Hans found himself in a pretty pickle in the chimney, for the soot got
into his one eye and set it to watering, and into his nose and set him
to sneezing, and into his mouth and his ears and his hair. But still
he struggled on, up and up; “for every chimney has a top,” said Hans
to himself “and I am sure to climb out somewhere or other.” Suddenly he
came to a place where another chimney joined the one he was climbing,
and here he stopped to consider the matter at his leisure. “See now,” he
muttered, “if I still go upward I may come out at the top of some tall
chimney-stack with no way of getting down outside. Now, below here
there must be a fire-place somewhere, for a chimney does not start from
nothing at all; yes, good! we will go down a while and see what we make
of that.”
It was a crooked, zigzag road that he had to travel, and rough and hard
into the bargain. His one eye tingled and smarted, and his knees and
elbows were rubbed to the quick; nevertheless One-eyed Hans had been in
worse trouble than this in his life.
Down he went and down he went, further than he had climbed upward
before. “Sure, I must be near some place or other,” he thought.
As though in instant answer to his thoughts, he heard the sudden sound
of a voice so close beneath him that he stopped short in his downward
climbing and stood as still as a mouse, with his heart in his mouth.
A few inches more and he would have been discovered;--what would have
happened then would have been no hard matter to foretell.
Hans braced his back against one side of the chimney, his feet against
the other and then, leaning forward, looked down between his knees. The
gray light of the coming evening glimmered in a wide stone fireplace
just below him. Within the fireplace two people were moving about upon
the broad hearth, a great, fat woman and a shock-headed boy. The woman
held a spit with two newly trussed fowls upon it, so that One-eyed Hans
knew that she must be the cook.
“Thou ugly toad,” said the woman to the boy, “did I not bid thee make a
fire an hour ago? and now, here there is not so much as a spark to roast
the fowls withall, and they to be basted for the lord Baron’s supper.
Where hast thou been for all this time?”
“No matter,” said the boy, sullenly, as he laid the fagots ready for the
lighting; “no matter, I was not running after Long Jacob, the bowman, to
try to catch him for a sweetheart, as thou hast been doing.”
The reply was instant and ready. The cook raised her hand; “smack!” she
struck and a roar from the scullion followed.
“Yes, good,” thought Hans, as he looked down upon them; “I am glad that
the boy’s ear was not on my head.”
“Now give me no more of thy talk,” said the woman, “but do the work
that thou hast been bidden.” Then--“How came all this black soot here, I
should like to know?”
“How should I know?” snuffled the scullion, “mayhap thou wouldst blame
that on me also?”
“That is my doing,” whispered Hans to himself; “but if they light the
fire, what then becomes of me?”
“See now,” said the cook; “I go to make the cakes ready; if I come back
and find that thou hast not built the fire, I will warm thy other ear
for thee.”
“So,” thought Hans; “then will be my time to come down the chimney, for
there will be but one of them.”
The next moment he heard the door close and knew that the cook had gone
to make the cakes ready as she said. And as he looked down he saw that
the boy was bending over the bundle of fagots, blowing the spark that
he had brought in upon the punk into a flame. The dry fagots began to
crackle and blaze. “Now is my time,” said Hans to himself. Bracing his
elbows against each side of the chimney, he straightened his legs so
that he might fall clear. His motions loosened little shower of soot that
fell rattling upon the fagots that were now beginning to blaze brightly,
whereupon the boy raised his face and looked up. Hans loosened his hold
upon the chimney; crash! he fell, lighting upon his feet in the midst
of the burning fagots. The scullion boy tumbled backward upon the floor,
where he lay upon the broad of his back with a face as white as
dough and eyes and mouth agape, staring speechlessly at the frightful
inky-black figure standing in the midst of the flames and smoke. Then
his scattered wits came back to him. “It is the evil one,” he roared.
And thereupon, turning upon his side, he half rolled, half scrambled to
the door. Then out he leaped and, banging it to behind him, flew down
the passageway, yelling with fright and never daring once to look behind
him.
All the time One-eyed Hans was brushing away the sparks that clung to
his clothes. He was as black as ink from head to foot with the soot from
the chimney.
“So far all is good,” he muttered to himself, “but if I go wandering
about in my sooty shoes I will leave black tracks to follow me, so there
is nothing to do but e’en to go barefoot.”
He stooped and drawing the pointed soft leather shoes from his feet, he
threw them upon the now blazing fagots, where they writhed and twisted
and wrinkled, and at last burst into a flame. Meanwhile Hans lost no
time; he must find a hiding-place, and quickly, if he would yet hope
to escape. A great bread trough stood in the corner of the kitchen--a
hopper-shaped chest with a flat lid. It was the best hiding place that
the room afforded. Without further thought Hans ran to it, snatching up
from the table as he passed a loaf of black bread and a bottle half full
of stale wine, for he had had nothing to eat since that morning. Into
the great bread trough he climbed, and drawing the lid down upon him,
curled himself up as snugly as a mouse in its nest.
For a while the kitchen lay in silence, but at last the sound of voices
was heard at the door, whispering together in low tones. Suddenly the
door was flung open and a tall, lean, lantern-jawed fellow, clad in
rough frieze, strode into the room and stood there glaring with half
frightened boldness around about him; three or four women and the
trembling scullion crowded together in a frightened group behind him.
The man was Long Jacob, the bowman; but, after all, his boldness was
all wasted, for not a thread or a hair was to be seen, but only the
crackling fire throwing its cheerful ruddy glow upon the wall of the
room, now rapidly darkening in the falling gray of the twilight without.
The fat cook’s fright began rapidly to turn into anger.
“Thou imp,” she cried, “it is one of thy tricks,” and she made a dive
for the scullion, who ducked around the skirts of one of the other women
and so escaped for the time; but Long Jacob wrinkled up his nose and
sniffed. “Nay,” said he, “me thinks that there lieth some truth in the
tale that the boy hath told, for here is a vile smell of burned horn
that the black one hath left behind him.”
It was the smell from the soft leather shoes that Hans had burned.
The silence of night had fallen over the Castle of Trutz-Drachen; not
a sound was heard but the squeaking of mice scurring behind the
wainscoting, the dull dripping of moisture from the eaves, or the
sighing of the night wind around the gables and through the naked
windows of the castle.
The lid of the great dough trough was softly raised, and a face, black
with soot, peeped cautiously out from under it. Then little by little
arose a figure as black as the face; and One-eyed Hans stepped out upon
the floor, stretching and rubbing himself.
“Methinks I must have slept,” he muttered. “Hui, I am as stiff as a new
leather doublet, and now, what next is to become of me? I hope my luck
may yet stick to me, in spite of this foul black soot!”
Along the middle of the front of the great hall of the castle, ran a
long stone gallery, opening at one end upon the court-yard by a high
flight of stone steps. A man-at-arms in breast-plate and steel cap, and
bearing a long pike, paced up and down the length of this gallery, now
and then stopping, leaning over the edge, and gazing up into the starry
sky above; then, with a long drawn yawn, lazily turning back to the
monotonous watch again.
A dark figure crept out from an arched doorway at the lower part of the
long straight building, and some little distance below the end gallery,
but the sentry saw nothing of it, for his back was turned. As silently
and as stealthily as a cat the figure crawled along by the dark shadowy
wall, now and then stopping, and then again creeping slowly forward
toward the gallery where the man-at-arms moved monotonously up and down.
It was One-eyed Hans in his bare feet.
Inch by inch, foot by foot--the black figure crawled along in the angle
of the wall; inch by inch and foot by foot, but ever nearer and nearer
to the long straight row of stone steps that led to the covered gallery.
At last it crouched at the lowest step of the flight. Just then the
sentinel upon watch came to the very end of the gallery and stood there
leaning upon his spear. Had he looked down below he could not have
failed to have seen One-eyed Hans lying there motionlessly; but he was
gazing far away over the steep black roofs beyond, and never saw the
unsuspected presence. Minute after minute passed, and the one stood
there looking out into the night and the other lay crouching by the
wall; then with a weary sigh the sentry turned and began slowly pacing
back again toward the farther end of the gallery.
Instantly the motionless figure below arose and glided noiselessly and
swiftly up the flight of steps.
Two rude stone pillars flanked either side of the end of the gallery.
Like a shadow the black figure slipped behind one of these, flattening
itself up against the wall, where it stood straight and motionless as
the shadows around it.
Down the long gallery came the watchman, his sword clinking loudly in
the silence as he walked, tramp, tramp, tramp! clink, clank, jingle.
Within three feet of the motionless figure behind the pillar he turned,
and began retracing his monotonous steps. Instantly the other left the
shadow of the post and crept rapidly and stealthily after him. One step,
two steps the sentinel took; for a moment the black figure behind him
seemed to crouch and draw together, then like a flash it leaped forward
upon its victim.
A shadowy cloth fell upon the man’s face, and in an instant he was flung
back and down with a muffled crash upon the stones. Then followed a
fierce and silent struggle in the darkness, but strong and sturdy as the
man was, he was no match for the almost superhuman strength of One-eyed
Hans. The cloth which he had flung over his head was tied tightly and
securely. Then the man was forced upon his face and, in spite of his
fierce struggles, his arms were bound around and around with strong fine
cord; next his feet were bound in the same way, and the task was done.
Then Hans stood upon his feet, and wiped the sweat from his swarthy
forehead. “Listen, brother,” he whispered, and as he spoke he stooped
and pressed something cold and hard against the neck of the other.
“Dost thou know the feel of this? It is a broad dagger, and if thou
dost contrive to loose that gag from thy mouth and makest any outcry, it
shall be sheathed in thy weasand.”
So saying, he thrust the knife back again into its sheath, then stooping
and picking up the other, he flung him across his shoulder like a sack,
and running down the steps as lightly as though his load was nothing at
all, he carried his burden to the arched doorway whence he had come a
little while before. There, having first stripped his prisoner of
all his weapons, Hans sat the man up in the angle of the wall. “So,
brother;” said he, “now we can talk with more ease than we could up
yonder. I will tell thee frankly why I am here; it is to find where the
young Baron Otto of Drachenhausen is kept. If thou canst tell me,
well and good; if not, I must e’en cut thy weasand and find me one who
knoweth more. Now, canst thou tell me what I would learn, brother?”
The other nodded dimly in the darkness.
“That is good,” said Hans, “then I will loose thy gag until thou hast
told me; only bear in mind what I said concerning my dagger.”
Thereupon, he unbound his prisoner, and the fellow slowly rose to his
feet. He shook himself and looked all about him in a heavy, bewildered
fashion, as though he had just awakened from a dream.
His right hand slid furtively down to his side, but the dagger-sheath
was empty.
“Come, brother!” said Hans, impatiently, “time is passing, and once lost
can never be found again. Show me the way to the young Baron Otto or--.”
And he whetted the shining blade of his dagger on his horny palm.
The fellow needed no further bidding; turning, he led the way, and
together they were swallowed up in the yawning shadows, and again the
hush of night-time lay upon the Castle of Trutz-Drachen.