Part 8

The lord mayor’s voice then assumed a grave and solemn intonation, and every heart beat faster.

“In the name of our revered master and lawful sovereign, King Christian, we, the judges of the Supreme Court of the province of Throndhjem, summoned to decide in the cases of John Schumacker, prisoner of the State; Wilfred Kennybol, native of the Kiölen Mountains; Jonas, royal miner; Norbith, royal miner; Hans of Klipstadur, in Iceland; and Ordener Guldenlew, Baron Thorwick, Knight of the Dannebrog, all accused of high treason and leze-majesty in the first degree (Hans of Iceland being moreover charged with the crimes of murder, arson, and robbery), do find:--

“I. That John Schumacker is not guilty;

“II. That Wilfred Kennybol, Jonas, and Norbith are guilty, but are recommended to mercy, because they were led astray;

“III. That Hans of Iceland is guilty of all the crimes laid to his charge;

“IV. That Ordener Guldenlew is guilty of high treason and leze-majesty in the first degree.”

The judge paused an instant as if to take breath. Ordener fixed upon him a look of celestial joy.

“John Schumacker,” resumed the judge, “the court acquits you and remands you to prison;

“Kennybol, Jonas, and Norbith, the court commutes the penalty which you have incurred, to imprisonment for life, and a fine of one thousand crowns each;

“Hans of Klipstadur, murderer and incendiary, you will be taken this night to Munkholm parade-ground, and hanged by the neck until you are dead, dead, dead!

“Ordener Guldenlew, traitor, after having been stripped of your titles in presence of this court, you will be conducted this very night to the same place, with a lighted torch in your hand, and there your head shall be hewn off, your body burned, your ashes strewn to the winds, and your head exposed upon a stake. Let all withdraw. Such is the sentence rendered by the king’s justice.”

The lord mayor had scarcely ended these fatal words, when a shriek rang through the room. This shriek horrified the spectators even more than did the fearful terms of the death sentence; this shriek for a brief moment turned the calm and radiant face of the condemned Ordener pale.

XLIV.

Misfortune made them equals.--CHARLES NODIER.

All was over now; Ordener’s work was done. He had saved the father of the woman he loved; he had saved her too by preserving her father to protect her. The young man’s noble plot to save Schumacker’s life had succeeded; nothing else mattered now; it only remained for him to die.

Let those who deem him guilty or foolish judge the generous Ordener now, as he judges himself in his own soul with holy rapture. For it had been his one thought, when he entered the rebel ranks, that if he could not prevent Schumacker from carrying out his guilty purpose, he might at least help him to escape punishment by drawing it upon his own head.

“Alas!” he thought, “Schumacker is undoubtedly guilty; but embittered as he is by misfortune and imprisonment, his crime is excusable. He sighs to be set free; he struggles to acquire his liberty, even by rebellion. Besides, what would become of my Ethel if her father were taken from her; if she should lose him by the gallows, if fresh disgrace should blast his name, what would become of her, helpless and unprotected, alone in her cell or roaming through a world of foes?” This thought determined him to make the sacrifice, and he joyfully prepared for it. It is a lover’s greatest happiness to lay down his life, I do not say for the life, but for a smile or a tear, of the loved object.

He was accordingly captured with the rebels, was dragged before the judges assembled to condemn Schumacker, his generous falsehood was uttered, he was sentenced, he must die a cruel death, suffer shameful torments, leave behind him a stained name; but what cared the noble youth? He had saved his Ethel’s father.

He sat chained in a damp dungeon, where light and air never entered save through dark holes; beside him was a supply of food for the remnant of his existence,--a loaf of black bread and a jug of water; an iron collar weighed down his neck; iron fetters were about his hands and feet. Every hour that passed robbed him of a greater portion of his life than a year would bear away from other mortals. He was lost in a delicious dream.

“Perhaps my memory will not die with me, at least in one human heart. Perhaps she will deign to shed a tear in return for the blood I so freely shed for her; perhaps she will sometimes heave a sigh for him who sacrificed his life for her; perhaps in her virgin thoughts the dim image of her friend may sometimes appear. And who knows what lies behind the veil of death? Who knows if our souls, freed from their material prison, may not sometimes return to watch over the souls of those they love, and hold mysterious communion with those sweet companions still prisoned in the flesh, and in secret bring them angelic comfort and heavenly bliss?”

And yet bitter reflections would sometimes mingle with these consoling meditations. The hatred which Schumacker had expressed for him at the very moment of his self-sacrifice oppressed him. The agonized shriek which he had heard at the same instant with his death sentence had moved him deeply; for he alone, of all the assembly, recognized that voice and understood that misery. And should he never again see his Ethel? Must his last moments be passed within the self-same walls that contained her, and he be still unable to touch her soft hand once more, once more to hear the gentle voice of her for whom he was about to die?

He had yielded thus to those vague, sad musings which are to the mind what sleep is to the body, when the hoarse creak of rusty bolts struck harshly on his ear, already attuned to the music of the sphere to which he was so soon to take his flight. The heavy iron door grated upon its hinges. The young prisoner rose calmly, almost gladly, for he thought that the executioner had come for him, and he had already cast aside his life like the cloak beneath his feet.

He was mistaken. A slender white figure stood upon the threshold, like a radiant vision. Ordener doubted his own eyes, and wondered if he were not already in heaven. It was she; it was his Ethel!

The girl fell into his fettered embrace; she covered his hands with tears, and dried them with her long black hair. Kissing his chains, she bruised her pure lips upon those infamous irons; she did not speak, but her whole heart seemed ready to burst forth in the first word which might break through her sobs.

He felt the most celestial joy which he had known since his birth. He gently pressed his Ethel to his breast, and the combined powers of earth and hell could not at that moment have loosed the arms which encircled her. The knowledge of his approaching death lent a certain solemnity to his rapture; and he held his Ethel as close as if he had already taken possession of her for all eternity.

He did not ask this angel how she had gained access to him. She was there: could he waste a thought on anything else? Nor was he surprised. He never asked how this proscribed, feeble, lonely girl, in spite of triple doors of iron and triple ranks of soldiers, had contrived to open her own prison and that of her lover; it seemed to him quite simple; he had a perfect appreciation of the power of love.

Why speak with the voice when the soul can speak as readily? Why not allow the body to listen silently to the mysterious language of the spirit? Both were silent, because there are certain emotions which can find expression in silence only.

At last the young girl lifted her head from her lover’s throbbing heart. “Ordener,” said she, “I am here to save you;” and she uttered these words of hope with a pang.

Ordener smiled, and shook his head.

“To save me, Ethel! You deceive yourself; escape is impossible.”

“Alas! I am but too well aware of that. This castle is crowded with soldiers, and every door is guarded by archers and jailers who never sleep.” She added with an effort: “But I bring you another means of safety.”

“No, no; your hope is vain. Do not delude yourself with idle fancies, Ethel; a few hours hence the axe will cruelly dispel them.”

“Oh, do not say so, Ordener! You shall not die. Oh, spare me that dreadful thought! Or rather, no; let me behold it in all its horror, to give me strength to save you and sacrifice myself.”

There was a strange expression in the young girl’s voice.

Ordener gazed at her tenderly. “Sacrifice yourself! What do you mean?”

She hid her face in her hands, and sobbed almost inarticulately, “Oh, God!”

The struggle was brief; she overcame her emotion; her eyes sparkled, her lips wore a smile. She was as beautiful as an angel ascending from hell to heaven.

“Listen, my own Ordener: your scaffold shall never be reared. If you will but promise to marry Ulrica d’Ahlefeld, you may live.”

“Ulrica d’Ahlefeld! That name from your lips, my Ethel!”

“Do not interrupt me,” she continued, with the calm of a martyr undergoing the last pang; “I am sent here by Countess d’Ahlefeld. She promises to gain your pardon from the king, if in return you will agree to bestow your hand upon her daughter. I am here to obtain your oath to marry Ulrica and live for her. She chose me as her messenger because she thought that my voice might have some influence over you.”

“Ethel,” said the condemned man, in icy tones, “farewell! When you leave this cell, bid the hangman hasten his coming.”

She rose, stood before him one moment, pale and trembling, then her knees gave way beneath her, and she sank to the stone floor with clasped hands.

“What have I done to him?” she muttered faintly.

Ordener silently fixed his eyes upon the flags.

“My lord,” she said, dragging herself to him on her knees, “you do not answer me. Will you not speak to me once more? Then there is nothing left for me but to die.”

A tear stood in the young man’s eye.

“Ethel, you no longer love me.”

“Oh, God!” cried the poor girl, clasping his knees. “No longer love you! You say that I no longer love you, Ordener! Did you really say those words?”

“You no longer love me, for you despise me.”

He repented these cruel words as soon as he had uttered them; for Ethel’s tone was heart-rending, as she threw her adored arms around his neck, and exclaimed in a voice broken by tears: “Forgive me, my beloved Ordener; forgive me as I forgive you. I despise you! Great heavens! Are you not my pride, my idol, my all? Tell me, was there aught in my words but deep love and ardent adoration? Alas! your stern language wounds me sorely, when I came here to save you, my idolized Ordener, by sacrificing my whole life for yours.”

“Well,” replied the young man, softened by her tears, and kissing them away, “was it not a want of esteem to suppose that I would buy my life by forsaking you, by basely renouncing my oaths, by sacrificing my love?” He added, fixing his eye on Ethel: “My love, for which I am about to shed my blood!”

Ethel uttered a deep groan as she answered: “Hear me, Ordener, before you judge me so rashly. Perhaps I have more strength than usually falls to the lot of a weak woman. From our lofty prison window I saw them build your scaffold on the parade. Ordener, you do not know what fearful agony it is to see the slow preparations for the death of one whose life is an indissoluble part of your own! Countess d’Ahlefeld, at whose side I sat when I heard the judge pronounce your death sentence, came to the cell to which I had returned with my father. She asked me if I would save you; she proposed this hateful means. Ordener, my poor happiness must perish; I must give you up, renounce you forever; yield to another my Ordener, poor lonely Ethel’s only joy, or deliver you to the executioner. They bid me choose between my own misery and your death. I cannot hesitate.”

He kissed this angel’s hand with respectful worship.

“Neither do I hesitate, Ethel. You would not offer me life with Ulrica d’Ahlefeld’s hand if you knew why I die.”

“What? What secret mystery--”

“Let me keep this one secret from you, my beloved Ethel. I must die without letting you know whether you owe me gratitude or hatred for my death.”

“You must die! Must you then die? Oh, God! it is but too true, and the scaffold stands ready even now; and no human power can save my Ordener, whom they will slay! Tell me,--cast one look upon your slave, your wife, and tell me, promise me, beloved Ordener, that you will listen to me without anger. Are you very sure--answer me as you would answer to God--that you could not be happy with that woman, that Ulrica d’Ahlefeld? Are you very sure, Ordener? Perhaps she is, she surely is, handsome, amiable, virtuous. She is far superior to her for whom you perish. Do not turn away your head, dear friend, dear Ordener. You are so noble and so young to mount the scaffold. Think! you might live with her in some gay city where you would lose all memory of this fatal dungeon; your days would flow by peacefully, without a thought of me. I consent,--you may drive me from your heart, erase my image from your thoughts, Ordener. Only live! Leave me here alone; let me be the one to die. And believe me, when I know that you are in the arms of another, you need not fear for me; I shall not suffer long.”

She paused; her voice was drowned in tears. Still her grief-stricken countenance was radiant with her longing to win the ill-omened victory which must be her death.

Ordener said: “No more of this, Ethel. Let no name but yours and mine pass our lips at such a moment.”

“Alas! alas!” she replied, “then you persist in dying?”

“I must; I shall go to the scaffold gladly for your sake; I should go to the altar with any other woman with horror and aversion. Say no more; you wound and distress me.”

She wept, and murmured: “He will die, oh, God, a death of infamy!”

The condemned man answered with a smile: “Believe me, Ethel, there is less dishonor in my death than in such a life as you propose.”

At this instant his eye, glancing away from his weeping Ethel, observed an old man in clerical dress standing in the shadow under the low, arched door. “What do you want?” said he, hastily.

“My lord, I came with the Countess d’Ahlefeld’s messenger. You did not see me, and I waited silently until you should notice me.”

In fact, Ordener had eyes for Ethel only; and she, at the sight of Ordener, had forgotten her companion.

“I am,” continued the old man, “the minister whose duty it is--”

“I understand,” said the young man; “I am ready.”

The minister advanced toward him.

“God is also ready to receive you, my son.”

“Sir,” said Ordener, “your face is not unknown to me; I must have seen you elsewhere.”

The minister bowed. “I too recognize you, my son; we met in Vygla tower. We both proved upon that occasion the fallibility of human words. You promised me the pardon of twelve unhappy prisoners, and I put no faith in your promise, being unable to guess that you were the viceroy’s son; and you, my lord, who reckoned upon your power and your rank when you made me that promise--”

Ordener finished the thought which Athanasius Munder dared not put into words.

“Cannot now obtain pardon even for myself. You are right, sir. I had too little reverence for the future, it has punished me by showing me that its power is greater than mine.”

The minister bent his head. “God is great!” said he.

Then he raised his kind eyes to Ordener, adding, “God is good!”

Ordener, who seemed preoccupied, exclaimed, after a brief pause: “Listen, sir; I will keep the promise which I made you in Vygla tower. When I am dead, go to Bergen, seek out my father, the viceroy of Norway, and tell him that the last favor which his son asks of him is to pardon your twelve protégés. He will grant it, I am sure.”

A tear of emotion moistened the wrinkled cheek of Athanasius.

“My son, your soul must be filled with noble thoughts, if in the self-same hour you can reject your own pardon and generously implore that of others. For I heard your refusal; and although I blame such dangerous and inordinate affection, I was deeply touched by it. Now I ask myself,--_unde scelus_?--how could a man who approaches so near to the model of true justice soil his conscience with the crime for which you are condemned?”

“Father, I did not tell my secret to this angel; I cannot reveal it to you. But believe that I am not condemned for any crime of mine.”

“What? Explain yourself, my son!”

“Do not urge me,” firmly answered the young man. “Let me take my secret with me to the grave.”

“This man cannot be guilty,” muttered the minister.

Then drawing from his breast a black crucifix, he placed it on a sort of altar rudely shaped from a granite slab resting against the damp prison wall. Beside the crucifix he laid a small lighted lamp which he had brought with him, and an open Bible. “My son, meditate and pray; I will return a few hours hence. Come,” he added, turning to Ethel, who during this conversation had preserved a solemn silence, “we must leave the prisoner. Our time has passed.”

She rose, calm and radiant; a divine spark flashed from her eyes as she said: “Sir, I cannot go yet; you must first unite Ethel Schumacker to her husband, Ordener Guldenlew.”

She looked at Ordener.

“If you were still free, happy, and powerful, my Ordener, I should weep, and I should shrink from linking

my fatal destiny with yours. But now that you need no longer dread the contagion of my misfortune; that you, like me, are a captive, disgraced and oppressed; now that you are about to die, I come to you, hoping that you will at least deign, Ordener, my lord and husband, to allow her who could never have shared your life, to be your companion in death; for you love me too much, do you not, to doubt for an instant that I shall die with you?”

The prisoner fell at her feet, and kissed the hem of her gown.

“You, old man,” she resumed, “must take the place of family and parents. This cell shall be our temple, this stone our altar. Here is my ring; we kneel before God and before you. Bless us, and pronounce the sacred words which shall unite Ethel Schumacker and Ordener Guldenlew, her lord.”

And they knelt together before the priest, who regarded them with mingled astonishment and pity.

“How, my children! What would you do?”

“Father,” said the girl, “time presses. God and death wait for us.”

In this life we sometimes meet with irresistible powers, supreme wills to which we yield instantly as if they were more than human. The priest raised his eyes, sighing: “May the Lord forgive me if I do wrong! You love each other; you have but little time to love on earth. I do not think I shall fail in my allegiance to God if I legalize your love.”

The sweet and solemn ceremony was performed. With the final blessing of the priest, they rose a wedded pair.

The prisoner’s face beamed with painful joy; he seemed for the first time conscious of the bitterness of death, now that he realized the sweetness of life. The features of his companion were sublime in their expression of grandeur and simplicity; she still felt the modesty of a maiden, and already exulted as a young wife.

“Hear me, Ordener,” said she; “is it not fortunate that we must die, since we could never have been united in life? Do you know, love, what I will do? I will stand at the window of my cell, where I can see you mount the scaffold, so that our spirits may wing their flight to heaven together. If I should die before the axe falls, I will wait for you; for we are husband and wife, my adored Ordener, and this night our coffin shall be our bridal bed.”

He pressed her to his throbbing heart, and could only utter these words, which for him summed up all human happiness: “Ethel, you are mine!”

“My children,” said the chaplain, in a broken voice, “say farewell; it is time.”

“Alas!” cried Ethel.

All her angelic strength returned, and she knelt before the prisoner: “Farewell, my beloved Ordener! My lord, give me your blessing.”

The prisoner yielded to this touching request, then turned to take leave of the venerable Athanasius Munder. The old man was kneeling at his feet.

“What do you wish, father?” he asked in surprise.

The old man gazed at him with sweet humility: “Your blessing, my son.”

“May Heaven bless you, and grant you all the happiness which your prayers call down upon your brother men!” replied Ordener, in touched and solemn tones.

Soon the sepulchral arches heard their last kisses and their last farewells; soon the rude bolts creaked noisily into place, and the iron door separated the youthful pair who were to die, only to meet again in eternity.

XLV.

I will give two thousand crowns to any man who shall deliver over to me Louis Perez, dead or alive.--CALDERON: _Louis Perez of Galicia_.

“Baron Vœthaün, colonel of the Munkholm musketeers, which of the men who fought under your command at Black Pillar Pass took Hans of Iceland prisoner? Name him to the court, that he may receive the thousand crowns reward offered for the capture.”

The president of the court thus addressed the colonel of musketeers. The court was in session; for according to old Norwegian custom, a court from whose sentence there is no appeal cannot adjourn until the sentence has been carried out. Before the judges stood the giant, who had just been led in again, with the rope round his neck from which he was soon to hang.

The colonel, seated at the table with the private secretary, rose and bowed to the court and to the bishop, who had reascended his throne.

“My lord judges, the soldier who captured Hans of Iceland is present. His name is Toric-Belfast, second musketeer of my regiment.”

“Let him stand forth,” replied the president, “and receive the promised reward.”

A young soldier in the Munkholm uniform stepped forward.

“You are Toric-Belfast?” asked the president.

“Yes, your worship.”

“It was you who took Hans of Iceland prisoner?”

“Yes, by the aid of Saint Beelzebub, I did, please your worship.”

A heavy bag of money was placed before the bench.

“Do you recognize this man as the famous Hans of Iceland?” added the president, pointing to the fettered giant.

“I am better acquainted with my Kitty’s pretty face than with that of Hans of Iceland; but I declare, by the halo of Saint Belphegor, that if Hans of Iceland be anywhere, it is in the shape of that big devil.”

“Advance, Toric-Belfast,” said the president. “Here are the thousand crowns offered by the lord mayor.”

The soldier hurried toward the bench, when a voice rose from the crowd: “Munkholm musketeer, you never captured Hans of Iceland.”

“By all the blessed devils!” cried the soldier, turning around, “I own nothing but my pipe and the moment of time in which I speak; but still I promise to give ten thousand gold crowns to the man who says that, if he can prove his words.”

And folding his arms, he cast an assured glance over the audience: “Well! let the man who spoke, show himself.”

“It is I!” said a small man, elbowing his way through the crowd.

The new-comer was wrapped in sealskin, like a Greenlander, his outlandish garb hanging stiffly about him. His beard was black; and thick hair of the same color, falling over his red eyebrows, concealed a hideous face. Neither his hands nor his arms were visible.

“Oh, it is you, is it?” said the soldier, with a loud laugh. “And who, then, do you say it was, my fine gentleman, that had the honor of capturing that infernal giant?”

The little man shook his head, and said with a malicious smile: “It was I.”