SAVED!
But never a stroke heard she. Gently and tenderly dawn’s first streak
looked down through the shadows upon the figure of the girl, sleeping
restfully as if her head were pillowed on the downy pillow of her own
bed, instead of on that hard, unyielding cushion of stone; and the pure
light, which is like none other on sea or shore, kissed the closed
eyelids, and flushed with rare loveliness the cheeks and brow pale as
whitest alabaster, and streaked with soft prismatic hues the sheeny
folds of her white dress, with its sparkling border of precious stones.
Sculptor Rudel coming in now would have torn his hair with envy at the
sight of so rare a substitute provided for that vacant spot. Adept in
his craft though he might be, never had he come near to conceiving
a pose at once so full of exquisite grace and so unconventional.
Not in deathlike prostration, but her figure slightly turned, her
jewel-crowned head resting on the rounded left arm, whose little hand
touched the carved cornice of the tomb, while the other lay outspread
upon her bosom, as though protecting some treasure hidden there.
Fours hours she had watched and waited, and then sleep had stolen
its march upon her. The Good Shepherd, Who once lay sleeping upon a
pillow when the tempest raged, had sent His lamb a brief respite; but
it was no more. Just a mere physical relaxing of overstrained power,
no restful deep repose of mind and body, for all she lay still as her
marble namesake would have lain. The muscular tension of her tired-out,
aching limbs had succumbed, and the place’s profoundest silence had
lulled her brain to something of quiescence, but not for an instant
to unconsciousness. The will had rather rebelled than taken part in
it; and when barely half-an-hour later she stirred, and that first
perplexity which comes between sleeping and waking had faded away,
she was terror-stricken to think what a sorry trick that brief dog’s
sleep might have played her, lying stretched there in the full sight
of—Listen! No, no. Thank God! all silent; and she stirred. All quite
silent and light enough now, and to spare, though still the filmy
shadows lingered. Hush! what was that?
Stricken motionless, daring not so much as to lift a finger, she lies,
listening, heart and soul of her, to a strange burring sound proceeding
from the rear of the Horologe—so low, so stealthy, that it may be some
mere spontaneous electrical stir of the thing’s organism, or the dry
skitter of insect wings upon the walls; but the sharp unmistakeable
click immediately following proclaims that some one is tampering with
the chapel’s postern lock. An enemy; for would not a friend boldly turn
the key and enter without more ado? But that? a crafty, cowardly sound!
and paralysed in the very act of stirring, Sabina sank back, her eyes
wildly fixed in the direction of the sounds, like some nightmare-bound
creature.
Two paces can bring this intruder where he can plainly see her; for the
arras, which intercepted her own view of this spot where she now lies,
hang thrust back as she has left them.
If she can but fly to their thick and ample folds. Impossible! for
already the shadow of a man, cast by some light he carries, crosses
the angle of the Horologe and steals on; a short cloaked figure, with
a hat whose broad brim entirely conceals his features. In his left hand
swings a dark lantern, and his right clutches—Great Heaven!—a knife!
whose bright steel gleams and flashes with the action of throwing back
his heavy cloak.
Creeping on, with stealthy cat-like tread, he comes, until, gaining the
front of the Horologe, he pauses, and lifting his lantern as high as
his mean stature allows, turns its rays in every direction across the
nave of the buildings. Then satisfied apparently with the result of his
survey, he lowers it again.
As he does so, a chance gleam catches the dead sculptress’s tomb. With
a scared, startled look, he turns, and again hurriedly lifting his
lantern, jerks its full rays across the recumbent figure there. Drawing
back a step to obtain a fuller view, he stands staring long and fixedly
at the stone-cold, breathless seeming of a woman.
“After all, then,” he mutters at last, setting down his lantern, and
dragging a handkerchief from his pocket and pushing back his hat, he
proceeds to wipe and mop his face and brow; “after all you’re there,
are you? Done and fixed up. Ten thousand plagues on you, and him who
made you, for giving me such a start!” and the speaker bestowed another
mopping on his face.
The face of Tobias Hackernagel. She saw it distinctly, daring to steal
one swift glance at him, as he turned himself about; and even had
the uncertain light deceived her, it would not have been possible to
mistake his harsh, rasping utterance.
“If Strassburg,” he went on, setting his teeth like some irritated
hyena—“if Strassburg was what she was ten years ago, and not the beast
returned to her mire, wallowing that she is now, you’d never have been
put back at all; painted clay lump that you are!” and brandishing his
knife and stepping forward a pace or two, he scowled savagely at the
obnoxious figure, “with your wicked wanton arms, that might be flesh
itself, for their lustful whiteness; and your face—where were their
brains, that they didn’t give it a touch of vermilion? Ho! ho! fire
and faggot are the stuff I’d like to touch you up with, or this,” and
the Syndic lifted his knife and aimed its point at the marble still
figure—“or this, Mistress Sabina von Steinbach, this pretty little
thing here would chip you out of all knowledge. But,” and then Tobias
chuckles savagely, “just to-night I haven’t leisure; we’ve got as much
as we can do. We’re going to begin with the Horologe, don’t you see;
and put the Professor Dasipodius’ pipe out for him. I’ll warrant he
won’t hold his head up quite so high again after that for many a long
day to come. Curse him! Oh yes, we’re going to begin with the Horologe.
We’re going—to—begin—with—the—Horologe.”
Twirling round on his heel, Hackernagel proceeded to take a survey
of the Clock’s façade. “Oh ho, friend!” he snarled with another
spiteful chuckle, “you look bravely now, don’t you? A fine thing
you for a Christian temple, with your gilded gewgaw manikins. But
trust me, I’ll stop their struttings and their antics before they’re
ten minutes older. And you,” and he glared up at Kaspar’s _chef
d’œuvre_, “have you screeched your first yet? May it choke me then if
it be not your last. Painted abomination! but for you, would Tobias
Hackernagel have fallen—fallen—fallen like this?” and his teeth gnash
with maniacal fury. “Driven to beg his pardon! Think of it. His!
forsooth. Sorcerer—Elymas—blind devil in human shape whom men fall
down and worship! This fellow, fit only to be broken on the wheel for
the magic-monger he is, and sent to burning flames, while I—I on whose
lightest word the people once hung breathless—am scorned, and pointed
after, and defiled with rotten filth a dog would turn at! And they
grin—oh, righteous Judge, have I not caught them at it?—grin! Tobias
Hackernagel grinned at! oh, ha! ha! ha!”
The low hysterical shriek of savage laughter stopped his utterance,
wakening the echoes of the place, until it seemed as if a legion of
fiends were shouting sympathy. “Ha! ha! Triumph! he! he! Triumph! It’s
not much of that, I take it, you’ll be having to-morrow morning, friend
clockmaker! you and your crew. Triumph! oh ho! he! he! he! Triumph!
we’ll see about that—we’ll see—about——” _Five!_
So late? Then indeed not an instant to be lost. Thrusting the knife
into his belt, Hackernagel flung off his hat and cloak, and unbuttoning
the wrists of his close-fitting doublet, turned them carefully back.
Then taking up his lantern, he crept round by the Horologe panels,
casting, as he went, more than one glance over his shoulder, with eyes
staring and rolling in their sockets, like those of a man stealing on
to strike a deathblow.
Ay—death—death to the Horologe! The woman lying there divines all his
purpose now. Distinctly the loud hoarse whisper of it reaches her from
his writhing, hissing lips; and the lantern’s sickly gleam, mingling
with the moted sunlit haze now streaming in from the window above,
casts a ghastly glare upon the evil face as he disappears round the
back of the wooden case. Death to the Horologe! Death!
She can hear the low chuckle escaping him, as he flings open the little
door in the panelling closing in the whole mechanism. At last the game
is all in his own hands. One sharp, well-aimed stroke, and the thing is
done. Who can step in between him and his foul intent? Who?
Yonder monument is tenantless now. She who lay there stands hidden in
the arras, so near that not a twitch of the coward face, not a movement
of the eager hands escapes her. Steady, steady with the lantern. Make
no blunders. Many a chain, many a wire coils itself about the one
spot, where only, like Siegfrid’s cross, the wound can be mortal. No
blundering. Steady. Ay, there—safe in its cunningly devised little
chamber. Cut that slender wire, scarce thicker than a hair, and—has not
Dasipodius said it?—the whole organism will thrill and shiver to its
extremities in one agonising death-throe.
There it lies. Strong in its weakness, weak in its strength, delicate,
fragile, true as the heart of her who stands watching. Steady—hush!
Some one trying the door? Fool! who could be doing that? Prudentius
belike? Oh! ho! he! he! No, not exactly—not—Voices? Psha! Steady now.
Steady. Just here, no botching. Just here—and obliquely the weapon’s
keen edge lies fixed across the wire spring for one half instant, the
next it is pointing impotently up in air, and with a loud screech of
rageful terror, Hackernagel staggers back, powerless, pinioned by the
two elbows in a vice-like grip cutting like ropes into his flesh.
Frenziedly the baffled wretch wrenches round his neck to discover
his assailant. At sight of her a ghastly pallor supplants all the
purple-red hues of his face, and his whole frame shakes with abject
terror. No living woman his coward conscience sees, but the dead raised
up to avenge his premeditated crime! Not the supernatural tenacity of
a despairing woman’s clutch he feels, but the awful strong grip of a
corpse risen from the grave! There, in her white-jewelled dress, she
stands, her dead pale face rigid in its accusing horror.
“Sabina von Steinbach!” breaks at last from his clammy lips.
“Ay,” she gasps brokenly, “what—foul—deed——”
At the sound of her voice the man’s whole aspect changes, and he
laughs aloud. No ghost then, this! Just a woman. Devil seize her claws
scratching and pinching at his bared flesh. Just a woman, a weak
woman, about as strong as the fragile flower people likened her to,
and whom one blow of his hands—always supposing them free—could crush.
This weak, weaponless child. Ugh! Were her fingers tigress taloned?
“Ugh!—leave hold!” yelled he, writhing and smarting with pain. “Curse
you! Leave hold. Dost hear?”
Perhaps, or perhaps not. She made no sign. Every sense, every nerve
gathered up and concentrated in the grip of her little hands.
“Leave hold, I say!” and bending his head, he fixed his jagged ogre
teeth in her wrist. The muscles relaxed, and, as her hand fell off
powerless, a sharp wail of pain escaped her; but though the savage act
left fearsome marks, it was a cry more of mental than of physical pain;
for Hackernagel’s right hand was free now. One slight effort on his
part to shake her off, and he could return to his interrupted crime.
Pain and terror daze her brain, until her eyes see nothing but a
whirling chaotic mass. Dark—darker—and shriek upon shriek break from
her pale lips. “The Horologe! Help! The Horologe!”
“Hold thy cursed tongue!” he yells, as with a violence that sends her
staggering against the curtained walls, he wrenches himself free, and
turns upon her, murderous fury glaring in his dilated and terrified
eyes. “Screeching devil!” But, entangled and clinging among the arras
folds, she contrives to elude his grasp, stumbling forward until she
has gained the front angle of the clock. “The Horologe!” shrieks she
with one supreme concentration of her fast-waning strength.
“Will you?” he shouts, rushing upon her; and seizing her by both arms,
drags her to her knees at his feet, “will you have me wring your
accursed throat, you——”
The words die on his lips. He has stumbled with his prey into a group
of men; and with his cruel clutch upon her neck, finds himself face to
face with Conrad Dasipodius.
Foiled, baffled, a hideous mingling of fear and rage distorting
his features, and the laugh of a demon on his foaming livid lips,
Hackernagel, loosening his hold upon his victim, turns with uplifted
knife on the blind man.
“Conrad! Love!”
Whose blood is this streaming over the white neck of her whom
Dasipodius, standing unscathed, but an awful mazed horror upon his
face, holds strained to his heart? Does he know whose are the brave
arms which thrust aside the murderous aim? whose breast has shielded
his, warm now with the stream flowing from the terrible gaping wound in
that white flesh? Ay, truly, her yearning cry as she threw herself upon
him told him. Truly he knows.
“Sabina!”
Only her name. So dear, that even his own lips had for so long dared
not to utter it.
“Sabina!” he murmured in his perplexed agony, bending his face over
hers upturned, death-white, on his sightless eyes.
“Ay,” sighed she, a smile of infinite content breaking over the
pain-wrung lips, and a rare gladness dawning upon her pallid brow.
“Darling! speak,” he implored; “speak to me.”
“Ay—yes. Not—hurt—are you—Conrad?”
Oh God! for the warm wet life-blood trickling over his hands clasping
her about! He struggled for speech, and failed for the awful throe
convulsing his heart. And yet she must have read in his face some
answer contenting her, for again she strove to speak.
“That is—well,” she murmured, and a transient flush glorified the gray
gathering shadows of her face; “I do—think—I saved you—from——”
A convulsive shudder stayed her, the arms flung protectingly about
his neck relaxed and fell heavily, and the pale eyelids drooped. Yet
for one instant only, then they were lifted again, and the dim eyes
entreatingly rested upon his.
“And—will you—Conrad, just once—again, will you—kiss me—love—just once?”
Again that rare faint flush overspread the face, white indeed, but not
deathlier white than his, as his lips touched hers; and then her head
drooped upon his breast and pillowed there; and there came over her
weary face a light so radiant, so full of utter content, that it seemed
as if the joy of the old days was hers once more.