The Breaking of the Storm Volume Iii Part 26

The spirited horse, already startled by the storm, and seeing its companion disappearing in the distance, reared high, and as its rider forced it down, darted forward like an arrow. The Count could not perhaps at this moment have held it in, but he did not wish to do so; he dug in his spurs, and in a few seconds--his hesitation had been only momentary--had overtaken Carla.

"Carla, Carla!"

"Go! You do not love me!"

He spurred forward so that he could catch the bridle of her horse, then turned and so stopped them both.

"You shall not escape me so!"

She looked at him almost with hatred.

"But, Carla, this is madness!"

"I am mad," murmured she.

"And I am--madly in love with you. But what matter?"

His beautiful white teeth glittered as, putting his arm round her, he laughingly exclaimed: "Will you come with me now?"

"With you? Take me! Take me! I am yours, yours!"

"You foolish darling!"

He pressed kiss after kiss upon her burning lips, then gave back the bridle into her hand, and both turning their horses suddenly round, they rode on side by side in the teeth of the gale--as his horse was the stronger and faster he could do as he pleased--along the gradually sinking ground beside the railway embankment down to Ahlbeck.

They did not speak another word; there was no need.

In Ahlbeck, not far from the beach, stood an inn, which for some years had provided decent entertainment for the summer guests who could not find accommodation at the more important places along the coast, or who were attracted by the quietness and cheapness of the place; and during the last autumn, by the suggestion and greatly a.s.sisted by the money of the Count, the little inn had been turned into a fas.h.i.+onable hotel. It was kept by a young widow--a protegee of the Count's. In the upper story of the house were two rooms, often used by the Count as night quarters when he had stayed out shooting too late to get back to Golm or Golmberg. If the lady and gentleman chose to have these rooms no one would trouble themselves about it, least of all the landlady, who would have quite enough to do with the other guests, the two engineers who were superintending the Railway and Harbour works, the s.h.i.+p's captains and revenue officers, and any one else who might be crowding the public rooms as usual on such a day. And if, after waiting in vain for the groom, he appeared at last, having missed them as they returned home, he might just ride quietly back to Castle Warnow.

Immediately before reaching Ahlbeck the road, which till then had led them over the open ground, suddenly narrowed between two dunes, advanced posts of the chain of sand-hills along the sh.o.r.e, which formed a sort of doorway, through which, on fine days, might be seen a wonderful view of the village running down to the beach; and beyond the village the beach itself, always covered with boats; and beyond again, the boundless ocean. They had gained this spot by the utmost, exertion of their horses, when the panting brutes suddenly fell back, and they themselves, accomplished riders as both were, were nearly flung from their saddles. The force of the storm had closed the s.p.a.ce between the two hills as if with iron gates.

"Let us turn back!" said Carla.

The Count did not answer at once; he saw the details of what, to the short-sighted Carla, was only confused mist; the upper part of the village lying nearest to them was half destroyed by the storm, so that hardly a house retained its whole roof, while in the lower part only here and there a house, amongst others the inn and the two great sheds for smoking the herrings, appeared out of a cloud, which at first the Count could not make out at all. It could not possibly be the foam and froth of the storm-beaten surf? If this were the surf, where were the houses which had stood there in a long line close to the beach? Where were the hundred and fifty Ahlbeck fis.h.i.+ng smacks which had come in yesterday on account of the storm? Where the six boats laden with cut stone from Sundin which had anch.o.r.ed yesterday evening at the breakwater? Where the two breakwaters themselves, which had been begun last autumn and during the mild, calm winter and the unusually low tides had been almost finished? Where, above all, the million of thalers which had been also almost entirely spent in the building?

Could that infernal Superintendent of Pilots, who was always coming across his path, have been right here after all? That fellow who, at this moment, perhaps, was embracing Elsa as his betrothed, whilst he----

"Over it if we cannot get through it!" cried he, spurring his horse up the hill to the right, while between his teeth he muttered: "I will get something out of the business at any rate."

Carla had followed him.

From above, however, the view was not much more rea.s.suring; it was indeed so fearful that the Count himself, as they forced their horses step by step through the broken bushes, doubted whether they had not better turn back. And what seemed to him even more ominous than the raging sea, was the crowd of people which his keen eyes could distinguish swarming down below, and as he now perceived hastening in small parties up the ridge of Wissow Head, at the foot of which stood a part of the village. They might be the people who lived nearest to the beach, the navvies, perhaps, who had run up their temporary huts on the level sand. What did it matter to him? Let them help themselves as best they might. The tide had certainly not reached the inn, and that was the princ.i.p.al point. He had carried off Carla from her sister-in-law's guardians.h.i.+p at the castle, under the pretext of showing her the full effect of the storm; it would certainly be near enough to them from the inn windows. And should he carry out his purpose amidst all this tumult? It was madness. The maddest act of his whole life, perhaps, but it should be done!

They were riding again now on the narrow sandy road between the first outlying houses. The Count spurred forward. He was glad that the houses hid the view below; he wanted to draw Carla on, who had again several times anxiously inquired whether they had not better turn back. The rest might be managed; it might not perhaps be so bad as it had seemed to him from above; at any rate Carla had hardly seen anything, and was only alarmed at the roar of the surf, which had been bad enough certainly from the heights.

But what was that roar compared to the thunder which met them now, as they turned from the narrow way between the first low huts into the broad village street, at whose lower end stood the inn, and which led directly down to the sea. It seemed to the Count strangely short; and indeed the sea, which used to leave several hundred yards of smooth sand uncovered, now flung its waves far up the street. And that street was crowded with crying, shrieking, screaming women and children, and shouting and halloing men, flinging out their goods pell-mell from the houses, rus.h.i.+ng back to fetch more, and strewing everything wildly over the ground before the gale brought their houses down about their ears.

"Make way there, make way!" called the Count imperiously.

He did not feel particularly comfortable in this crowd, in which more than one person glared angrily at him, and hardly moved out of the way of the horses. It sounded like a curse, too, which the woman called after him, whom by accident--why did she not get out of the way?--he had knocked down, and who now in the door of her cottage shook both her fists at him, and then pointing her finger at him called to her neighbours; but the raging storm swallowed up the single human voice.

The Count could not even understand half of what the young engineer called to him, who had suddenly--he could not see whence--rushed up to him, as he persistently pointed down below:

"Breakwater--tremendous breakers--boats wrecked--people furious--get back--happen----"

"What should happen to me?" screamed back the Count in answer.

"Mischief--the lady too--unpardonable of you--too late!"

The young man pointed no longer below, but in the direction from which they had come.

The Count, startled more by the look of terror in the young man's face than by the warning itself, turned in his saddle, and at the same moment set spurs to his horse. He had seen a crowd of men and women--foremost the one who had just threatened him--rus.h.i.+ng down the street, brandis.h.i.+ng sticks, cudgels, and knives.

His first thought had been to take refuge in the inn, which must afford him shelter till he could speak a few words to the people, perhaps from the window--fear had evidently driven them wild. And with this purpose, das.h.i.+ng on before Carla, he had almost gained the little open s.p.a.ce in front of the inn, when he suddenly discovered that he was only going from bad to worse.

In the middle of the square, lying on its side, the keel turned towards him, lay one of the Sundin boats, which some huge wave must have flung up here, and around the stranded vessel, with the surf at their feet, whose storm-beaten foam was blowing in clouds of spray over them, were dancing and raging--as only madmen or men who had drunk to madness could have raved--a crowd of navvies and sailors who had taken possession of all the provisions the inn could give them, before the approaching flood engulfed everything.

The idea flashed through the Count's head that it was his duty, if any man's, to interpose here, and at least to attempt by his authority to avert the terrible evils that must be brought upon the unhappy village by these madmen, but he had already repeatedly had the most violent scenes with these ruffians, who were always increasing their demands; he would be torn to pieces if the men who were now pursuing him, urged on by that miserable woman, should join these.

All this pa.s.sed like lightning through his bewildered brain, but he never thought of Carla for a moment; he was even astonished when, having turned aside from the main street, and das.h.i.+ng at a venture down a side lane to the left, he found himself galloping along the meadows behind the dunes, he suddenly saw Carla again at his side.

"That was done in the nick of time!" cried he; "those scoundrels would have murdered us."

Carla answered not a word. Notwithstanding her extremely short sight, she had been able to form a tolerably correct idea of the danger they had escaped; she knew from the gestures and shouts of the people she had dashed past that it was a matter of life and death to escape them, and she knew also that the man at whose side she now rode had deserted her at the critical moment, and that she had to thank only the speed of her horse and her own powers of riding for her life. Would Ottomar have dashed forward in such a way, careless whether she succeeded in following him or not; whether she escaped from the narrow lanes and little gardens, to do which she had at last been forced to leap a hedge, amidst the shower of stones and sticks which were hurled after her? "He is a coward," her heart whispered to her; "he only cares for himself; I should only have been his victim."

"This is a bad business," thought the Count. "She is affronted of course, though after all, anybody else would have done the same in my place.--You don't know how those fellows detest me!"

He spoke the last words aloud, by way of saying something at any rate.

Carla answered not a word.

"An infernal business," thought the Count, relapsing into silence.

So they galloped on, side by side, through the sand, which the unceasing rain had fortunately somewhat hardened, along the inner edge of the dunes, which were now the only barrier between them and the sea, which thundered and roared on the other side, often tossing up the broken edges of its waves high enough to shower down upon them in torrents, Fortunately the wooden bridge still stood over the brook which ran into the sea close by Ahlbeck, through a sharp cut in the dunes; the brook even had not overspread its banks so much here as above, where the lower ground offered no opposition to the water; but the Count thought with a shudder of what might happen when they got to the Politz farm, on the edge of the broad hollow which extended to the sea almost entirely unprotected by the dunes. Behind the farm, towards Golmberg, was a still broader and deeper hollow, but he did not trouble himself about that. If once they reached the farm, which itself stood on higher ground, they would find a road leading from it along the back of the hills straight to Warnow. The Count knew the ground well, he had ridden over it fifty times while hunting.

And now they came to the first hollow. On the right, where the hills opened out, was a wall of surf, whose crest threatened at any moment to topple over. More than one wave must have broken through already, which had left smaller and larger pools in the lowest parts of the ground; evidently not a moment was to be lost. But the Count saw that the pa.s.sage might be ventured, which was fortunate, as in any case it must be tried.

"Follow me boldly, Carla!" he cried, as he again rode forward.

Carla answered not a syllable.

"It is all over between us," said the Count to himself; "she will never forgive me as long as she lives."

They rode on quickly, and had already reached the middle of the hollow, when the Count saw to his horror that the wall of surf, which had stood in the opening of the dunes, was in movement and seemed to be advancing towards them. For one moment he thought it was a delusion of his excited imagination, but only for a moment.

"On! for heaven's sake, on!" he cried, urging his exhausted horse to its utmost speed with whip and spur. He did not look round, he dared not look behind him; he knew from the fearful roar that the wave had flung itself far inland--behind him!

The panting horse staggered up the slope--saved!

He had no need to pull his horse up; it stopped of itself. Carla stopped by his side. How had she got through? He could not tell, and took care not to ask.