and whose arms I suppose you have on that big red flag.”

“It is heavy enough, I can tell you!” said Guldon. “Do you mean the prisoner in Munkholm fortress,--the count, if you choose to call him so; and how do you suppose, Captain, that I should see him? I should have needed,” he added, lowering his voice, “the eyes of that demon marching in front of us, though he does not leave a smell of brimstone behind him; of that Hans of Iceland, who can see through stone walls; or the ring of Queen Mab, who passes through keyholes. There is but one man among us now, I am sure, who ever saw the count,--the prisoner to whom you refer.”

“But one? Ah! Mr. Hacket? But this Hacket is no longer with us; he left us to-day to return to--”

“I do not mean Mr. Hacket, Captain.”

“And who then?”

“That young man in the green mantle, with the black plume, who burst into our midst last night.”

“Well?”

“Well!” said Guldon, drawing closer to Kennybol; “he knows the count,--this famous count, as well as I know you, Captain Kennybol.”

Kennybol looked at Guldon, winked his left eye, smacked his lips, and clapped his friend on the shoulder with that triumphant exclamation which so often escapes us when we are satisfied with our own penetration,--“I thought as much!”

“Yes, Captain,” continued Guldon Stayper, changing his flame-colored banner to the other shoulder; “I assure you that the young man in green has seen Count--I don’t know what you call him, the one for whom we are fighting--in Munkholm keep; and he seemed to think no more of walking into that prison than you or I would of shooting in a royal park.”

“And how happen you to know this, brother Guldon?”

The old mountaineer seized Kennybol by the arm, and half opening his otter-skin waistcoat with a caution which was almost suspicious, he said, “Look there!”

“By my most holy patron saint!” exclaimed Kennybol; “it glitters like diamonds!”

It was indeed a superb diamond buckle, which fastened Guldon Stayper’s rough belt.

“And they are real diamonds,” he replied, closing his waistcoat. “I am just as sure of it as I am that the moon is two days’ journey from the earth, and that my belt is made of buffalo leather.”

Kennybol’s face clouded, and his expression changed from surprise to distress. He cast down his eyes, and said with savage sternness: “Guldon Stayper, of Chol-Sœ village, in the Kiölen mountains, your father, Medprath Stayper, died at the age of one hundred and two, without reproach; for it was no crime to kill one of the king’s deer or elk by mistake. Guldon Stayper, fifty-seven good years have passed over your gray head, which cannot be called youth except for an owl. Guldon Stayper, old friend, I would rather for your sake that the diamonds in that buckle were grains of millet, if you did not come by them honestly,--as honestly as a royal pheasant comes by a leaden bullet.”

As he pronounced this strange sermon, the mountaineer’s tone was both impressive and menacing.

“As truly as Captain Kennybol is the boldest hunter in Kiölen,” replied Guldon, unmoved, “and as truly as these diamonds are diamonds, they are my lawful property.”

“Indeed!” said Kennybol, in accents which wavered between confidence and doubt.

“God and my patron saint know,” replied Guldon, “that one evening, just as I was pointing out the Throndhjem Spladgest to some sons of our good mother Norway, who were carrying thither the body of an officer found dead on Urchtal Sands,--this was about a week ago,--a young man stepped up to my boat. ‘To Munkholm!’ says he to me. I was not at all anxious to obey, Captain; a free bird never likes to fly into the neighborhood of a cage. But the young gentleman had a haughty, lordly manner; he was followed by a servant leading two horses; he leaped into my boat with an air of authority; I took up my oars, that is to say, my brother’s oars. It was my good angel that willed me to do so. When we reached the fortress, my young passenger, after exchanging a few words with the officer on guard, flung me in payment--as God hears me, he did, Captain--this diamond buckle which I showed you, and which would have belonged to my brother George, and not to me, if at the time that the traveller--Heaven help him!--engaged me, the day’s work which I was doing for George had not been done. This is the truth, Captain Kennybol.”

“Very good.”

Little by little the captain’s features had cleared as much as their naturally hard and gloomy expression would permit, and he asked Guidon in a softened voice: “And are you sure, old fellow, that this young man is the same who is now behind us with Norbith’s followers?”

“Sure! I could not mistake among a thousand faces the face of him who made my fortune; besides, it is the same cloak, the same black plume.”

“I believe you, Guldon!”

“And it is clear that he went there to see the famous prisoner; for if he were not bound on some very mysterious errand, he would never have rewarded so handsomely the boatman who rowed him over and besides, now that he has joined us--”

“You are right.”

“And I imagine, Captain, that this young stranger may have far greater influence with the count whom we are about to set free than Mr. Hacket, who strikes me, by my soul! as only fit to mew like a wildcat.”

Kennybol nodded his head expressively.

“Comrade, you have said just what I meant to say. I should be much more inclined in this whole matter to obey that young gentleman than the envoy Hacket. Saint Sylvester and Saint Olaf help me! but if the Iceland demon be our commander, I believe, friend Guldon, that we owe it far less to that magpie Hacket than to this stranger.”

“Really, Captain?” inquired Guldon.

Kennybol opened his mouth to answer, when he felt a hand on his shoulder; it was Norbith.

“Kennybol, we are betrayed! Gormon Woëstrœm has just come from the South. The entire regiment of musketeers is marching against us. The Schleswig lancers are at Sparbo; three companies of Danish dragoons await the cavalry at Loevig. All along the road he saw as many green jackets as there were bushes. Let us hasten toward Skongen; let us not pause until we reach that point. There, at least, we can defend ourselves. One thing more; Gormon thinks that he saw the gleam of muskets among the briers as he came through the defiles of Black Pillar.”

The young leader was pale and agitated; but his face and voice still showed courage and resolution.

“Impossible!” cried Kennybol.

“It is certain! certain!” said Norbith.

“But Mr. Hacket--”

“Is a traitor or a coward. Depend on what I say, friend Kennybol. Where is this Hacket?”

At this moment old Jonas approached the two chiefs. By the deep discouragement stamped upon his features it was easily seen that he had learned the fatal news.

The eyes of the two elder men, Jonas and Kennybol, met, and they shook their heads with one accord.

“Well, Jonas! Well, Kennybol!” said Norbith.

But the aged leader of the Färöe miners slowly passed his hand across his wrinkled brow, and in a low voice answered the appealing look of the aged leader of the Kiölen mountaineers: “Yes, it is but too true; it is but too certain. Gormon Woëstrœm saw them.”

“If it be so,” said Kennybol, “what is to be done?”

“What is to be done?” answered Jonas.

“I consider, friend Jonas, that we should do well to halt.”

“And better still, brother Kennybol, to retreat.”

“Halt! retreat!” exclaimed Norbith; “we must push forward.”

The two elders looked at the young man in cold surprise.

“Push forward!” said Kennybol; “and how about the Munkholm musketeers?”

“And the Schleswig lancers?” added Jonas.

“And the Danish dragoons?” continued Kennybol.

Norbith stamped his foot.

“And the royal protectorate; and my mother dying of cold and hunger?”

“The devil, the royal protectorate!” said the miner Jonas, with a shudder.

“Never mind!” said Kennybol.

Jonas took Kennybol by the hand, saying: “Old fellow, you have not the honor to be a ward of our glorious sovereign, Christian IV. May the blessed king Olaf, in heaven, deliver us from the protectorate!”

“You had better trust to your sword for that benefit!” said Norbith, in a fierce tone.

“Bold words are easy to a young man, friend Norbith,” answered Kennybol; “but consider that if we advance, all these green jackets--”

“I think that it would be useless for us to return to our mountains, like foxes running from wolves, for our names and our revolt are known; and if we needs must die, I prefer a musket-ball to the hangman’s rope.”

Jonas nodded assent.

“The devil! the protectorate for our brothers, the gallows for us! Norbith may be right, after all.”

“Give me your hand, good Norbith,” said Kennybol; “there is danger in either course. We may as well march straight to the edge of the precipice as fall over it backwards.”

“Come on! come on!” cried old Jonas, striking his sword-hilt.

Norbith grasped them by the hand.

“Listen, brothers! Be bold, like me; I will be prudent, like you. Let us not pause until we reach Skongen; the garrison is weak, and we will overwhelm it. Let us pass, since we must, through the defiles of Black Pillar, but in utter silence. We must traverse them, even if they be guarded by the enemy.”