Told by the Death's Head Part 24

It silenced her for a few moments, and I fled down the street with strides that soon took me a considerable distance from the scene of the tragedy.

In my terror I imagined that a mult.i.tude was pursuing me, crying: "Catch him!" "Hold him!" "There goes the a.s.sa.s.sin!"

I fled through unfamiliar streets and by-ways, across bridges, to the outskirts of the city. There I saw, in an underground den, lights and moving forms; and heard dance-music and riotous shouting. I tore open the entrance-door, dashed down the steps, and fell into the arms of an overgrown rascal, who was clad in the uniform of the Munster guards.

The fellow locked his arms about me, and said laughingly:

"You are welcome, comrade! You have come to the proper refuge. You must have been close pressed, I declare! You are puffing like a porpoise! But, have no further fear--you are safe now. Come, sit and have something to drink."

He pressed a goblet of wine into my hand, thrust his arm through mine, and drank _smollis_ with me, by exchanging his bear-skin hat for my cloth barret-cap.

"There, my son, now you are one of us. You have drank our wine, and are now under the command of our worthy captain."

I had stumbled upon a body of recruits for a partisan corps. The company was made up of desperate characters, who were glad enough of this chance to escape prison, or the gallows.

As for myself, I was forced to put a good face on a bad business! Only twelve hours before, I had been a distinguished cavalier, was called Junker Hermann; and had a promissory note for two-thousand thalers in my pocket. Now, I had neither station nor money, and as I had good cause for not wanting to keep the name by which I was known in Hamburg, I gave the recruiting sergeant my own true patronymic.

After I had been properly registered, I asked the sergeant:

"What is the name of our captain?"

"Meyer."

"There are a good many Meyers in the world. Is the captain related to the Berg-Meyers?"

"You've guessed it the first time, my son! The captain's father lives in the Hamberger Berg, and is a well-known receiver of stolen goods.

Rupert, the captain's brother, is a pander."

I dare say many a man in my place would have been frightened at this discovery; but _I_ congratulated myself! If I were pursued--I argued--the officers of justice would seek for me everywhere else but in the company commanded by the brother of the murdered man; and if Captain Meyer ever discovered that it was I who had relieved him of the brother with whom he would have been obliged to share his inheritance, _he_ certainly would not reproach me for it!

This, honored and high-born gentlemen, added Hugo in conclusion, is the true history of the homicide for which I am arraigned. I have not added to, or taken from it; but have related the events exactly as they occurred.

"_Qui bene distinguit, bene docet!_" observed the prince thoughtfully.

"We call it murder, when the person committing the deed strikes what he knows to be a human being. But, if the man encounters a ferocious monster that he believes to be a moo-calf, and kills it as such, and it turns out to be a human being, 'murder' is certainly not the term to apply to the deed. Moreover, the person who is so devoid of sense and dignity, as to conceal his human form in the hide of an irrational beast, is himself responsible for whatever may happen to him!

Therefore, this indictment may also be stricken from the register."

"Perhaps, your highness," observed the chair with a covert sneer, "would like to suggest a reward for the prisoner, for delivering the city of Hamburg from the terrorism of the moo-calf?"

The prince's reply made it obvious that he had not noticed the chair's sarcasm:

"I-think-not," he returned slowly. "As the prisoner is likely to be condemned to death for one or more of the other crimes, it would be useless to bestow on him a certainly deserved reward."

A further hearing was postponed until the next morning.

PART VI.

CHAPTER I.

THE FORGERY.--ONE CIPHER.

I pa.s.sed an entire year under the command of Captain Meyer, during which time I may say I committed no more--nor less, evil than my comrades. I do not hold it necessary to mention the seven mortal sins, of which all soldiers are guilty when in the enemy's country--those sins become virtues then.

Were I to enumerate the pillaging, homicides, conflagrations, in which I took active part, it would be rather a _captatis benevolentiae_ than an enforced confession. This much, however, I will confess: The regions visited by Captain Meyer's corps never expressed a desire for our return. A whole year of such a life was quite enough for me; and, as I had enlisted for only a twelve-month, at the expiration of that time I asked for my discharge.

The captain expressed regret at my wanting to leave him; but made no objection when I gave him my reason for quitting the service; I was home-sick, and wanted to see my poor old mother and father. The old folks lived in Andernach, near which we were quartered. I had not seen them for full ten years; and I decided that I would spend the rest of my days with them.

The gold and silver I had once counted on taking to them, to solace their old age, was not now in my possession: Satan, through whose aid I had obtained it, had taken it away from me again.

But, if I could not give my parents curse-laden wealth, I was able to offer them two strong and willing arms which, after so many years of sinful struggling, longed for the honest toil that would call down a blessing from heaven.

I would adopt my father's trade; become a pious believer, and try to be of some use to my fellow-creatures.

Before I could do this, however, I should be obliged to commit a forgery--as the world would call it.

The burgomaster of Andernach, and the manager of the tannery in that place, were so very scrupulous, that they wanted to know all about my antecedents, before they would consent to receive me as a citizen, and journeyman.

Not for the world would I have forged an entire testimonial for honesty, and respectability; but I did not think, that to add a single cipher to the honorable discharge I had received from Captain Meyer was anything out of the way. A tiny, innocent, worth-nothing, insignificant cipher, that could harm no one, take nothing from anyone! And I did not place it in front of the figure 1 either--thus giving it the precedence over the more valuable numeral. If the honorable, and high-born gentlemen will but look at it from a different point of view from that usually taken, I feel confident they will not think my transgression so heinous after all. Heaven knows!

_Ten_ years' service under Captain Meyer contained sufficient torture to purge the most hardened criminal, and make him fit for citizens.h.i.+p in any respectable community!

This, your highness, and honorable gentlemen, is the forgery to which I plead guilty.

"Humph!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed his highness. "It is not worth mentioning! Who would take the trouble to notice such a trifle? Proceed to the indictment next on the list--"

"On which there is still another crime less!" grumbled the chair impatiently.

CHAPTER II.

THE LEGACY.

Discharged soldiers travel on foot. It is the more expeditious way if the roads are bad, for a wagon is heavier than a man. The man has only two feet to draw from the mud; while the wagon has four wheels.

Besides to travel on foot is cheaper.

When I arrived in Andernach I had, remaining from the money I had saved during my year's campaigning, only one thaler; but my heart was so light, the lightness of my pocket did not trouble me.

How glad I was when I caught sight of the familiar towers of the palace, and the ruins on the Templeberg. How often, when a lad, I had clambered among those ruins, in search of hawks' nests, and Roman coins. If I had only broken my neck on one of those innocent quests.

Everything was so familiar; the large mill-stone factory; the cranes on the quay; the rafts on the river; the long avenues--yes, even the old receivers of customs at the Coblentz gate! I recognized the old fellows at once; but they did not remember me. I might stray through the entire town without hearing a single voice call to me: "Welcome, welcome! Why that is Hugo!" I was so changed in appearance!

But I remembered everybody and everything! I did not need to ask my way through the narrow streets to the tanneries on the banks of the river. I remembered the names of all the families that lived in those narrow streets.