Part 9

At this instant Baron Vœthaün fancied that he recognized the mysterious being who had warned him at Skongen of the arrival of the rebels; Chancellor d’Ahlefeld thought he recognized his host at Arbar ruin; and the private secretary, a certain peasant from Oëlmœ, who wore a similar dress, and who had pointed out the lair of Hans of Iceland. But the three being separated, they could not impart to one another this fleeting impression, which the differences of feature and costume, afterward observed, must have soon dissipated.

“Indeed! it was you, was it?” ironically observed the soldier. “If it were not for your Greenland seal’s costume, by the look which you cast at me, I should be tempted to take you for another ridiculous dwarf, who tried to pick a quarrel with me at the Spladgest, a fortnight or so ago. It was the very day that they brought in the body of Gill Stadt, the miner.”

“Gill Stadt!” broke in the little man, with a shudder.

“Yes, Gill Stadt!” repeated the soldier, with an air of indifference,--“the rejected lover of a girl who was sweetheart to a comrade of mine, and for whose sake he died, like the fool that he was.”

The little man said in hollow tones: “Was there not also the body of an officer of your regiment at the Spladgest?”

“Exactly; I shall remember that day as long as I live. I forgot that it was the hour for the tattoo, and I was arrested when I got back to the fort. That officer was Captain Dispolsen.”

At this name the private secretary rose.

“These two fellows abuse the patience of the court. We beg the president to cut short this idle chatter.”

“By my Kitty’s good name! I ask nothing better,” said Toric-Belfast, “provided your worships will give me the thousand crowns offered for the head of Hans, for it was I who took him prisoner.”

“You lie!” cried the little man.

The soldier clapped his hand to his sword: “It is very lucky for you, you rascal, that we are in the presence of the court, where a soldier, even a Munkholm musketeer, must never resort to force.”

“The reward,” coldly observed the little man, “belongs to me; for if it were not for me, you would never have won Hans of Iceland’s head.”

The indignant soldier swore that it was he who captured Hans of Iceland, when, wounded on the field of battle, he was just beginning to revive.

“Well,” said his opponent, “you may have captured him, but it was I who struck him down. If it had not been for me, you could never have taken him prisoner; therefore the thousand crowns are mine.”

“It is false,” replied the soldier. “It was not you who struck him down; it was an evil spirit, clad in the skins of wild beasts.”

“It was I!”

“No, no!”

The president ordered both parties to be silent; then, again asking Colonel Vœthaün whether it was really Toric-Belfast who brought Hans of Iceland into camp a prisoner, at his assent he declared that the prize belonged to the soldier.

The small man gnashed his teeth, and the musketeer greedily stretched out his hands for the sack.

“One moment!” cried the little man. “Mr. President, that money according to the lord mayor’s proclamation, was to be given to him who took Hans of Iceland.”

“Well?” said the judge.

The little man turned to the giant: “That man is not Hans of Iceland.”

A murmur of surprise ran through the room. The president and private secretary moved uneasily in their chairs.

“No!” emphatically reiterated the small man, “the money does not belong to the cursed musketeer of Munkholm, for that man is not Hans of Iceland.”

“Halberdiers,” said the president, “remove this madman, he has lost his senses.”

The bishop interposed: “Will you allow me, most worthy President, to remark that you may, by refusing to hear this man, destroy the prisoner’s last chance? I demand that he be confronted with the stranger.”

“Reverend Bishop, the court will grant your request,” replied the president; and addressing the giant: “You have declared yourself to be Hans of Iceland; do you persist in that statement?”

The prisoner answered: “I do; I am Hans of Iceland.”

“You hear, Bishop?”

The little man shouted in the same breath with the president: “You lie, mountaineer of Kiölen! you lie! Do not persist in bearing a name which must crush you; remember that it has been fatal to you already.”

“I am Hans from Klipstadur, in Iceland,” repeated the giant, his eye riveted on the private secretary.

The small man approached the Munkholm soldier, who, like the rest of the audience, had watched this scene with eager curiosity.

“Mountaineer of Kiölen,” he cried, “they say that Hans of Iceland drinks human blood. If you be he, drink. Here it is.”

And scarcely were the words out of his mouth, when, tossing his sealskin mantle over his shoulder, he plunged a dagger into the soldier’s heart, and flung his dead body at the giant’s feet.

A cry of fright and horror followed; the soldiers guarding the giant started back. The small man, swift as lightning, rushed upon the defenceless mountaineer, and with another blow of his dagger, laid him upon the first corpse. Then flinging off his cloak, his false hair, and black beard, he revealed his wiry limbs, hideously attired in the skins of wild beasts, and a face which inspired the beholders with even greater horror than did the bloody dagger which he brandished aloft, reeking with a double murder.

“Ha! judges, where is Hans of Iceland now?”

“Guards, seize that monster!” cried the startled judge.

Hans hurled his dagger into the centre of the room.

“It is useless to me if there are no more Munkholm soldiers here.”

With these words, he yielded unresistingly to the halberdiers and bowmen who surrounded him, prepared to lay siege to him, as to a city. They chained the monster to the prisoner’s bench; and a litter bore away his victims, one of whom, the mountaineer, still breathed.

It is impossible to describe the various emotions of terror, astonishment, and indignation which, during this fearful scene, agitated the people, the guards, and the judges. When the brigand had taken his place, calm and unmoved, upon the fatal bench, a feeling of curiosity overcame every other impression, and breathless attention restored quiet.

The venerable bishop rose: “My lord judges--”

The bandit interrupted him: “Bishop of Throndhjem, I am Hans of Iceland; do not take the trouble to plead for me.”

The private secretary rose: “Noble President--”

The monster cut him short: “Private Secretary, I am Hans of Iceland; do not take the pains to accuse me.”

Then, his feet in a pool of blood, he ran his bold, fierce eye over the court, the bowmen, and the crowd; and it seemed as if each of them trembled with fear at the glance of that one man, unarmed, chained, and alone.

“Listen, judges; expect no long speeches from me. I am the demon of Klipstadur. My mother was old Iceland, the land of volcanoes. Once that land was but one huge mountain; it was crushed by the hand of a giant, who fell from heaven, and rested on its highest peak. I need not speak of myself. I am a descendant of Ingulf the Destroyer, and I bear his spirit within me. I have committed more murders and kindled more fires than all of you put together ever uttered unjust sentences in your lives. I have secrets in common with Chancellor d’Ahlefeld. I could drink every drop of blood that flows in your veins with delight. It is my nature to hate mankind, my mission to harm them. Colonel of the Munkholm musketeers, it was I who warned you of the march of the miners through Black Pillar Pass, sure that you would kill numbers of men in those gorges; it was I who destroyed a whole battalion of your regiment by hurling granite bowlders upon their heads. I did it to avenge my son. Now, judges, my son is dead; I came here in search of death. The soul of Ingulf oppresses me, because I must bear it alone, and can never transmit it to an heir. I am tired of life, since it can no longer be an example and a lesson to a successor. I have drunk enough blood; my thirst is quenched. Now, here I am; you may drink mine.”

He was silent, and every voice repeated his awful words.

The bishop said: “My son, what was your object in committing so many crimes?”

The brigand laughed: “I’ faith, I swear, reverend Bishop, it was not like your brother, the bishop of Borglum, with a view to enrich myself.[3] There was something in me which drove me to it.”

“God does not always dwell in his ministers,” meekly replied the saintly old man. “You would insult me, but I only wish I could defend you.”

“Your reverence wastes his breath. Go ask your other brother, the bishop of Scalholt, in Iceland, to defend me. By Ingulf! it is a strange thing that two bishops should protect me,--one in my cradle, the other at my tomb. Bishop, you are an old fool.”

“My son, do you believe in God?”

“Why not? There must be a God for us to blaspheme.”

“Cease, unhappy man! You are about to die, and you will not kiss the feet of Christ--”

Hans of Iceland shrugged his shoulders.

“If I did so, it would be after the fashion of the constable of Roll, who pulled the king over as he kissed his foot.”

The bishop seated himself, deeply moved.

“Come, judges,” continued Hans of Iceland, “why this delay? If I were in your place and you in mine, I would not keep you waiting so long for your death sentence.”

The court withdrew. After a brief deliberation they returned, and the president read aloud the sentence, which declared that Hans of Iceland was to be “hung by the neck until he was dead, dead, dead.”

“That’s good,” said the brigand. “Chancellor d’Ahlefeld, I know enough about you to obtain a like sentence for you. But live, since you do naught but injure men. Oh, I am sure now that I shall not go to Nistheim!”[4]

The private secretary ordered the guards who led him away to place him in the Lion of Schleswig tower, until a dungeon could be prepared for him in the quarters of the Munkholm regiment, where he might await his execution.

“In the quarters of the Munkholm musketeers!” repeated the monster, with a growl of pleasure.

XLVI.

However, the corpse of Ponce de Leon, which had remained beside the fountain, having been disfigured by the sun, the Moors of Alpuxares took possession of it and bore it to Grenada.--É. H.: _The Captive of Ochali_.

Before dawn of the day so many of whose events we have already traced, at the very hour when Ordener’s sentence was pronounced at Munkholm, the new keeper of the Throndhjem Spladgest, Benignus Spiagudry’s former assistant and present successor, Oglypiglap, was abruptly aroused from his mattress by a violent series of raps, which fairly shook the building. He rose reluctantly, took his copper lamp, whose dim light dazzled his drowsy eyes, and went, swearing at the dampness of the dead-house, to open to those who waked him so early from his sleep.

They were fishers from Sparbo, who carried upon a litter, strewed with reeds, rushes, and seaweed, a corpse which they had found in the waters of the lake.

They laid down their burden within the gloomy walls, and Oglypiglap gave them a receipt for it, so that they might claim their fee.

Left alone in the Spladgest, he began to undress the corpse, which was remarkable for its length and leanness. The first thing which caught his eye as he raised the cloth which covered it was a vast periwig.

“Why, really,” said he, “this outlandish wig has passed through my hands before; it belonged to that young French dandy.... And,” he added, continuing his investigations, “here are the high boots of poor postilion Cramner, who was killed by his horses, and--What the devil does this mean?--the full black suit of Professor Syngramtax, that learned old fogy, who drowned himself not long ago! Who can this new-comer be that comes here clad in the cast-off apparel of all my ancient acquaintance?”

He examined the face of the dead by the light of his lamp, but in vain; the features, already decomposed, had lost their original shape and color. He felt in the pockets, and drew out some scraps of parchment soaked with water and stained with mud; he wiped them carefully on his leather apron, and succeeded in deciphering on one of them these disconnected and half-effaced phrases: “Rudbeck, Saxon the grammarian. Arngrimmsson, bishop of Holum.--There are but two counties in Norway, Larvig and Jarlsberg, and but one barony.--Silver mines exist only at Kongsberg; loadstone and asbestos, at Sund-Moer; amethyst, at Guldbrandsdal; chalcedony, agate, and jasper, at the Färöe Islands.--At Noukahiva, in time of famine, men eat their wives and children.--Thormodr Torfusson; Isleif, bishop of Scalholt, first historian of Iceland.--Mercury played at chess with the Moon, and won the seventy-second part of a day.--Maëlstrom, whirlpool.--_Hirundo, hirudo_.--Cicero, chick pea; glory.--The learned Frode.--Odin consulted the head of Mimer, the wise.--(Mahomet and his dove, Sertorius and his hind.)--The more the soil--the less gypsum it contains--”

“I can scarcely believe my eyes!” he cried, dropping the parchment; “it is the writing of my old master, Benignus Spiagudry!”

Then, examining the corpse afresh, he recognized the long lean hands, the scanty hair, and the whole build of the unfortunate man.

“They were not so much out of the way, after all,” thought he, shaking his head, “who charged him with sacrilege and necromancy. The Devil carried him off to drown him in Lake Sparbo. What poor fools we mortals be! Who would ever have thought that Dr. Spiagudry, after taking so many people to board in his hostelry of the dead, would come here at last from afar to be cared for himself!”

The little Lapp philosopher lifted the body, to remove it to one of his six granite beds, when he found that something heavy was fastened about the unhappy Spiagudry’s neck by a leather cord.

“Probably the stone with which the Devil pitched him into the lake,” he muttered.

He was mistaken; it was a small iron box, upon which, on examining it closely, after wiping it carefully, he discovered a large shield-shaped padlock.

“Of course there is some deviltry in this box,” said he; “the man was a sacrilegious sorcerer. I will hand it over to the bishop; it may contain an evil spirit.”

Then, taking it from the corpse, which he placed in the inner room, he hurried away to the bishop’s palace, muttering a prayer as he went, as a charm against the dreadful box under his arm.

XLVII.

Is it a man or an infernal spirit that speaks thus? What mischievous spirit torments thee thus? Show me the relentless foe who inhabits thy heart.--MATURIN.

Hans of Iceland and Schumacker were in the same cell in the Schleswig tower. The acquitted ex-chancellor paced slowly to and fro, his eyes heavy with bitter tears; the condemned brigand laughed at his chains, though surrounded by guards.

The two prisoners studied each other long and silently; it seemed as if both felt themselves and mutually recognized each other as enemies of mankind.

“Who are you?” at length asked the ex-chancellor.

“I will tell you my name,” replied the bandit, “to make you shun me. I am Hans of Iceland.”

Schumacker advanced toward him.

“Take my hand,” said he.

“Do you wish me to devour it?”

“Hans of Iceland,” rejoined Schumacker, “I like you because you hate mankind.”

“And for that reason I hate you.”

“Hark ye, I hate men, as you do, because they have returned me evil for good.”

“You do not hate them as I do; I hate them because they have returned me good for evil.”

Schumacker shuddered at the monster’s expression. In vain he conquered his natural disposition; he could not sympathize with this fiend.

“Yes,” he exclaimed, “I abhor men because they are false, ungrateful, cruel. I owe to them all the misery of my life.”

“So much the better! I owe them all the pleasure of mine.”

“What pleasure?”

“The pleasure of feeling their quivering flesh throb beneath my teeth, their hot blood moisten my parched throat; the rapture of crushing living beings against sharp rocks, and hearing the shriek of my victims mingle with the sound of their breaking limbs. These are the pleasures which I owe to men.”

Schumacker shrank in horror from the monster whom he had approached with something like pride in his resemblance to him. Pierced with shame, he hid his wrinkled face in his hands; for his eyes were full of tears of anger, not against mankind, but against himself. His great and noble heart began to revolt at the hatred he had so long cherished, when he saw it reflected in Hans of Iceland’s heart as in a fearful mirror.

“Well,” said the monster, with a sneer,--“well, enemy of man, dare you boast your likeness to me?”

The old man shuddered. “Oh, God! Rather than hate mankind as you do, let me love them.”

Guards came to remove the monster to a more secure cell. Schumacker was left alone in his dungeon to dream; but he was no longer the enemy of mankind.

XLVIII.

Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked, Preserve me from the violent man; Who have purposed to thrust aside my step. The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords; They have spread a net by the wayside; They have set gins for me. _Psalms_ cxl. 4.

The fatal hour had come; the sun showed but half his disk above the horizon. The guards were doubled throughout Munkholm castle; before each door paced fierce, silent sentinels. The noises of the town seemed louder and more confused than usual as they ascended to the dark towers of the fortress, itself a prey to strange excitement. The mournful sound of muffled drums was heard in every courtyard; now and again cannon growled; the heavy bell in the donjon tolled slowly, with sullen, measured strokes; and from every direction boats loaded with people hastened toward the fearful rock.

A scaffold hung with black, around which an impatient mob swarmed in ever-increasing numbers, rose from the castle parade-ground in the centre of a hollow square of troops. Upon the scaffold a man clad in red serge walked up and down, now leaning upon the axe in his hand, and now fingering a billet and block upon the funeral platform. Close at hand a stake was prepared, before which several pitch torches burned. Between the scaffold and the stake was planted a post, from which hung the inscription: “ORDENER GULDENLEW, TRAITOR.” A black flag floated from the top of the Schleswig tower.

At this moment Ordener appeared before the judges, still assembled in the court-room. The bishop alone was absent; his office as counsel for the defence had ended.

The son of the viceroy was dressed in black, and wore upon his neck the collar of the Dannebrog. His face was pale but proud. He was alone; for he had been led forth to torture before Chaplain Athanasius Munder returned to his cell.

Ordener’s sacrifice was already inwardly accomplished. And yet Ethel’s husband still clung to life, and might perhaps have chosen another night than that of the tomb for his wedding night. He had prayed and dreamed many dreams in his dreary cell. Now he was beyond all prayers and all dreams. He was strong in the strength imparted by religion and by love.

The crowd, more deeply moved than the prisoner, eagerly gazed at him. His illustrious rank, his horrible fate, awakened universal envy and pity. Every spectator watched his punishment, without comprehending his crime. In every human heart lurks a strange feeling which urges its owner to behold the tortures of others as well as their pleasures. Men seek with awful avidity to read destruction upon the distorted features of one who is about to die, as if some revelation from heaven or from hell must appear at that awful moment in the poor wretch’s eyes; as if they would learn what sort of shadow is cast by the death angel’s wing as he hovers over a human head; as if they would search and know what is left to a man when hope is gone. That being, full of health and strength, moving, breathing, living, and which in another instant must cease to move, breathe, and live, surrounded by beings like himself, whom he never harmed, all of whom pity him, and none of whom can help him; that wretched being, dying, though not dead, bending alike beneath an earthly power and an invisible might; this life, which society could not give, but which it takes with all the pomp and ceremony of legal murder,--profoundly stir the popular imagination. Condemned, as all of us are, to death, with an indefinite reprieve, the unfortunate man who knows the exact hour when his reprieve expires is an object of strange and painful curiosity.

The reader may remember that before he mounted the scaffold, Ordener was to be taken before the court, there to be stripped of his titles and honors. Hardly had the stir excited in the assembly by his arrival given place to quiet, when the president ordered the book of heraldry of both kingdoms, and the statutes of the order of the Dannebrog, to be brought.

Then directing the prisoner to kneel upon one knee, he commanded the spectators to pay respectful heed, opened the book of the knights of the Dannebrog, and began to read in a loud, stern voice: “We, Christian, by the grace and mercy of Almighty God, king of Denmark and Norway, of Goths and Vandals, Duke of Schleswig, Holstein, Stormaria, and Dytmarsen, Count of Oldenburg and Delmenhurst, do declare:--

“That having re-established, at the suggestion of the lord chancellor, Count Griffenfeld [the president passed over this name so rapidly that it was scarcely audible], the royal order of the Dannebrog, founded by our illustrious ancestor, Saint Waldemar,

“Whereas we hold that inasmuch as the said venerable order was created in memory of the flag Dannebrog sent down from heaven to our blessed kingdom,

“It would belie the divine origin of the order should any knight forfeit his honor, or break the holy laws of Church and State with impunity,

“We therefore decree, kneeling before God, that whosoever of the knights of the order shall deliver his soul to the demon by any felony or treason, after a public reprimand from the court, shall be forever degraded from his rank as a knight of this our royal order of the Dannebrog.”

The president closed the book. “Ordener Guldenlew, Baron Thorwick, Knight of the Dannebrog, you have been found guilty of high treason, for which crime your head shall be cut off, your body burned, and your ashes flung to the winds. Ordener Guldenlew, traitor, you have shown yourself unworthy to hold rank with the knights of the Dannebrog. I request you to humble yourself, for I am about to degrade you publicly in the name of the king.”

The president stretched his hand over the book of the

order and prepared to pronounce the fatal formula against Ordener, who remained calm and motionless, when a side door opened to the right of the bench.

An officer of the Church entered and announced his reverence, the bishop of Throndhjem. He entered hurriedly, accompanied by another ecclesiastic, on whose arm he leaned.

“Stop, Mr. President!” he exclaimed with a strength of which a man of his age seemed hardly capable. “Stop! Heaven be praised! I am in time.”

The audience listened with renewed interest, foreseeing some fresh development. The president turned angrily to the bishop: “Allow me to inform your reverence that your presence here is wholly unnecessary. The court is about to degrade from his rank the prisoner, who will suffer the penalty of his crime directly.”

“Forbear,” said the bishop, “to lay hands on one who is pure in the sight of God. The prisoner is innocent.”

The cry of astonishment which burst from the spectators was only matched by the cry of terror uttered by the president and private secretary.

“Yes, tremble, judges!” resumed the bishop, before the president could recover his usual presence of mind; “tremble! for you are about to shed innocent blood.”