What the Swallow Sang Part 9

"Are you crazy?"

"I will cross it faster than you can cross the hill. Can I go?"

Before them the road ran in a tolerably steep ascent over a hill, an outlying spur of the Schanzenberge on the left, which stretched some distance into the moor. On the right of this hill a broad tract of marshy land extended across the moor to the forest, where it found an outlet in the stream whose course to the sea Gotthold had followed that afternoon. The summit of the hill had undoubtedly sunk into the marsh years before, for the long mound of earth divided it like a wall, which at the time it was engulfed had doubtless been very steep, but in the course of years had been so much washed away by the trickling of water down the hillside that, it now formed an irregular slope, along whose upper edge ran the old carriage road, while farther up the acclivity large stones made the way impa.s.sable for vehicles, although hors.e.m.e.n and pedestrians might wind through. The condition of affairs had probably not been so bad when Bogislaf and Adolf Wenhof were obliged to drive their horses along here at full gallop, for now no man in his senses would pa.s.s the spot in a carriage except at a walk, and Jochen Prebrow was perfectly right when he said that it would have been easy for him--or any one else--to execute Curt's wild order, and hurl the young pair down the slope into the bog on their wedding day.

The riders had stopped their horses; Carl Brandow looked up the hill and over the marsh.

"You are crazy," he said again.

"Crazy or not," exclaimed Hinrich Scheel impatiently, "it must be done.

I went to Salchow this morning to hear what Mr. Thompson had to say.

The fellow always knows everything, and declares that they have enclosed a piece of marshy ground in the race-course for Brownlock's special benefit, because they think he is too heavy to cross it, and you'll be obliged to take a wide sweep around. Well, sir, if you make the victory so easy for Bessy, Count Grieben and the other gentlemen will be very well satisfied, and I can be satisfied too."

"You would be no better, suited than I," said Brandow, and then muttered between his teeth: "everything is all of a piece now."

"Shall I?" said Hinrich Scheel, who probably perceived his master's irresolution.

"For aught I care."

A ray of joy flitted over Hinrich's ugly face. He turned the horse, which had long been champing his bit impatiently, and galloped a hundred paces to the left, to the edge of the marsh, then paused and shouted:

"Ready?"

"Yes!"

"Now!"

Brownlock sprang forward with a mighty leap, and then flew over the marshy ground. Again and again his light hoofs broke through the thin covering of turf, so that the water dashed high into the air, but his wild speed did not lessen, on the contrary it seemed to increase, as if the n.o.ble animal knew a bottomless gulf was yawning under him, and that he was running for his own life and that of his daring rider. And now the quaking soil grew visibly firmer. The deed scarcely believed possible had been accomplished, Brownlock had crossed the marsh, and would cross any other. "There is no doubt now," muttered Brandow, "I can accept every bet; and am I to let Pluggen have the animal for the paltry sum of five thousand thalers! I should be a fool! Besides, he probably was not in earnest; but the money must be forthcoming, even if I should have to steal or commit a murder for it. Holloa!"

He had not turned his eyes from Brownlock, as he rode across the hill at a gallop without noticing where he was going, until his chestnut, accustomed to pa.s.s this place at a walk, recoiled from the edge so suddenly that the gravel and pebbles rolled down the slope.

"Holloa!" cried Brandow again, as he soothed the frightened animal, "I came very near committing the murder on myself."

He rode down the other side of the hill more cautiously, and then dashed up to Hinrich, who was galloping up and down the edge of the bog, trying to soothe the snorting racer.

"What do you say to that, sir?"

"That you are a capital fellow; and now, since you have had your own way, where do you think I shall find him?"

"On the giant's grave," said Hinrich; "I went up there after he had gone away, and found a thing like a box. There was a little key sticking in it, and it held his painting tools, as I saw. The box had been put carefully in the shade; but about six o'clock the sunlight will fall where the shadow rested this morning, and I think he will be on the spot at that time."

"And why didn't you tell me so at once?"

"You may be satisfied that I didn't tell you," answered Hinrich, tenderly patting Brownlock's slender neck. "You wouldn't have known that you are, I don't know how many thousand thalers richer than you supposed."

"It is six o'clock," said Brandow, looking at his watch.

"Then ride on and find him. I must take Brownlock home. Shall I tell Frau Brandow that we shall have a visitor this evening?"

"I don't know that yet myself."

"She would be so delighted."

"Be off, and hold your tongue."

A repulsive grin overspread Hinrich's grotesque face, and he cast a piercing glance at his master, but made no reply, turned Brownlock, and rode slowly away.

"I might just as well tell him everything," said Carl Brandow to himself, as he turned his horse's head and rode over the moor towards the forest. "I believe the d.a.m.ned fellow sees through me as if I were gla.s.s. No matter; everybody must have some one on whom he can depend, and certainly I could not have done without him this time. I've no desire to invite the stupid fellow, but it is one chance more, and I should be a fool to hesitate long in my present situation."

Carl Brandow dropped the reins on his horse's neck as he rode slowly up the rough forest path at a walk, and drew from his pocket a letter which he had found on his return home, half an hour before:

"Dear Sir:--I hasten to inform you that, as I expected and told you, it was unanimously decided by the convent yesterday not to give an extension of credit, upon any account, but on the contrary to hold you to the promise given, both verbally and in writing, and require the ten thousand on the day it becomes due. I am very sorry to be obliged to write this to you, after what you told me in confidence; but I firmly believe that--with your excitable nature--you have considered your situation more desperate than it really is. In any case, I think it is better for you to know where you stand, and be able to use the week that still remains to discover new resources, if the old ones are really so entirely exhausted.

"I intend to pay you a short visit on the 15th, as I must go to several estates at that time, and can, if agreeable to you, take the money back with me and save you the trouble of a journey here. Perhaps my wife will accompany me. She is very anxious to see Dollan, of whose romantic situation I have spoken so enthusiastically, and also renew her acquaintance with her old friends--Frau Wollnow in Prora and your wife--after an absence of so many years. Do you require any stronger proof of my conviction that you can separate the messenger from his message, and that both to you and your lovely wife, I am as ever, Your sincere friend, Bernhard Sellien."

"P. S. I have just learned something that greatly interests me, and may perhaps interest you also. Gotthold Weber, the distinguished artist whose acquaintance I made two years ago in Italy, and with whom you, as you afterwards informed me, have been intimate ever since your school days, pa.s.sed through Sundin to-day on his way to Prora, where he intends to spend some time. He will undoubtedly seek you out, or perhaps you will seek him. He belongs to the cla.s.s of people whom we are glad to find, even if we are obliged to go out of our way to do so."

Carl Brandow laughed scornfully as he put the letter back into his pocket and took up the reins again.

"I believe the devil has his finger in the pie. Ever since I have known that the man will come here, I have been pursued by the thought that he, and only he, can save me. Why? Probably because only a fool would take the trouble, and he is the greatest one I ever knew. And while I drove by under his very nose this morning, everybody rushes forward to put me on the track he so carefully conceals. It was plain that the man Jochen dared not tell where he was, either this morning or just now, but he belongs to the cla.s.s of people for whom we are willing to go out of our way. And what a charming surprise it will be for her, if I can bring him to her."

Again the rider laughed, even more bitterly than before, then stopped suddenly, gnawing his under lip with his teeth as he struck with his riding-whip at the overhanging boughs.

"How pale she grew when the parson blundered out the news. Of course she did not wish it to be noticed, of course. But unluckily we observe everything in a person with whom we have enjoyed the pleasure of daily intercourse for nine or ten years! How she looked when I took my departure so soon after, as if she knew the cause, and how silent she was on the way, although I exerted all my powers of pleasing. She no longer believes in my amiability, nor I either; but I have so often vexed her about the man that I might surely make him afford her pleasure for once. And if, as is very probable, the silly swain is playing at hide and seek more on her account than mine--why it will be all the easier to lead him by the nose, and the affair will be all the more amusing. But, to be sure, I must catch him first. Well, we shall see directly."

Carl Brandow swung himself from the saddle, fastened his horse's bridle to a tree, and began to ascend the narrow foot-path through the wood to the giant's grave.

CHAPTER IX.

Gotthold had already been working for half an hour with the zeal of an artist who has enthusiastically seized upon his subject, and must take advantage of the present hour, which will not return. Though sky, earth, and sea should adorn themselves at to-morrow's sunset with the same brilliant hues, though the hill should cast the same deep shadows upon the valley and ravines--he would not stand upon the same spot again to replace what had been forgotten, and complete what had been begun.

So he sat upon one of the lower stones of the giant's grave, drinking in, with an artist's glowing eyes, the beauty of the scene and hour, and with an artist's busy hand creating an image of this beauty. The colors on the palette seemed to mingle of their own accord, and every stroke of the brush upon the little square of canvas brought the image nearer its original with a speed and certainty which astonished the artist himself. Never before had any work progressed so rapidly, never had design and execution met so lovingly, never had the enthusiastic feeling of power made him so happy.

"Is it possible the dream that here alone I can reach the standard I am destined to attain may be something more than a dream?" he said to himself, "and is the hidden wisdom of the ancient myth of Antaeus to be proved again in me? But to be sure we are all sons of earth; it is not our mother's fault if we struggle toward the distant suns, in whose strange glow our waxen wings quickly melt. I was such an Icarus yonder." "Yes, yes," he exclaimed aloud, "Rome, Naples, Syracuse, you Paradises of artists, what is this poor slip of earth in comparison with you! And yet to me it is more, so much more, it is my home."

"To which an old friend bids you heartily welcome," said a clear voice behind him.

Gotthold started and turned.

"Carl Brandow!"

There he stood, his slight, elastic figure resting against the very block upon which the serpent had lain that morning; and his round, hard eyes, whose piercing gaze was fixed upon him, reminded Gotthold of the staring eyes of the reptile.