Regina, or the Sins of the Fathers Part 12

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

She started.

"Nothing, _Herr_," she replied, guiltily lowering her eyes.

"Why did you smile?"

"Ah, _Herr_," she murmured, "I was so glad."

"Why?"

"Because I had got safely back here again."

What strange fascination had this spot of earth for the abandoned creature who had suffered on it nothing but shame and degradation and endless misery? He remembered to have heard of domestic cats who, when the house to which they belong is deserted by its inhabitants, prefer to starve beneath its mouldering roof than to take up their abode elsewhere. And if this cat-like propensity were incurable in her--what then? After all, perhaps it would be cruel at this moment to pa.s.s sentence of banishment upon her. She might as well stay till to-morrow morning, so long as she kept out of his way.

"Go," he had commanded, "and don't come near me and my visitors again."

And she had hung her head humbly, and vanished behind the rubbish heap, and there she cowered now, in terror of being discovered.

When Boleslav had finished his story, Engelbert exchanged significant glances with his friends, then said--

"We have brought the requisite tools with us. If you can supply us with the wood, we will knock you up a coffin in a very short time."

"Naturally it won't be a very grand one," remarked Peter Negenthin with a stony smile.

Engelbert looked at him reprovingly. A subdued growl pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth through the little party, which Boleslav, in his most light-hearted confidence in his friends' good will, did not hear.

"Do you remember," he exclaimed, "that coffin we made for the young Count Dohna in the dark? We took two hours over it, though we couldn't see an inch before our noses."

But his reminiscences met with no response.

"One of you hold the horses," said Engelbert, "and the rest of us will go and look for wood. All must be ready before nightfall."

Boleslav bethought him of the wine in the cellar, which the fire had spared, where also was the frugal larder, containing bread and salt meat, but not enough with which to entertain his friends.

"I have next to nothing to offer you to eat," he said, "but I wish you would at least refresh yourselves with a bottle of wine before setting to work."

The friends were silent, and their faces clouded.

"Never mind refreshment," said Engelbert, trying to a.s.sume a facetious tone. "Wine makes a man lazy, and we haven't a minute to spare."

He stooped to test some scorched rafters that lay about among the stable ruins.

"This will do," he said, "but we won't saw off the blackened part; that will serve us instead of paint."

And he walked on farther with Boleslav to look for more rafters.

Something white rose suddenly out of the earth in front of them, and disappeared in a twinkling behind a neighbouring wall.

Boleslav instinctively balled his fists, for he had recognised Regina.

"I ought to apologise," he said, "for not being able to send you a better messenger. I had no one else to send."

Engelbert was about to speak, but seemed to think better of it.

"You were obliged to supply her with clothes, I understand?"

"Yes," answered Engelbert, his natural loquacity getting the upper hand. "I found her lying on the doorstep with scarcely a rag to her back. She was dead beat. I got up in the night to see what the dogs were barking at."

"What? Was it in the night?"

"Two o'clock in the morning. Here is a sound rafter. We can use that.... She ran the twenty miles in seven hours. I should never have thought it possible; she lay like an otter that has been shot down--so straight and fair--and gasped for breath. Your sheet of paper she clung to with both hands. She tried to stand up, but fell backwards. Then I fetched her brandy, rubbed her temples, and gave her----"

One of his companions who were following behind, now came up, and gave him such a look of astonishment and reproach that he broke off in the middle of a sentence.

For the next few hours an industrious sawing and hammering proceeded from the Castle island, which sounds fell disagreeably on the ears of the fierce and much perturbed Schrandeners on the opposite bank of the river. It seemed to portend that their nicely-laid plans were at the last moment to be frustrated.

Old Hackelberg appeared in the street with his gun, which, as a rule, lay buried in a dung-heap, because he was afraid that it might be taken away from him, as had once happened when he amused himself by shooting bats in the market-place, declaring that they followed him in swarms wherever he went. With this famous gun he used in old days to go out poaching every night, but since his once unerring hand had become weak and tremulous from drink, he had been obliged to give up the trade.

Only when he had drunk even more than usual did the old sporting instinct rise strongly within him, and he would rush to the shed, unearth his gun, and bring down a swallow in full flight through the air.

Now he was on the war-path, and with the babbling rhetoric peculiar to him, shouted--

"Schrandeners, duty calls! Arm yourselves against the traitors. I am an unhappy father. Robbed of my child. I'll shoot him dead, the brute."

"But he _is_ dead," some one interposed.

"Is he? Well, it doesn't matter--the other must be shot--all must be shot down."

Meanwhile Felix Merckel was ramping about the parlour of the Black Eagle like a bull of Bashan. He remembered enough about the Heide youths to know that when once irritated or attacked they would go any length. The inevitable result of offering them opposition would be such bloodshed as the rioters outside had no conception of. And then--what then? Would not he as ringleader be the first object on which the wrath of the outraged law would expend itself?

On the other hand, did the swindler who had dared under a false name to obtain a lieutenancy and abuse the confidence of his comrades, thereby incurring the contempt and abhorrence of every honourable brother-in-arms--did he deserve to be allowed to score such a triumph?

While his son was debating thus, Herr Merckel, senior, was also troubled with anxiety from another cause. It struck him as a pity that such a quant.i.ty of n.o.ble enthusiasm should be seething about aimlessly in the open air, and determined to put an end to the nuisance.

He stepped into the porch, and addressed the rabble in his suavest, most paternal tones.

"I, as your local functionary, cannot bear to see you, my children, turning our public square into a bear-garden. Go under cover, and then you may make as much noise as you please."

Of course, "under cover" could only mean the parlour of the Black Eagle; and, five minutes later, the consumption of inspiriting stimulants left nothing to be desired.

Felix had bowed his curly head between his hands, and stared gloomily into his gla.s.s.

Surely no Prussian patriot who had ever worn a sword ought silently to look on at what was coming to pa.s.s this night? Rather die! Rather!----

He jumped up, and began to speak inspiringly to the crowd.

His speech was not without effect. One after the other stole out and returned with some sort of weapon, a flint-gun, a bent sabre, or a scythe.

"Calm, and patriotic, my children!" exclaimed old Merckel, grinning, and counting the empty tankards with his argus eye.