The ancient sea-tower was situated at some distance from the castle, in
the most deserted quarter of the town, next the sea shore. It was a
round watch-tower, built of freestone, with loopholes in the wall, and
a sentry-walk above, between the rampart-like battlements. Below were
two vaulted stone chambers, of which one was used as a guard-room in
war time, and the other as a depository for the bodies of the drowned,
until their burial. The tower was now chiefly used for hanging out
lights at night, in stormy and bad weather, to guide sailors into the
entrance of the bay.
In the guard-room Drost Aage found the wounded sentinel at the point of
death.
A monk, who had been sent for from the monastery, was engaged in
administering to him the last sacrament. On a table lay a paper, on
which the pious Franciscan had just written the last testament of the
dying man. An oil lamp hung upon the dirty wall, and lit up the stone
vault and the solemn scene of death. With a sympathizing look at the
dying man-at-arms Aage quitted the guard-room, almost unnoticed, and
opened the door to what was called "the corpse chamber," from which,
according to tradition, there had been, in Esbern Snare's time, a
descent to a subterranean passage, and where Aage conjectured he should
discover the supposed secret entrance to the castle.
Into this murky chamber, which had the reputation of being haunted, the
captive murderer had been brought. Through the aid of the surgeon he
had been restored to consciousness, and had his wound dressed; but he
talked and raved wildly. He had been bound to the bench appropriated to
the bodies of the drowned, which served him as a couch, and all had
deserted him with horror and aversion.
When Drost Aage entered this chamber, the light of a yellow horn
lantern, which hung from the roof, fell on the murderer's swollen blue
visage with the hare-lip scar and ugly projecting teeth: he laughed
horribly, and ground his teeth like a chained wild beast. "Comest
thou hither, thou excommunicated hound!" he muttered, thrusting
forth his tongue from his foaming jaws; "then thou art also dead and
damned--that's some small comfort, though among devils--Now are the
fishes gnawing at my fist, at the bottom of the sea, while I lie a
corpse here in hell's antechamber--that was thy doing, thou pale ghost,
with St. George's sword! I feared thou hadst come off free, for thy
stupid piety's sake, and thy hound-like faithfulness."
"Why so?" asked Aage, strangely affected by having half entered into
the dark imaginings of the madman--"How couldst thou think an
excommunicated man could 'scape damnation?"
"Seest thou, comrade?" whispered the bound robber, gazing wildly around
him, "the same holy man who gave thee over to the Evil One, gave me a
passport to heaven's kingdom. It lies there in my jerkin; Satan's
barber cut it off from me just now; and the letter was a lie,--like all
virtue and piety in the world. If that holy man could give me a false
warrant for salvation, he might also have made a false reckoning with
thy soul. It pleaseth me, however, to see he is apt in some things," he
continued, with a horrible laugh. "I ever thought so: those black
fellows can curse far better than they can bless. But who did thy
business for thee? The hand that should have done it is gone to the
Devil--Ha! there bites a hungry fish at my fingers' ends."
"From whom was the private letter? and to whom shouldst thou have
brought it?" asked Aage, suddenly in a stern voice, and in a tone of
overawing authority: "confess the truth, and it shall fare better with
thee, wretch, than thou hast deserved!"
"What! though I should break the most solemn oath I ever swore?"
muttered the robber. "No, stern sir! let the Devil take his own, and
Ole Ark's sinful soul too, if the worst come to the worst! I have sent
many an accursed heretic and excommunicated man to hell, and truly also
many an honest fellow to heaven; but if I am now myself about to go to
the Devil, it shall be as a right-believing Christian; and none shall
say of me I broke my sworn oath, even to the living Satan."
"Tell me the way thou shouldst have gone, is it here?" continued Aage,
looking around the large murky stone chamber.
"The way to my master's den?" muttered the robber with a grin--"Wouldst
ferret _that_ out, comrade? Take care thou dost not burn thyself in
it!"
"It is here, then," said Aage to himself, looking around him, with
still greater attention--"And here is the key; is it not so?" So
saying, he produced the old rusty key which had been found on the
robber's person together with the private letter.
"Right, comrade, the key to hell!" returned the raving murderer, with a
horrid laugh.
Aage now examined the whole vault, but discovered no trace of any
cellar or descent. The floor was paved with large flags. He stamped on
several places, and at last perceived a hollow sound, and the clang of
metal under the stone floor. He took the lantern from the iron hook in
the arch of the roof, and placed it on the floor. On doing so he
discovered a large loose stone, which might be raised, and his
conjecture was confirmed. The loose stone concealed a fast-locked iron
trap-door, which, however, seemed too small to admit of the descent of
any person. He tried the key, and it fitted. He opened the trap-door;
the raw damp air of the vault rose up to him from a pitch-dark abyss,
into which a ladder led down to an uncertain depth.
While this examination was carrying on the insane murderer lay on the
corpse bench, and grinned with horrible contortions. Aage stood
thoughtfully by the opening, pondering over his daring enterprise. It
now struck him, for the first time, that, if undisguised, he must
undoubtedly be recognised and his plan frustrated. His eye fell on the
blood-stained jerkin, which had been stript from off the robber's
person, in order to bind him, "Well," he said, "we exchange garments;
there, thou hast my mantle and hat; I take thy jerkin and cap."
"Good exchange enough," muttered Ole Ark; "if my luck goes with my
jerkin, he goeth down to fame and honour. Ha! loose my body, Satan, and
let me follow him into the pit."
It was not without repugnance that Aage clad himself in the soiled,
stained dress of the vagabond, which, however, answered his purpose,
and rendered him almost incognisable. He then took the lamp in his
hand, and prepared to descend through the narrow aperture in the floor;
but the scorn and defiance of the bound robber now changed into a
piteous lament.
"Mercy! mercy!" he cried, "take not the last glimpse of light from me!
Now comes the Devil himself to rend me to pieces--Ha! let me not lie a
corpse here in the dark--Mercy! mercy!" he howled, and pulled and tore
at the cords which bound him.
"Pray to thy God and Judge for mercy," said Aage; "I cannot help thee."
He then squeezed himself through the narrow opening, with the lantern
in his hand, and pulled the trap-door after him, that he might not hear
the howls of the madman; but was nearly falling down head foremost from
the ladder, on hearing, to his dismay, that the trap-door, which had a
spring-lock, fell and closed over his head. He felt now as though he
were entombed alive. He had forgotten to take the key with him; and the
faint howling of the robber soon seemed lost in triumphant laughter
above the grave which had closed over him.
Aage grew dizzy, but recovered himself, and clung fast to the slippery
steps of the ladder, while he continued to descend. At last he stood at
the bottom: the descent was steep and deep, but it led to a narrow
vaulted passage, which was so low as hardly to admit of his walking
upright. The air was foul and suffocating, and he often trod on
sprawling toads and other reptiles. He held up the lantern before him,
but beheld nothing save the long narrow passage, to which he could
discern no end; its direction, however, convinced him that it must
undoubtedly lead to the castle. He went forward with hasty steps, and
looked anxiously at the light in the lamp, which gleamed fainter and
fainter. The air seemed not to contain sufficient nourishment for life
and flame. He had hardly proceeded more than a hundred paces ere what
he feared took place--the light went out in the lantern, and he stood
in the dark. He felt a degree of alarm and a want of power and courage,
which was quite foreign to his nature; at the same time he heard a
hollow clang far behind, as if the iron trap-door had been again opened
and clapped to. He involuntarily quickened his steps, but slipped every
moment on slimy reptiles, and was often forced to pause in order to
take breath, while the air he inhaled seemed to lame every limb and to
contract his lungs. He was nearly sinking down in a state of
insensibility; but he now thought he heard a sound as of stealthy steps
behind him, and his increased apprehension inspired him with renewed
strength. "Is any one there?" he shouted, and turned round; but no one
answered, and there was suddenly a deathlike stillness again.
It was so dark that he could not see his own hand before his eyes. In
order not to awaken suspicion by his bold enterprise he had taken off
his sword in the corpse-chamber, and was entirely defenceless. In his
childhood, Aage had not been wholly free from the dread of supernatural
beings; and, according to the creed of the age, the idea of the
influence of a mighty world of spirits on human life was closely
connected with religious belief. Aage nowise doubted the possibility of
the appearance of evil as well as of good spirits; but this idea never
disquieted him in open day, when he knew he was on a lawful errand, and
had his sword with its cross-hilt at his side. "Is it honourable and
chivalrous to steal along thus?" he said to himself. "Why took I not my
good sword with me? It was hard, though, to take the light from him
above there--he lies now in the pains of hell on yonder bench, and
curses me;--or hath he got loose, and is he lurking after me in the
dark?" He now thought he heard again distinctly, at every stride he
took, the same sound, as of stealthy footsteps behind him; but each
time he turned round all was still as before. This consciousness of the
presence of an unknown being in the dark passage put him into a state
of fearful apprehension, and recalled those images of horror to his
imagination, which he felt himself least able to combat. "Is he now
dead above there?--is it his maniac spirit which persecutes thee?" he
whispered to himself; and the form of the frantic murderer appeared to
his imagination far more terrific than when he beheld it actually
stretched on the corpse-bench; "or is it thou, old Palle!" he
exclaimed, almost with an outcry of terror. The scene of the murder in
Finnerup barn, which had haunted him in his childhood, and the image of
the aged and insane regicide he had himself slain on the body of the
murdered king, were again vividly present to his imagination. His hair
stood on end; it seemed to him as if he was now actually about to fight
with demons and evil spirits in the dark pit of the grave,--a fancy
which had often disquieted him in dreams, and which lately had been the
dominant plague of his fevered imagination. At last his terror
increased to such a degree that he could no longer control it; he
turned suddenly round, and rushed with all his might with clenched
hands towards the place where he again thought he distinguished the
stealthy footsteps. He then distinctly heard a clanking sword strike
against the wall close beside his ear. "Ha! a human being after all!
Wretched murderer! is it thou?" he shouted, quite recovering his
courage at the discovery of a real and bodily pursuer, and sprang
forward towards the unseen deadly foe, while he struck aside the sword,
which seemed to be wielded by a left and powerless arm. The sword flew
clanging forward in the dark passage; but at the same moment Aage felt
his neck clutched almost to suffocation by a pair of convulsively
strained arms, dripping wet.
"Ha! ha! have I pounced on thee at last, hell-hound?" suddenly roared a
wild rough voice in his ear, and Aage recognised the tones of the
wounded robber. "I have long enough lain a corpse--now thou mayst take
my place, comrade!" This terrific voice presently rose into the howl of
a wild beast, and Aage felt the madman's tusks in his forehead; he
struck desperately around him, and strove with all his might to free
himself from the suffocating grasp of the monster, but in vain; and he
was long compelled to combat and wrestle with him ere he succeeded in
throwing him to the ground, and was even then still forced to struggle
with the robber, whose howls were growing weaker and weaker, without,
however, being able to free his neck from his convulsive grasp. At last
the clutching arms loosened from round his neck, and his frantic
adversary lay silent and apparently dead, or in a swoon, under his
knee.
"The Lord have mercy on his sinful soul," sighed Aage, rising half
breathless. His opponent now made a sudden movement as if to rise, but
fell back, with a rattling in his throat; and Aage perceived, for the
first time, that he was in all probability wading in the blood of the
wounded murderer. He hastened on with rapid strides. Once or twice he
stopped out of breath, and fancied he again heard the murderer stealing
after him. At last he hit against something hard, and discovered by
feeling that it was a large door of metal. He shook it with all his
might, but it appeared to be locked on the other side, and immoveable.
He thundered at it with his iron-shod heels, and each stroke rung
hollow through the vault. After the lapse of some time a little shutter
opened in the door, and the light of a dark lantern, and a swarthy
warrior-like visage, appeared. "Who is there? and from whom?" asked the
man-at-arms.
"No one, from no one," answered Aage, suddenly calling to mind the
mysterious expression in the private letter.
"Right! thou knowest the watchword," was the answer; "and one
only?--without arms?"
"As thou seest--but open quick!--there is no time to lose."
"Come, give time! The guard must first know of it." The shutter closed
again, and Aage heard the sound of a horn, which was answered at some
distance: soon after the iron door opened, and a strong-built
steel-clad warrior stepped out and advanced towards him into the
passage, with a light in the one hand and a drawn sword in the other.
He eyed the disguised Drost from head to foot, by the light of the
lantern, and started back a couple of paces. "Faugh! how thou look'st,
thou bloodhound!" he said, with disgust. "'Tis hard for an honest
fellow to let such guests in, when the king himself must stand
without."
"I have had a hard joust on the road, brave countryman." said Aage;
"but haste thee!"
"Come, come; give time, thou scoundrel! The bandage over thy eyes
first."
"What! bandage! and foul words to me!"
"Of course, loggerhead! Thou mightest be a spy and traitor, as thou art
a bloodhound and accursed robber; thou lookest fit for all such trades.
The bandage over the eyes instantly, thou hound! or I kick thee back
into thy fox-hole."
It was with difficulty that Aage subdued his ire, and recollected that
he was not Drost here, nor able to justify himself; he bore this rough
usage in silence, allowed his eyes to be bandaged, and was thus led
through the iron gate. He heard it bolted and barred after him. Soon
afterwards he heard the sound of chains and pullies, as if a drawbridge
was being lowered, and he perceived he was led upon a swinging bridge.
"Go straight forward, scoundrel! or thou fallest into the moat,"
muttered his companion close behind him. A cold shudder came over him;
but he was silent, and went straight onward.
"Ay, truly thou hast had better luck than I wished thee," it was
muttered behind him; "but thou hast another bridge to cross; that is
ten times worse; here thou art quit of _me_."
Aage heard his warlike companion re-cross the bridge, which was
immediately afterwards raised. He conjectured that he was within the
outermost rampart of the castle, towards the north-west, which lay
between the sea-tower and the circular wall, for he had paid close
attention to the direction in which he had proceeded. He had now two
new companions, who were as little sparing as the former in
contemptuous expressions respecting his cut-throat appearance and
supposed marauding trade. Aage suffered himself to be led onward by
them without answering a word to their threats and scoffs, which
secretly rejoiced him, as a token of their dispositions and honourable
feelings. At last a horn was again sounded; it was answered as before
at some distance. A drawbridge was again lowered, and Aage perceived he
was directly under the castle wall; for he heard a noise above his head
like the moving of balista and other warlike machines. He felt an
unfriendly poke in the back, and stood as before on a rocking-bridge.
"Straight on, fellow, or thou fallest into the moat!" said a warning
voice behind him. "Goest thou a hair's breadth aside thou art a dead
man!" He commended his soul to God, and went on. His guides allowed him
to proceed alone for some time, and appeared to rejoice over his deadly
peril. Meanwhile, as he perceived the rocking under his feet had
ceased, he knew they had passed over the inner castle moat, and were
within the circular wall. At last he was led up a staircase; but the
bandage was not yet removed from his eyes. It was not till he had been
led in many circuitous directions, as if through a labyrinth of
passages and stairs, that he was freed from the bandage over his eyes,
and found himself in an apartment of the castle which was not unknown
to him, and where he was ordered to await the commandant.
It was still night. One of the men-at-arms who had last followed him
remained standing at the door with a lantern and a drawn sword, and
apparently watching him with fear and abhorrence.
"Who dost thou take me for?" asked Aage.
"For one of the junker's secret emissaries," was the answer. "Surely,
good tidings thou bringest not, since thou comest pale and bloody from
the secret passage. Hark! now they are taking the burning stones from
the furnace. Kallundborg town will presently be in flames."
"The Lord forbid!" cried Aage: "call the commandant instantly! I have
strict prohibition from the junker."
"Thou lookest not as if thou hadst," said the man, starting.--"I will
run then. Thou wilt do no mischief meanwhile?" The man hastily
departed, and took the lantern with him. Aage looked out at the window,
and saw with alarm that burning stones were carried on gridirons across
the yard to the balista on the walls.
"Stop, fellows!" said a rough voice in the castle yard. "There is a
protest from the junker: not a shot must be fired as yet."
"A noble fellow at heart, after all!" said Aage to himself, believing
he had heard the commandant's voice. The door opened soon afterwards; a
tall warrior, with a stern grave countenance, and armed from head to
foot, entered the apartment with a light in his hand. When he beheld
Aage's blood-stained face and figure he retreated a step, and placed
the light on the table, while he hastily laid his hand on his large
battle sword. "What fellow art thou?" he asked, in a stern and rough
voice. "Doth the junker send pale corpses to plague me? Answer, fellow?
Who art thou? Tell me thy watchwords, or I cut thee down on the spot!"
"No one, from no one," answered Aage; and the commandant took his hand
from the hilt of his sword.
"Speak, thou messenger of ill! If thou bringest me a prohibition from
the junker, it is, of course, against mercy and delay? Is the town to
burn? Is the Franciscan monastery first to be fired? There sleeps the
king to-night."
"The town is to be spared," answered Aage. "The castle is to be opened
to the king at sunrise--the papers are to be given up, and the door of
the pit nailed fast."
"Dost thou rave, fellow?" cried the commandant, in amazement. "Darest
_thou_ speak what _I_ hardly dare think? Would the junker recall by thy
mouth that which he commanded me with his own, on pain of death? Who
then is to be punished for all that hath here been done, and stand in
the gap between us and the king's anger?"
"You should fly the king's as well as the junker's wrath, and carry
your secret and your knowledge of a weighty transaction with you into
exile."
"And stand branded a perjurer and traitor before all the world? No,
fellow! were that even the junker's command, I obey it not. What I have
sworn I must keep; but the responsibility is the junker's. I have sold
him my life--but my honour, as a warrior, is my own. Show me black and
white for what thou sayest, or I will cause thee to be hanged as a spy
and traitor!"
"Now, in the Lord's name!" said Aage, as he suddenly threw off the
robber's cap and dress, and stood in his well-known knightly attire
before the commandant, "I cannot, I will not deceive a man of honour
like you. I am Drost Aage; I announce to you the will of my liege and
sovereign, not that of the junker; you may now deal with me as you can
answer to God and your own conscience: but if the royal house and your
fatherland be dearer to you than your own pride and an imaginary
fealty, you will follow my counsel, and make the great sacrifice I ask
of you."
"Sir Drost!" answered the commandant, bowing with haughty coldness;
"you have ventured on a daring game. You are now my prisoner; how I
shall act depends not on me. Oaths and vows are more binding than man's
pleasure and man's will. I am an old-fashioned warrior, do you
see--Your subtle state policy and artificial virtues I understand
not--the law I acknowledge says, obey that which is commanded thee by
thy lawful superior, and let him who commanded it answer for the
consequences."
"But when you see the most destructive, the most fearful consequences
before your eyes; when your superior hath broken his oath of fealty,
and abused his rights----"
"That concerns not me. I keep steady to him to whom I swore allegiance;
but _he_ must answer for what is done here, be it good or evil."
"But when you swore an ungodly oath, and fealty to a rebel?"
"Then must I keep the oath I swore to him, though, by way of thanks, he
should cause me to be hung for it, or go to hell. There is no choice
here: had I even entered the devil's service, Sir Drost, I must endure
to the end, however fearful that end may be!"
"Your pride blinds your eyes to truth and justice, noble sir!"
exclaimed Aage gazing on the tall steel-clad chieftain with a species
of admiration; "but hear me, I conjure you by the living Lord!"
"You must excuse me. Sir Drost!" interrupted the chief, with cold
calmness. "My time is short, I have perhaps not many hours to live; I
expect thanks neither from the king nor the junker, and perhaps but
little honour on this side the prison and the grave; but all things
according to order. You are now going to the tower, and I to the
battlement--to-morrow you perhaps will sit at the king's right hand,
while I lie on the wheel: but so long as we are at our posts, each must
do his duty, and, as I said, all things according to order." So saying,
he stamped on the floor, and three men-at-arms entered.
"Take this knight instantly to the prison tower"--ordered the
commandant, nodding to the two nearest him.
"And thou, Bent!" he said, addressing himself to the third, "let the
stones be heated again: it was a false protest--off with thee!"
The two men instantly seized Aage, and led him towards a secret door,
which they opened in the wall. Aage turned round once more, and called
to the chief, in the highest state of anxiety and alarm. "Think upon
your immortal soul, in what you do! remember, you should obey God
rather than sinful men." More he could not say, for the private door
was closed behind him.
The third man-at-arms still lingered, as if he expected the stern
command he had received would be recalled; but the imperturbable chief
glanced menacingly at him. "The stones are to be heated, I tell thee.
Art thou deaf, fellow? Off with thee! Obedience or death, while I
command here!"
The man-at-arms turned quickly round, and departed gloomy and silent
through the door, beside which he stood.
The commandant strode hastily once or twice up and down the floor, with
his hand upon his broad forehead. At last he stopped at a prie-dieu,
and bent his knee, while his eye rested on the open prayer book. "Ye
servants," he muttered, and folded his hands, "obey your masters
according to the flesh, in _all_ things;" he then rose, signed a cross
over his broad steel-clad breast, and went in silence and with hasty
steps out of the door.