Part 40

Christian began to search everywhere for his manuscript. To write another would have required half an hour’s work, and the clock was striking seven. He rummaged in his box, which contained the whole of his little repertory. He upset and turned over everything; he was in a fever. The idea of not going to the new chateau at the appointed hour; of appearing afraid to encounter the baron’s hatred (for to this motive his absence might be attributed), was insupportable to him. He was seized with a sudden rage against his enemy, to which his love, perhaps, added intensity. He was burning to defy the Snow Man openly in Margaret’s presence, to show him that an actor was more courageous than many of the noble guests of his chateau.

Just then he looked at Nils; he was very quiet and serious, being busily occupied in making what he was pleased to call his little boats. Around him there was a pile of papers, which he was cutting up for the purpose. He would take a slip of paper, fold it, refold it, and, if the boat did not succeed according to his liking, tear it, rumple it up, and throw it to the floor.

“Ah, bad boy!” cried Christian, snatching from him a handful of torn fragments; “you are cutting up my manuscript into boats!”

Nils began to cry and scream, declaring that the papers were not Christian’s, and trying to fight with him to get them back.

Suddenly Christian, who was hastily unfolding the boats to try and collect the pages of his comedy, became serious, and remained motionless. These papers, in fact, were not his, the writing was not his; and yet his name, or rather one of his names, traced by an unknown hand, had, as it were, riveted his gaze. The first sentence he read aroused his curiosity to the utmost; and this sentence, written in Italian, was as follows: “_Christian del Lago is fifteen years old to-day._”

“Stay!” he said to the child, who kept on teasing, and demanding his paper, as he called it; “play with the marionettes, and leave me alone.”

Nils, seeing a handful of little men on the table, rushed up to them with delight, and found enough to do in looking at them and touching them, while Christian, taking the chair that the child had just left, and placing the candle by his side, began to decipher the papers before him, consisting, apparently, of a file of old letters. The writing was detestable, and the Italian, style and orthography, all of a piece, but every word which he read, or guessed, seemed to him more and more extraordinary, and caused him the liveliest amazement.

“Where did you get these papers?” he said to the child, while continuing to collect the torn and rumpled fragments.

“Ah, monsieur, how handsome you are with your great moustache!” cried Nils, gazing in ecstasy upon the marionette.

“Answer, will you?” cried Christian; “where did you find these papers? Do they belong to M. Goefle?”

“No, no,” replied Nils, at last, after making him repeat the question several times. “I did not take them from M. Goefle; he threw them away, and the papers he throws away are mine. They are for making boats; M. Goefle said so this morning.”

“You are telling a story! M. Goefle did not throw these papers away. These are letters; people do not throw letters away, they keep them, or they burn them. You took them out of the drawers of this table.”

“No.”

“From the room, then, where he sleeps?”

“No, no!”

“Tell the truth, at once!”

“No!”

“I will pull your ears.”

“No you won’t; I’ll run away.”

Christian stopped Nils, who tried to make his escape with the marionettes.

“If you tell me the truth,” he said, “I will give you a pretty little horse with a red and gold saddle-cloth.”

“Let me see it.”

“Now,” said Christian, handing him the plaything, which was one of his properties, “speak, brat!”

“Well,” said the child, “this is how it was: I went just now, to light M. Goefle to M. Stenson’s house--you know who I mean, the old man, who, they say, cannot hear anything, who lives in the other court.”

“Yes, I know; go on quickly, and tell the truth, or I will take back my horse.”

“Well, I stayed there to wait for M. Goefle; I was in M. Stenson’s room, where there was a fire, and M. Goefle was in the office next to it, talking loud to M. Stenson.”

“What were they saying?”

“I don’t know, I did not listen; I was playing making a fire in the chimney. And then, all at once, some men came into the office, and they said: ‘Monsieur Stenson, his lordship has been waiting for you for an hour. Why do you not come? You must come at once!’ And then they quarrelled about it, and M. Goefle said: ‘M. Stenson cannot go; he has no time.’ And M. Stenson said: ‘I must go--I am not afraid of anything--I will go at once.’ And then M. Goefle said: ‘I will go with you.’ Then I went into the office because I was afraid they were going to hurt M. Goefle, and there I saw three--or six men, dressed in very nice livery.”

“Three--or six?”

“Or four--I could not count; I was afraid. But M. Goefle cried out, ‘Go away with you!’ and he pushed me on to the staircase, and threw this bundle of papers after me without any one seeing him. Perhaps he did not want them to know that he gave it to me so, and then I picked it up, and ran away, and that is all!”

“And you did not tell me, idiot! What if M. Goefle--”

Christian paused, knowing that it was useless to complain, and, gathering up the papers as quickly as possible, he shut them up in his box, took the key, and hastened out. The events thickening around him were becoming more and more incomprehensible, and he felt very anxious about the lawyer’s situation.

Nils had already burst into a roar at being left alone with the marionettes, which frightened him a little, fascinating as they were, when M. Goefle met Christian in the passage, and brought him back into the bear-room. He was pale and agitated.

“Yes, yes,” he said to Christian, who assailed him with questions, “fasten the doors. Something serious is going on here. Where is Nils? Ah, there you are, little one! Where did you put the bundle of papers?”

“He was cutting them up into boats,” said Christian; “here they are, all torn, but nothing is wanting. I picked up every scrap. But what are these strange letters about me, Monsieur Goefle?”

“They are about you, are they? Are you sure of it!”

“Perfectly sure.”

“Have you read them?”

“I have not had time. Master Nils made it a difficult task, and then the writing is villanous; but I am going to read them. M. Goefle, the secret of my life is there.”

“In truth? Yes, I suspected, I was sure, Christian, that you were the person they treated of! But I gave my word to Stenson, on receiving this deposit, not to read the letters before his death or the baron’s.”

“But I, for my part, have made no promise, M. Goefle. Chance has placed these papers in my hand: I have saved them from destruction; they are mine.”

“Indeed?” said M. Goefle smiling. “Well, now that I think about it, I had not finished my oath, after all, when we were interrupted--No, no, I swore solemnly yesterday, in regard to another deposit; but, as to this one, I remember now that I had not completed my oath. Besides, Stenson was about to confide in me fully. I had begun writing my questions, so as not to have to raise my voice to the poor deaf old man. I was speaking of you, of my suspicions, and I felt that there were spies about us. You must have seen some of my writing in pencil, on the loose sheets?”

“Yes, I did, and thought that must have been the way of it. Read the letters, then.”

“Letters, are they letters? Give them to me--But no, we ought rather to hide them. We are surrounded, watched, Christian. At this very moment I am sure they are rummaging and robbing Stenson’s office. They have carried off Ulphilas. Who knows whether they will not attack us?”

“Attack us? But, in fact, it is quite possible! Puffo tried just now to take me by surprise, in the German fashion. He raised his hand upon me, and he had gold in his pockets. I was obliged to kick the clown out of doors.”

“And you were wrong. You should have tied him, and shut him up here. He is now perhaps with the baron’s cutthroats. Come, Christian, we must find a hiding-place for these papers before attending to anything else!”

“Pshaw! A hiding-place is never of any use.”

“Yes, indeed!”

“Very well then, you find one, Monsieur Goefle, while I make ready my weapons; that is the surest way. Where are these cutthroats?”

“Who knows? I saw Johan and his band go out with Stenson, and I locked the door of the court after them. But they may come from the other side, for the lake is a solid plain now; they may have come already. Do you hear anything?”

“Nothing. And why, in Heaven’s name, should they come and attack us here? Say, Monsieur Goefle, let us reason a little about our situation, and not be alarmed without any cause.”

“You cannot reason about it, Christian, for you have no knowledge to go upon! As for me, I know--or I think I know--that the baron has fully resolved to discover who you are, and, when he is satisfied, who can say what course he will pursue? Possibly they will keep us prisoners here, until he arrives at some decision. They have just arrested Stenson--yes, arrested, that is the word. At first, that scoundrel of a Johan came in and invited him politely enough; but when the terrified old man hesitated, and when I sought to detain him, the other servants showed themselves, and if he had resisted, would have carried him off by force. It was my intention to follow him. I am satisfied that they would not dare injure him before me, and I proposed to go with him into the baron’s presence, and, if necessary, to stir up the latter’s guests against him. In fact I actually did start in advance of them all, but, under cover of the fog, returned, for, on the other hand, to leave you alone--I could not make up my mind what to do! If the baron wants to extort some secret from Stenson, he will begin by wheedling him, and we shall have time enough to go to his rescue--that thought decided me. And now, Christian, let us go--Yet stay!--It is absolutely necessary that we should solve this mystery--that we should know the real facts of the case before acting! Stand sentinel, then, guard the door, they will not dare break it open--the devil! I am at home here; you are right. They will not venture to drag me, as they did that poor old overseer, before their master. What excuse could they offer?”

“None, most surely; so be tranquil, M. Goefle. This great door is solid, that of the bed-room is no less so, and I can answer for the door of the secret chamber; I will guard them. Read, and read quickly. We, at least, have always an excuse for going to the new chateau, since they have not countermanded the comedy of marionettes.”

“Yes, yes, certainly, we must know where we stand, and _who we are_!” cried M. Goefle, exalted by the spirit of investigation, which is the soul, the inspiration of the lawyer’s profession. “I shall get through with it sooner than you would, Christian, for arranging these fragments, and making out these hieroglyphs, is in the regular course of my business. Five minutes’ patience, I ask no more than that. As for you, Master Nils, talk low with your marionettes.”

As he spoke, M. Goefle, with remarkable promptness, began arranging the letters according to their dates, reading them as he went on, and completing the sense, where it was wanting, with a veritable eagle’s glance. Every trace, every line of this mysterious package of papers he examined carefully, sometimes questioning Christian, and sometimes himself, as if to recall certain facts.

“‘The young man is very happy in his home with the Goffredis--he is much beloved.’ That refers to you, I should rather think. And yet, in certain places, he says: ‘My nephew,’ and it is still you he is speaking of. ‘My nephew has gone into the country, to Lake Perugia, with the Goffredis. The young man is fifteen years old to-day--He is tall and strong, and resembles his father--’ Oh, yes, certainly, Christian, you resemble him.”

“My father? Who, then, is my father?” cried Christian. “Do you know?”

“Stay,” said M. Goefle, “handing him a medallion, which he drew from his pocket, with much emotion. Look at that. Stenson just confided it to me. It is a portrait closely resembling the original--authentic!--Might it not have been taken for you?”

“Heavens!” said Christian, gazing at the beautiful miniature almost with a feeling of terror; “I don’t know, I am sure! It is a young man, richly dressed; is it not Baron Olaus in his youth?”

“No, no, God be praised, it is not he! But do not say a word, Christian, I must read on; I am beginning to understand! In another letter, you are designated as ‘your nephew,’ and no longer ‘my nephew’; and in still another, ‘your nephew.’ It is quite evident that it is a precaution to turn aside suspicions in case the letters are intercepted, for you are not related either to the man who wrote these letters, or to Stenson, to whom they are addressed.”

“Stenson! Is it to him, then, that some one has sent this accurate account of my health, my progress, and my travels? for I saw enough to understand that this had been done, in turning over the leaves. Here is a letter in which they speak of my duel; see, it is dated at Rome, one thousand seven hundred--”

“Wait!--oh, yes, I see it. There is a letter every year. ‘He has had the misfortune to kill Marco Melfi, who was’--then follow reflections. ‘The cardinal has no wish to be revenged. I hope to discover what has become of our poor child.’ Ah, here is a letter from Paris: ‘It is impossible to find him. I might deceive you, but I do not wish to. I am afraid that he may have been arrested in Italy. While I am looking for him here, he perhaps is a prisoner in the castle of Saint Angelo!’ Stay, Christian!--don’t be impatient. Here is a letter which must be more recent. It is dated the sixth of last August, Troppau, Moravia: ‘I was really upon the right track this time--He took the name of Dulac in Paris, as I supposed, but he started on a journey, and, most unhappily, has perished quite recently. I have just been dining at an inn with a young man named Guido Massarelli, whom I knew in Rome, and who was well acquainted with him, and he informed me that he had been assassinated in the forest of’--illegible! ‘I shall give up, therefore, any further search for him, and as my little commercial transactions require me to go to Italy, I shall start to-morrow before day-break. Do not send me any more money to help me on in my travels. You are not rich, for you have always been honest. That is the case, too, with your servant and friend, Ma--Mancini--Manucci.’”

“I know no such person!” said Christian.

“Manasses!” cried M. Goefle; “the person whom M. Guido mentioned yesterday, the little Jew who took such an inexplicable interest in you.”

“That was not his name,” rejoined Christian.

“No matter, it was the same person, I am sure of it,” said M. Goefle. “His name was Taddeo Manasses. Stenson told me so yesterday. This is the only time, in the course of the correspondence, that he signed either of his names in full, and it was perhaps the last time that the poor wretch ever dipped his pen into ink; for, according to Massarelli, he is dead, and I will stake my life upon it that Massarelli assassinated him. Stay, don’t speak, Christian! On informing Stenson of his death, Massarelli claimed to be in possession of a terrible secret, which he wanted to sell him, and threatened, if he would not come to terms, to carry it to the baron--the proof, no doubt. Was this poor Jew addicted to drinking?”

“No, not that I know of.”

“Well, then, Guido must have assassinated him, for the sake of the little money he had in his possession. He found, no doubt, some letter from Stenson on his person, and learning from that of his whereabouts, came here at once to turn the adventure to account--Besides, this Massarelli may have given the Jew some narcotic when they dined together at the inn. But no, since it was after that that the Jew wrote--but in the evening, or the next day.”

“Alas! what does it matter, Monsieur Goefle? It is quite plain that Massarelli discovered the secret, whatever it may be, and has revealed it to the baron; but, as for me, I have not discovered anything as yet about myself, except that M. Stenson is interested in me, and that Manasses, or Taddeo, was his confidant, and has faithfully transmitted to him news about me, and finally, that my existence is very disagreeable to Baron Olaus. Who am I then, in the name of Heaven? Do not make me languish any longer, Monsieur Goefle.”

“Ah, patience, patience, my friend!” replied the lawyer, as he sought a hiding-place for his precious letters; “I cannot tell you yet. I have been certain of the truth for the last twenty-four hours, as far as instinct and reason can make me so; but I must have proofs, and these are not enough. I must get hold of them--where? how? Let me reflect--if I can! for there is enough here to drive one crazy. Papers to hide--Stenson in danger--and we too, perhaps! However--oh, yes! this is the point, Christian: I want to be certain that it is you they have designs against, for then I shall know positively who you are.”

“It is easy to find out whether the baron’s intentions are what you suppose. I will go over to the chateau to give my performance as if nothing were the matter, and if I am attacked, as I am so well armed to-day, I will try and make my adversaries confess.”

“I really believe,” said M. Goefle, who had finally succeeded in hiding the letters, “that it would be preferable to run the risk of a fight on the open lake than to wait here until they run us down in this gloomy old den. It is already nine o’clock, and we were to have been at the chateau at eight. Yet they have not sent to know why we are so late. That is singular! Stay, Christian! Is your gun loaded? Take it; for my part, I will take my sword. I am neither a Hercules nor a bully; but I understood fencing in my youth, like all students, and if we are waylaid and attacked by ruffians, I don’t intend to let them slaughter me like a calf. Promise me, swear to me, to be prudent. That is all I ask.”

“I give you my word that I will,” replied Christian. “Come!”

“But that troublesome brat, who has fallen asleep playing, what shall we do with him?”

“Put him to bed, Monsieur Goefle; I don’t suppose they have any designs on him.”

“But those cutthroats will kill a child to stop it from crying, and that young one will yell with all his might; I can answer for that, if he wakes up and sees strange people about him.”

“Well, the devil take him! I suppose we shall have to carry him with us. Nothing would be easier, if we don’t meet badly disposed people; but, if there is any fighting to be done, he will be very much in our way, and may be injured himself.”

“You are right, Christian; it would be more sensible to leave him in his bed. If there are spies around, they will soon know that we have gone out, and they will have no reason for coming in here. Keep your eye on the door. This time I shall not be very long in putting Master Nils to bed; he can sleep in his clothes.”

XVII.

M. GOEFLE had scarcely had time to lay his valet-de-chambre on his bed, when he called Christian.

“Listen!” he said to him; “it is through this room that they are coming. They are knocking at the door.”

“Who goes there?” said Christian, loading his gun and taking his stand before the door of the guard-room, which opened, the reader will remember, on the gallery that surrounded the court.

“Open, open--it is we!” replied a rough voice, in Dalecarlian.

“Who?” said M. Goefle.

There was no reply, and Christian added:

“Are you afraid to give your names?”

“Is it you, Monsieur Waldo?” said a sweet and trembling voice in reply.

“Margaret!” cried Christian, and throwing open the door, he perceived the young countess, and another young lady whom he had seen at the ball, but whose name he had forgotten, escorted by the faithful Peterson.

“Where are they?” asked Margaret, falling breathless, and almost fainting, upon a chair.

“Who? Of whom are you speaking?” he asked, terrified at her paleness and emotion.

“Major Larrson, the lieutenant, and the other officers,” replied the other young girl, who was quite as much out of breath, and not less agitated than Margaret. “Have they not come?”

“No--were they to have come here?”

“They started from the chateau more than two hours ago.”

“And--you are afraid some accident has happened to them?”

“Yes,” replied Martina Akerstrom, for it was she; “we are afraid--I don’t know what we were afraid of for them, since they started altogether; but--”

“But for whom then were you afraid?” said M. Goefle.

“For you, M. Goefle, for you!” replied Margaret, eagerly. “We have discovered that you are in great danger here. Did you not suspect it? Yes, yes, for I see that you are armed. Have they come? Have you been attacked?”

“Not yet,” replied M. Goefle. “Is it certain, then, that we are to be attacked?”

“Oh! we are only too sure of it!”

“What! they threaten me also--me?” replied M. Goefle, with the most perfect simplicity and good faith. “Speak, dear young lady--are you quite sure? This is really very strange!”

“I am not sure as to the latter point,” said Margaret, whose paleness was suddenly dissipated by a vivid blush, but who avoided meeting Christian’s eyes.

“Then,” said M. Goefle, without seeming to observe the young girl’s embarrassment, “it is he--he alone that they have designs against?”

And he pointed to Christian, whom Margaret persisted in refusing to see or to name, which did not prevent her from replying:

“Yes, yes, it is he, Monsieur Goefle; they want to kill him.”

“And the major and his friends know this also? How is it that they have not come?”

“They are perfectly sure of it,” said Martina, “and if they have not arrived, it is because they have had the same luck that we had; they have got lost in the fog, which is constantly increasing.”

“You have been lost in the fog?” said Christian, deeply moved by Margaret’s generous solicitude.

“Oh, only for a little while,” she answered. “Peterson belongs to the country, and he soon found the road; but the gentlemen must have mistaken one shore of the lake for the other.”

“Place a light in the window of the bear-room,” said M. Goefle; “it will serve to guide them.”

“No, no,” said Peterson, “they will not see it any more than they see the stars.”

“No matter, try it, at any rate,” said Martina.

“No, my dear friend,” replied Margaret; “the assassins are probably lost also, since they have not come. We will not help them to find their way before the officers--”

“We shall be very glad to welcome the officers, most surely,” rejoined M. Goefle; “but at present there are three of us, and all well armed; I know Peterson, he is a strong ally--and then, my dear young ladies, is it not possible that there is some error here? Have you not mistaken mere inquisitive rogues for assassins? Where did you see them?”

“Tell them, Martina, tell them what we heard!” said Margaret.