It seemed as if every emotion had stirred his heart, and had also
deserted it; nothing remained but the mournful, piercing gaze of a
man thoroughly familiar with men, who saw, at a glance, the aim and
object of all things.--SCHILLER: _The Visions._
When, after leading the stranger along the winding stairs and lofty
halls of the donjon of the Lion of Schleswig, the officer finally threw
open the door of the room occupied by the man he sought, the first words
that fell upon his ear were once more these: “Has Captain Dispolsen come
at last?”
The speaker was an old man, seated with his back to the door, his elbows
on a writing-table, his head buried in his hands. He wore a black
woollen gown, and above a bed at one end of the room hung a broken
escutcheon, around which were grouped the broken collars of the orders
of the Elephant and the Dannebrog; a count’s coronet, reversed, was
fastened under the shield, and two fragments of a hand of Justice, tied
crosswise, completed the strange ornamentation. The old man was
Schumacker.
“No, my Lord,” replied the officer; then he said to the stranger, “This
is the prisoner;” and leaving them together, he closed the door, without
heeding the shrill voice of the old man, who exclaimed: “If it is not
the captain, I will see no one.”
At these words the stranger remained by the door; and the prisoner,
thinking himself alone,--for he had turned away,--fell back into his
silent revery. Suddenly he exclaimed: “The captain has assuredly
forsaken and betrayed me! Men,--men are like the icicle which an Arab
took for a diamond; he hid it carefully in his wallet, and when he
looked for it again he found not even a drop of water.”
“I am no such man,” said the stranger.
Schumacker rose quickly. “Who is here? Who overhears me? Is it some
miserable tool of that Guldenlew?”
“Speak no evil of the viceroy, my lord Count.”
“Lord Count! Do you address me thus to flatter me? You have your labor
for your pains; I am powerful no longer.”
“He who speaks to you never knew you in your day of power, and is none
the less your friend.”
“Because he still hopes to gain something from me; those memories of the
unhappy which linger in the minds of men are to be measured by the hopes
of future gain.”
“I am the one who should complain, noble Count; for I remember you, and
you have forgotten me. I am Ordener.”
A flash of joy lit up the old man’s sad eyes, and a smile which he could
not repress parted his white beard, as when a sunbeam breaks through a
cloud.
“Ordener! Welcome, traveller Ordener! A thousand prayers for the
happiness of the traveller who remembers the prisoner!”
“But,” inquired Ordener, “had you really forgotten me?”
“I had forgotten you,” said Schumacker, resuming his sombre mood, “as we
forget the breeze which refreshes us and passes by; we are fortunate if
it does not become a whirlwind to destroy us.”
“Count Griffenfeld,” rejoined the young man, “did you not count upon my
return?”
“Old Schumacker did not count upon it; but there is a maiden here, who
reminded me this very day that it was a year on the 8th of last May,
since you went away.”
Ordener started.
“Heavens! Can it be your Ethel, noble Count?”
“Who else?”
“Your daughter, my Lord, has deigned to count the months of my absence!
Oh, how many dreary days I have passed! I have traversed Norway from
Christiania to Wardhus; but my journeyings always tended back toward
Throndhjem.”
“Use your freedom, young man, while you may. But tell me who you are. I
would like, Ordener, to know you by some other name. The son of one of
my mortal foes is called Ordener.”
“Perhaps, my lord Count, this mortal foe feels greater kindness for you
than you for him.”
“You evade my question; but keep your secret. I might learn that the
fruit which quenches my thirst is a poison which will destroy me.”
“Count!” cried Ordener, angrily; “Count!” he repeated, in tones of pity
and reproach.
“Why should I trust you,” replied Schumacker,--“you who to my very face
defend the merciless Guldenlew?”
“The viceroy,” gravely interrupted the young man, “has just ordered that
for the future you shall be free and unguarded within the entire
precinct of the Lion of Schleswig keep. This news I learned at Bergen,
and you will doubtless soon hear it from headquarters.”
“This is a favor for which I dared not hope, and I thought you were the
only person to whom I had mentioned my wish. So they lessen the weight
of my chains as that of my years increases; and when old age renders me
helpless, they will probably tell me, ‘You are free.’”
So saying, the old man smiled bitterly, and added: “And you, young man,
do you still cling to your foolish ideas of independence?”
“If I had not those same foolish ideas, I should not be here.”
“How did you come to Throndhjem?”
“Why, on horseback.”
“How did you reach Munkholm?”
“By boat.”
“Poor fool! You think yourself free, and yet you only leave a horse for
a boat. It is not your own limbs that carry out your wishes; it is a
brute beast, it is material matter; and you call that free will!”
“I force animate beings to obey me.”
“To assume a right to the obedience of certain beings is to give others
a right to command you. Independence exists only in isolation.”
“You do not love mankind, noble Count?”
The old man laughed sadly. “I weep that I am a man, and I laugh at him
who would console me. You will yet learn, if you do not already know,
that misfortune creates suspicion as prosperity does ingratitude. Tell
me, since you come from Bergen, what favoring winds blow upon Captain
Dispolsen. Some good fortune must have befallen him, that he forgets
me.”
Ordener looked grave and embarrassed.
“Dispolsen, my lord Count? I come here to-day to talk to you of him. I
know that he possessed your entire confidence.”
“You know?” broke in the prisoner, uneasily. “You are mistaken. No one
on earth has my confidence. Dispolsen has, it is true, my papers, and
very important papers too. He went to Copenhagen, to the king, for me. I
may even confess that I reckoned more surely upon him than upon any one
else, for in the days of my prosperity I never did him a service.”
“Well, noble Count, I saw him to-day--”
“Your distress tells me the rest; he is a traitor.”
“He is dead.”
“Dead!”
The prisoner folded his arms and bent his head, then looking up at the
young man, said: “I told you some good fortune must have befallen him!”
His eye turned to the wall, where the signs of his former grandeur hung,
and he waved his hand, as if to dismiss the witness of a grief which he
strove to conquer.
“I do not pity him; ’tis but one man the less. Nor do I pity myself;
what have I to lose? But my daughter,--my unfortunate daughter! I shall
be the victim of this infernal plot; and what is to become of her, if
her father is taken from her?”
He turned quickly to Ordener. “How did he die? Where did you see him?”
“I saw him at the Spladgest. No one knows whether he died by suicide or
by the hand of an assassin.”
“That is now all-important. If he was murdered, I know who dealt the
blow. Then all is lost. He bore proofs of the conspiracy against me.
Those proofs might have saved me and ruined them! Unhappy Ethel!”
“My lord Count,” said Ordener, bowing, “to-morrow I will tell you
whether he was murdered.”
Schumacker, without answering, cast on Ordener, as he left the room, a
look of quiet despair more terrible than the calm of death.
Ordener found himself in the prisoner’s empty antechamber, not knowing
which way to turn. Night was far advanced and the room was dark. He
opened a door at haphazard and entered a vast corridor lighted only by
the moon, which moved rapidly through pale clouds. Its misty beams fell
now and again upon the long, narrow glass windows, and painted on the
opposite wall what seemed a procession of ghosts, appearing and
disappearing simultaneously in the depths of the passage. The young man
slowly crossed himself, and walked toward a light which shone faintly at
the end of the corridor.
A door stood ajar; a young girl knelt in a Gothic oratory, at the foot
of a bare altar, reciting in low tones litanies to the Virgin,--simple
and sublime aspirations, in which the soul that rises toward the Mother
of Seven Sorrows asks nothing but her prayers.
The young girl was dressed in black crape and white gauze, as if to show
at a glance that her days had hitherto been passed in grief and
innocence. Even in this modest attitude she bore the impress of a
strange nature. Her eyes and her long hair were black (a very rare
beauty in the North); her eyes, raised to heaven, seemed kindled with
rapture rather than dimmed by meditation. She seemed a virgin from the
shores of Cyprus or the banks of the Tiber, clad in the fanciful
disguise of one of Ossian’s characters and prostrate before the wooden
cross and stone altar of Christ Jesus.
Ordener started and almost fell, for he recognized the devotee.
She was praying for her father, for the mighty who had fallen, for the
old and desolate prisoner; and she recited aloud the psalm of the
deliverance out of Egypt. She prayed for another as well, but Ordener
did not hear his name. He did not hear it, for she did not utter it; she
merely recited the canticle of the Sulamite, the bride who awaits her
bridegroom and the return of her beloved.
Ordener stepped back into the gallery; he respected the maiden holding
converse with the sky. Prayer is a great mystery, and his heart was
involuntarily filled with unknown but profane ecstasy.
The door of the oratory was gently closed. Soon a light borne by a white
figure moved toward him through the darkness. He stood still, for he
felt one of the strongest emotions of his life; he leaned against the
gloomy wall; his body was weak, and his limbs trembled beneath him. In
the silence of his entire being the beating of his heart was plainly
audible to his own ear.
As the young girl passed, she heard the rustle of a garment, and a
quick, sudden gasp, and cried out in terror.
Ordener rushed forward. With one arm he supported her, with the other he
vainly tried to grasp the lamp which she had dropped, and which went
out.
“It is I,” he said softly.
“It is Ordener!” said the girl; for the last echo of that voice, which
she had not heard for a year, still rang in her ear.
And the moon, passing by, revealed the joy of her fair face. Then she
repeated, in timid confusion, freeing herself from the young man’s arms,
“It is my lord Ordener.”
“Himself, Countess Ethel.”
“Why do you call me countess?”
“Why do you call me my lord?”
The young girl smiled, and was silent. The young man was silent, and
sighed. She was first to break the silence.
“How came you here?”
“Pardon me, if my presence disturbs you. I came to see the count, your
father.”
“Then,” said Ethel, in a changed tone, “you only came for my father’s
sake.”
The young man bent his head, for these words seemed to him unjust.
“I suppose you have been in Throndhjem a long time,” she continued
reproachfully, “I suppose you have been here a long time already? Your
absence from this castle cannot have seemed long to you.”
Ordener, deeply wounded, made no reply.
“You are right,” said the prisoner, in a voice which trembled with anger
and distress; “but,” she added, in a haughty tone, “I hope, my lord
Ordener, that you did not overhear my prayers?”
“Countess,” reluctantly replied the young man, “I did hear you.”
“Ah! my lord Ordener, it was far from courteous to listen.”
“I did not listen, noble Countess,” said Ordener in a low voice; “I
overheard you accidentally.”
“I prayed for my father,” rejoined the girl, looking steadily at him, as
if expecting an answer to this very simple statement.
Ordener was silent.
“I also prayed,” she continued uneasily, and apparently anxious as to
the effect which her words might produce upon him, “I also prayed for
some one who bears your name, for the son of the viceroy, Count
Guldenlew. For we should pray for every one, even our persecutors.”
And she blushed, for she thought she was lying; but she was offended
with the young man, and she fancied that she had mentioned him in her
prayer; she had only named him in her heart.
“Ordener Guldenlew is very unfortunate, noble lady, if you reckon him
among the number of your persecutors; and yet he is very fortunate to
possess a place in your prayers.”
“Oh, no,” said Ethel, troubled and alarmed by his cold manner, “no, I
did not pray for him. I do not know what I did, nor what I do. As for
the viceroy’s son, I detest him; I do not know him. Do not look at me so
sternly; have I offended you? Can you not forgive a poor prisoner,--you
who spend your days in the society of some fair and noble lady, free and
happy like yourself?”
“I, Countess!” exclaimed Ordener.
Ethel burst into tears; the young man flung himself at her feet.
“Did you not tell me,” she continued, smiling through her tears, “that
your absence seemed to you short?”
“Who, I, Countess?”
“Do not call me countess,” said she, gently; “I am no longer a countess
to any one, and far less to you.”
The young man sprang up, and could not help clasping her to his heart in
convulsive delight.
“Oh, my adored Ethel, call me your own Ordener! Tell me,”--and his
ardent glances rested on her eyes wet with tears,--“tell me, do you love
me still?”
The young girl’s answer went unheard, for Ordener, carried away by his
emotions, snatched from her lips with her reply that first favor, that
sacred kiss, which in the sight of God suffices to make two lovers man
and wife.
Both were speechless, because the moment was one of those solemn ones,
so rare and so brief in this world, when the soul seems to feel
something of celestial bliss. These instants when two souls thus
converse in a language understood by no other are not to be described;
then all that is human is hushed, and the two immaterial beings become
mysteriously united for life in this world and eternity in the next.
Ethel slowly withdrew from Ordener’s arms, and by the light of the moon
each gazed into the other’s face with ecstasy; only, the young man’s eye
of fire flashed with masculine pride and leonine courage, while the
maiden’s downcast face was marked by that modesty and angelic shame
which in a virgin beauty are always blended with all the joys of love.
“Were you trying to avoid me just now,” she said at last, “here in this
corridor, my Ordener?”
“Not to avoid you. I was like the unfortunate blind man who is restored
to sight after the lapse of long years, and who turns away from the
light’s first radiance.”
“Your comparison is more applicable to me, for during your absence my
only pleasure has been the presence of a wretched man, my father. I
spent my weary days in trying to comfort him, and,” she added, looking
down, “in hoping for your coming. I read the fables of the Edda to my
father, and when he doubted all men, I read him the Gospel, that at
least he might not doubt Heaven; then I talked to him of you, and he was
silent, which shows that he loves you. But when I had spent my evenings
in vainly watching the arrival of travellers by various roads, and the
ships which anchored in the harbor, he shook his head with a bitter
smile, and I wept. This prison, where my whole past life has been spent,
grew hateful to me; and yet my father, who until you came was
all-sufficient for my wants, was still here; but you were not here, and
I longed for that liberty which I had never known.”
There was a charm which no tongue can express, in the maiden’s eyes, in
the simplicity of her love, and the sweet hesitation of her confession.
Ordener listened with the dreamy delight of a being who has been removed
from the world of reality to enjoy an ideal world.
“And I,” said he, “no longer desire that liberty which you do not
share!”
“What, Ordener!” quickly exclaimed Ethel, “will you leave us no more?”
These words recalled the young man to all that he had forgotten.
“My Ethel, I must leave you this very night. I will see you again
to-morrow, and to-morrow I must leave you again, to remain until I may
return never more to leave you.”
“Alas!” mournfully broke in the girl, “must you leave me again?”
“I repeat, my beloved Ethel, that I will come back soon to wrest you
from this prison or bury myself in it with you.”
“A prisoner with him!” she said softly. “Ah! do not deceive me. Must I
only hope for such happiness?”
“What oath do you require? What would you have me do?” cried Ordener;
“tell me, Ethel, are you not my wife?” And in a transport of affection
he pressed her to his heart.
“I am yours,” she whispered.
The two pure and noble hearts throbbed rapturously together, and were
but purer and nobler for the embrace.
At this moment a violent burst of laughter was heard close by. A man
wrapped in a cloak opened a dark lantern which he had concealed, and the
light suddenly revealed Ethel’s alarmed, confused face and Ordener’s
proud but astonished features.
“Courage, my pretty pair! Courage! It strikes me that after so short a
walk in the regions of Romance you can scarcely have followed all the
windings of the stream of Sentiment, but that you must have taken a
short-cut to reach the village of Kisses so quickly.”
Our readers have doubtless recognized the lieutenant, who so cordially
admired Mademoiselle de Scudéry. Roused from his reading of “Clelia” by
the midnight bell, which the two lovers had failed to hear, he started
on his nightly rounds. As he passed the end of the eastern corridor, he
caught a few words, and saw what seemed two ghosts moving in the gallery
by the light of the moon. Being naturally bold and curious, he hid his
lantern under his cloak, and advanced on tiptoe to the two phantoms, so
disagreeably awakened from their ecstasy by his sudden burst of
laughter.
Ethel made a movement to escape from Ordener; then, returning to his
side as if instinctively, and to ask his protection, she hid her burning
blushes on her lover’s breast.
He raised his head with all the dignity of a king.
“Woe,” said he, “woe to him who has frightened and distressed you,
Ethel!”
“Yes, indeed,” said the lieutenant; “woe befall me if I am so
unfortunate as to alarm so sensitive a lady!”
“Sir Lieutenant,” haughtily exclaimed Ordener, “I command you to be
silent!”
“Sir Insolent,” replied the officer, “I command you to be silent!”
“Do you hear me?” returned Ordener in tones of thunder. “Buy pardon by
your silence.”
“_Tibi tua_,” responded the lieutenant; “take your own advice,--buy
pardon by your silence!”
“Silence!” cried Ordener in a voice which made the windows shake; and
seating the trembling girl in one of the old arm-chairs in the corridor,
he grasped the officer rudely by the arm.
“Oh, clown!” said the lieutenant, half laughing, half angry; “don’t you
see that the doublet which you are so mercilessly crushing is made of
the finest Abingdon velvet?”
Ordener looked him full in the face.
“Lieutenant, my patience is not so long as my sword.”
“I understand you, my fine fellow,” said the lieutenant with a sardonic
smile. “You want me to do you the honor to fight with you. But do you
know who I am? No, no, if you please! ‘Prince with prince; clown with
clown,’ as the fair Leander has it.”
“If he had added, ‘Coward with coward,’” Ordener replied, “I should
assuredly never have the distinguished honor of measuring weapons with
you.”
“I would not hesitate, most worthy shepherd, if you did but wear a
uniform.”
“I have neither lace nor fringes, Lieutenant; but I wear a sword.”
The proud youth, flinging back his cloak, set his cap firmly on his head
and grasped his sword-hilt, when Ethel, roused by such imminent danger,
seized his arm and clasped his neck, with an exclamation of terror and
entreaty.
“You are wise, my pretty mistress, if you do not want your young coxcomb
punished for his temerity,” said the lieutenant, who at Ordener’s
threats had put himself upon his guard without any show of emotion; “for
Cyrus was about to quarrel with Cambyses,--if it be not too great an
honor to compare this rustic to Cambyses.”
“For Heaven’s sake, Lord Ordener,” said Ethel, “do not make me the cause
and witness of such a misfortune!” Then lifting her lovely eyes to his,
she added, “Ordener, I implore you!”
Ordener slowly replaced his half-drawn blade in its scabbard, and the
lieutenant exclaimed,--
“By my faith, Sir Knight,--I do not know whether you be a knight, but I
give you the title because you seem to deserve it,--let us act according
to the laws of valor, if not of gallantry. The lady is right.
Engagements like that which I believe you worthy to enter upon with me
should not be witnessed by ladies, although--begging this charming
damsel’s pardon--they may be caused by them. We can therefore only
properly discuss the _duellum remotum_ here and now, and as the offended
party if you will fix the time, place, and weapons, my fine Toledo
blade on my Merida dagger shall be at the service of your chopping-knife
from the Ashkreuth forges or your hunting-knife tempered in Lake
Sparbo.”
The “duel adjourned,” which the officer suggested was usual in the
North, where scholars aver that the custom of duelling originated.
The most valiant gentlemen offered and accepted a _duellum remotum_. It
was sometimes deferred for several months, or even years, and during
that space of time the foes must not allude by word or deed to the
matter which caused the challenge. Thus in love both rivals forbore to
see their sweetheart, so that things might remain unchanged. All
confidence was put in the loyalty of a knight upon such a point; as in
the ancient tournament, if the judges, deeming the laws of courtesy
violated, cast their truncheon into the arena, instantly every combatant
stayed his hand; but until the doubt was cleared up, the throat of the
conquered man must remain at the selfsame distance from his victor’s
sword.
“Very well, Chevalier,” replied Ordener, after a brief reflection; “a
messenger shall inform you of the place.”
“Good!” answered the lieutenant; “so much the better. That will give me
time to go to my sister’s wedding; for you must know that you are to
have the honor of fighting with the future brother-in-law of a great
lord, the son of the viceroy of Norway, Baron Ordener Guldenlew, who
upon the occasion of this ‘auspicious union,’ as Artamenes has it, will
be made Count Daneskiold, a colonel, and a knight of the Order of the
Elephant; and I myself, who am a son of the lord high chancellor of
both kingdoms, shall undoubtedly be made a captain.”
“Very good, very good, Lieutenant d’Ahlefeld,” impatiently exclaimed
Ordener, “you are not a captain yet, nor is the son of the viceroy a
colonel; and swords are always swords.”
“And clowns always clowns, in spite of every effort to lift them to our
own level,” muttered the soldier.
“Chevalier,” added Ordener, “you know the laws of duelling. You are not
to enter this donjon again, and you are not to speak of this affair.”
“Trust me to be silent; I shall be as dumb as Mutius Scævola when he
held his hand on the burning coals. I will not enter the donjon again,
nor permit any Argus of the garrison to do so; for I have just received
orders to allow Schumacker to go unguarded in future, which order I was
directed to convey to him to-night,--as I should have done had I not
spent most of the evening in trying on some new boots from Cracow. The
order, between you and me, is a very rash one. Would you like to have me
show you my boots?”
During this conversation Ethel, seeing that their anger was appeased,
and not knowing the meaning of a _duellum remotum_, had disappeared,
first softly whispering in Ordener’s ear, “To-morrow.”
“I wish, Lieutenant d’Ahlefeld, that you would help me out of the
fortress.”
“Gladly,” said the officer, “although it is somewhat late, or rather
very early. But how will you find a boat?”
“That is my affair,” said Ordener.
Then, chatting pleasantly, they crossed the garden, the circular
courtyard, and the square court, Ordener escorted by the officer of the
guard, meeting with no obstacle; they passed through the great gate, the
ordnance-room, the parade-ground, and reached the low tower, whose iron
doors opened at the lieutenant’s order.
“Good-by, Lieutenant d’Ahlefeld,” said Ordener.
“Good-by,” replied the officer. “I declare that you are a brave
champion, although I do not know who you are or whether those of your
peers whom you may bring to our meeting will be entitled to assume the
position of seconds, and ought not rather confine themselves to the
modest part of witnesses.”
They shook hands, the iron grating was closed, and the lieutenant went
back, humming an air by Lully, to enjoy his Polish boots and French
novel.
Ordener, left alone upon the threshold, took off his clothes, which he
wrapped in his cloak and fastened upon his head with his sword-belt;
then, putting into practice Schumacker’s principles of independence, he
sprang into the still, cold waters of the fjord, and swam through the
darkness towards the shore, in the direction of the Spladgest,--a point
which he was almost sure to reach, dead or alive.
The fatigues of the day had exhausted him, so that it was only with
great difficulty that he landed. He dressed himself hastily, and walked
towards the Spladgest, which reared its black bulk before him, the moon
having been for some time completely veiled.
As he approached the building he heard the sound of voices; a faint
light shone from the opening in the roof. Amazed, he knocked loudly at
the square door. The noise ceased; the light disappeared. He knocked
again. The light reappeared, and he saw a black figure climb out of the
hole in the roof and vanish. Ordener knocked for the third time with the
hilt of his sword, and shouted: “Open, in the name of his Majesty the
King! Open, in the name of his Serene Highness the Viceroy!”
The door opened slowly, and Ordener found himself face to face with the
pale features and tall, thin figure of Spiagudry, who, his clothes in
disorder, his eyes fixed, his hair standing erect, his hands covered
with blood, held a lamp, whose flame trembled less visibly than his long
and lanky figure.