The Breaking of the Storm Volume Iii Part 30

If not strength and courage to live, then at least to die!

If she could die for him! could say to him with her dying lips: "See, death is bliss and joy to me, if I can hope that from this hour you will despise life, and because you despise it, will live a n.o.ble and beautiful life, like one who lives only that he may die n.o.bly and gloriously!"

But to his weak soul even this would be no spur, no check, only one more dark shadow amongst all the dark shadows that had fallen upon his path; and upon that gloomy path he would wander feebly on, inactive, inglorious, to an early and an inglorious grave! Thus she lay, sunk in the depth of her grief, heedless of the howling of the storm, which perpetually shook the house from roof to cellar; deaf to the noisy uproar of the drunken guests just under her room, hardly raising her head as her landlady now came in. The landlady came to ask her ladys.h.i.+p--as the gentlefolks must mean to spend the night here now--how she would like to have the beds arranged in the next room; but at the strange expression of the beautiful pale face, which raised itself from the sofa and looked at her so oddly, the question died away on the tip of her tongue, and she only succeeded in bringing out her second question: whether she should make a cup of tea for her ladys.h.i.+p? Her ladys.h.i.+p did not seem to understand the question; at any rate she did not answer, and the landlady thought to herself, "She will ring if she wants anything," and went into the bedroom with the candle which she had in her hand, half closing the door--which always took several efforts to shut it--so as not to disturb her ladys.h.i.+p, and then took the candle to the windows, to see if they were properly fastened. One of them was not, the upper bolt had stuck fast, and as she pulled up the lower one, the wind blowing through the narrow opening put the candle out, which she had set upon the window-sill. "I can find my way, however," thought the landlady, and turned in the dim light towards the beds, but stopped as she came near the door, and heard the lady give a faint cry. "Good gracious!" thought the landlady, "it is almost worse with these fine people than it is with us." For the gentleman, who had come in again, had begun to speak at once, not loudly but evidently warmly. "What could be the matter between the two young people?"

thought the landlady, and glided on tiptoe to the door. But she could understand nothing, whether of the many words spoken by the gentleman, or the few interposed by the lady; and then it struck the landlady that it was not the gentleman's clear voice, and that they were neither of them speaking German; and she put her eye to the keyhole, and to her astonishment and terror saw an absolutely strange man standing by the lady in the next room, who as she looked let his brown cloak fall from his shoulders without noticing it, while he violently gesticulated with both arms, and talked faster, and louder and louder, in his incomprehensible jargon--like a madman, thought the terrified landlady.

"I will not turn back," cried Antonio, "after I have run almost all the way like a dog after his owner who has been carried away by robbers, and the rest of the way have been lying crouched in the straw in a cart like a beast led to slaughter. I will no longer be a dog, I will no longer suffer worse than a beast. I know all now--all--all! how he was faithless to you, the dishonourable coward, that he might go to another, and again from her to you, and lay at your door whimpering for mercy while they settled it for him--his mistress and that accursed Giraldi, whose neck I will wring when and wherever I meet him again, so surely as my name is Antonio Michele! I know all--all--all! And that you will give your fair self to him, as you have given him your soul already!"

The miserable man could not understand the half-scornful, half-melancholy smile which curled the beautiful girl's proud lips.

"Do not laugh!" he shrieked, "or I will kill you!" And then, as she half rose, not from fear, but to repel the maniac: "Forgive me! oh, forgive me! I kill you!--you who are my all, the light and joy of my life; for whom I would let myself be torn in pieces, limb from limb!

for whom I would give every drop of my heart's blood, if you would only allow me to kiss the hem of your garment, to kiss the ground upon which you have trod! How often--how often have I done it without your knowledge--in your studio, the spot where your fair foot has stood, the tool which your dear hand has touched! I ask for so little; I will wait for years--as I have waited for years--and will never weary of serving you, of wors.h.i.+pping you, like the blessed Madonna, till the day comes when you will listen to my prayers!"

He had fallen on his knees in the place where he stood, his wild eyes, his quivering hands raised to her.

"Rise!" said she. "You do not know what you say, nor to whom you say it. I can give you nothing; I have nothing to give. I am so poor, so poor--far poorer than you!"

She was wandering about the little room and wringing her hands, pa.s.sing by the kneeling man, who, as her dress touched his glowing face, sprang to his feet as though moved by an electric shock.

"I am not poor," he cried; "I am the son of a prince; and more than a prince--I am Michael Angelo; and a greater than Michael Angelo! I see them coming in moving crowds, singing hymns in praise of the immortal Antonio; bearing flowers, twining garlands, to adorn and encircle the wonderful creations of the divine Antonio! Do you hear? do you hear!

There! there!"

From the broad village street there rose up the confused, tumultuous cry of the people, who had been alarmed at the news of the advancing flood, and were hastening to the scene of the catastrophe; from the tower of the neighbouring church there rang out, broken by the storm, the clang of the bells, now threateningly near, and again in trembling distance.

"Do you hear!" cried the maniac. "Do you hear?"

He stood with outstretched arm, smiling; his eyes, lighted with joy and triumph, fixed upon Ferdinanda, who gazed in terror at him.

Suddenly the smile changed to a fearful grimace, his eyes glared with deadly hatred, his outstretched arm was withdrawn with a shudder, his hand convulsively clutched at his breast, as immediately under the window a voice rose, clear and commanding, above the raging of the storm and the shouts of the crowd:

"A rope, a strong rope--the longest that you have got! And thinner cord--as much as possible. There are some people there already! I shall be there before you!"

A hasty step, taking three or four stairs at once, came up the creaking staircase. The maniac laughed wildly.

The landlady, too, had heard the clear voice below, and the hasty step on the stairs. There would be an accident, for sure, if the gentleman came in now, when that strange, disagreeable man was with the lady! She burst into the room at the moment when the gentleman opened the door on the other side.

Uttering a howl of rage, and brandis.h.i.+ng high his stiletto, Antonio rushed upon him. But Ferdinanda had thrown herself between them before Ottomar could cross the threshold, s.h.i.+elding her lover with outspread arms, offering her own bosom to the fatal thrust, and falling without a groan into Ottomar's arms, as the murderer fled past them in cowardly, mad flight at sight of the crime that he had never intended, and that had broken through the night of his insanity as if by a flash of lightning--fled down the stairs, through the crowd below, who had been summoned by the clang of the alarm-bell and the cries of terror of the hasty pa.s.sers-by from the tap-room and all parts of the house, and who now drew back in terror from the stranger with the wild black hair, brandis.h.i.+ng a knife in his hand--out into the village street, overthrowing all that came in his way in the confused, shrieking, shouting crowd without--out into the howling darkness! And "Murder, murder!" "Stop him!" "Stop the murderer!" rang through the house.

CHAPTER XIII.

"Heavens and earth!" cried the Neuenfahr man, "I must go in here! One moment, sir!" and he ran into the house.

The gentleman who was just getting into the carriage drew back, and stamped his foot furiously.

"Is h.e.l.l itself let loose against me?" he cried, and gnashed his teeth.

As he had made his way cautiously through the darkness a few minutes before to the inn, of which he had taken note as he drove through the village in the afternoon, and where he hoped to find some vehicle to convey him farther, he had met the Neuenfahr driver, who was just harnessing his horses again, for which the landlord, with the best of goodwill, could find no stable-room, at any rate not before a part of the outhouse was cleared out.

"The horses will catch cold," the man had said to himself; "the best thing after all will be to drive back."

He was still busying himself in the dark over the harness, which had got twisted, when some one who suddenly appeared beside him asked:

"Will you give me a lift, my man?"

"Where to, sir?"

"To Neuenfahr."

"What will you pay, sir?"

"Anything you like."

"Get in, sir!" said the Neuenfahr man, delighted to find that instead of taking his carriage back this long distance empty, he had found a pa.s.senger who would pay him anything he liked to ask. He would not take him for nothing, but he must see about this alarm of murder.

"He will not come back in a hurry," muttered the gentleman; "and I shall run the risk of meeting him again; it is almost a miracle that he did not see me."

He had been standing close to Ottomar as the latter gave his orders to the people, and, to give more authority to his words, mentioned his name, and that it was his aunt and sister who were in danger, and that there was not a moment to lose or it would be too late.

The stranger moved farther into the shadow of the barn before which the carriage stood. He would make sure of not being seen in any case. But just then the Neuenfahr man came back in a state of great excitement.

The young lady had been stabbed and killed, whom he had brought here with the young gentleman! Heavens and earth, if he had known that it was Herr von Werben! and that the beautiful young lady, his wife, would so soon be murdered by a foreign vagabond--the same no doubt whom he had seen hanging about in Neuenfahr, when he drew up at the inn by the bridge--a young fellow with black hair and black eyes; and he had noticed the black hair again as the fellow rushed out of the house--plainly--he could swear to it. The fellow might attack them on the road; he was not afraid for himself--he did not fear the devil; but if the gentleman preferred to remain here--

In his excitement the brandy he had been drinking before had got into the man's head; he would have willingly remained; he was evidently a person of importance here, and the gentleman had quite staggered back when he spoke of the foreign vagabond, and had muttered something in his black beard which he did not understand.

"Shall we remain here, sir?"

"No, no, no! Drive on! I will give you double what you ask!"

So saying he sprang into the carnage. The Neuenfahr man had meant to ask five thalers, now he would not do it under ten, and so he should get twenty.

For that one might leave even a murder behind one!

"Make way there! Make way!" cried the Neuenfahr man with an oath, cracking his whip loudly over the heads of the dark figures who were running towards him down the village street, and more than one of whom he nearly ran over.

For twenty thalers it was worth while running over somebody--in the dark too!

In the darkness and the storm! It really was worse than before, though then it had been bad enough, and he had said a dozen times, "We had better stop at Faschwitz, sir;" and then as they came to Grausewitz, "We had better stop at Grausewitz, sir;" but the young gentleman--Herr von Werben--had always called out, "Drive on, drive on! Farther, farther!" If he had only known that half an hour later the lady would have been dead as a door-nail! and he had taken the horse-cloths too to cover her feet, here in this very place!

The fact seemed so important to the Neuenfahr man that he stopped to show the gentleman the very spot, and to breathe his horses a little too, for they could hardly make way at all against the storm. To the right of the road was a steep clay bank some five or six feet high, at whose edge stood two or three willows wildly tossed about by the wind; to the left was level marshy ground reaching down to the sea, which must be about a mile or so off, although they could hear it roaring as if it were close by the roadside.

"On, on!" cried the gentleman.

"Are you in such a hurry, too?" said the Neuenfahr man, and grumbled something about commercial travellers, who were not officers so far as he knew, and need not snap up an old soldier of the reserve in that way; but he whipped his horses up again, when suddenly the gentleman, who had been standing up behind him in the carriage, clutched his shoulder with his right hand, and pointing with the other to the left, cried: "There, that way!"

"Where to?" said the driver.