A HEADACHE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
The governor plenipotentiary was suffering with a splitting headache,
which at times made him inclined to believe that all the bullets he
had sent through his victims' heads were holding a rendezvous in his
own. On such occasions it was dangerous to approach the great man. In
the frenzy of his pain he was wont to rage even against those he loved
best, and to find fault with all who were under his authority, as if
determined to make others feel some small fraction of the discomfort
he was forced to endure. To ask a favour of him in such moments, or
even to demand simple justice, was worse than useless. Did he find
favour with his torturer, he wanted to know, or was there any justice
in his undeserved suffering?
This was the sort of man that was set as judge over a vanquished
people.
In the midst of one of these attacks the governor sat alone one
evening in his room when his servant opened the door. "Some one here
to speak with your Excellency," he announced.
"Send him away."
"But it is a lady."
"The devil take all these hysterical women! I don't want any woebegone
faces around me now. I can't see the lady."
Many women, most of them in mourning, crossed his threshold in those
days.
"It is the Baroness Alfonsine Plankenhorst who asks to see you," the
servant ventured to add.
"Can't she stay at home, I'd like to know? Is this time of night my
hour for receiving callers?"
"She says she must see your Excellency--it is important."
"A young person of strong character. Well, show her in. Besides," he
added to himself, "she isn't a woman; she is a devil." Then resuming
his chair, and without removing the bandage that adorned his head, he
awaited his caller.
Alfonsine entered in travelling costume, and closed the door carefully
behind her.
"My dear Baroness," began the governor, "I must beg you to be as brief
as possible, for I have a fearful headache."
"I will do my errand in a very few words," was the reply. "I learned
to-day of your removal from the governorship of Hungary."
"Ha! Is that so? And why am I removed?" The sufferer felt as if a
cannon-ball had crashed through his head.
"Because there is an outcry against the present severe measures, and
the public is to be told that the government is not responsible for
them, but you personally in your excess of zeal."
The sick man pressed both hands to his temples, as if to keep his head
from bursting.
"Beginning to-morrow, a new system is to be inaugurated," resumed
Alfonsine, "and imprisonment is to take the place of the death
penalty."
"Ah, I am very grateful to you for this information--very grateful."
"I made all haste to bring you warning, for to-morrow morning you will
receive official notification of your retirement. But you still have a
night before you for action."
"And I will use it, I assure you!" exclaimed the governor.
He rang his bell and summoned his adjutant. The latter soon appeared.
"Go at once to the judge-advocate and tell him to have all pending
suits drawn up and ready to submit to the court at midnight, when it
will hold an extra session. At three o'clock all the verdicts must be
in my hands; at five let the accused stand ready to hear their
sentences. The garrison meanwhile is to be kept under arms. Now go;
despatch is the word!"
The governor turned again to his visitor. "Are you satisfied with my
promptness?" he asked.
Alfonsine answered with another question. "Is Richard Baradlay one of
those whose cases will come up to-night?"
"His name is among the first on the list," was the reply.
"Do not forget, your Excellency," urged the other, "that he has done
us more harm than any one else."
"I know all about him, Baroness, and his case shall receive our
immediate attention. And now I thank you for bringing me this word so
promptly; I thank you heartily."
"Good night."
"Ha! ha! and a royal good night it will be for me!" exclaimed the
governor when his guest had gone.
All that night Alfonsine Plankenhorst never closed her eyes. Fiendish
joy and nervous excitement frightened sleep from her pillow. She was
impatient for morning to come, that she might take the first train for
Vienna and revel in her poor cousin's grief and despair. She counted
the hours as they dragged slowly by. Twelve o'clock. The court was now
in session; the accused were hearing the charges read out against
them; they were being asked if they had any defence to offer; they had
none. Then they were led back to their cells. One o'clock. The
verdicts were being considered; no one said a word in the prisoners'
favour; the vote was taken. Two o'clock. The verdicts were being
recorded. Three o'clock. The man with the bandaged head was signing
each sentence. Four o'clock. All was in readiness. Whoever had slept
in that prison was now, at any rate, on his feet and was being told to
feast his eyes for the last time on this beautiful world, on the rosy
flush of dawning day, and on the dying of the twinkling stars in the
eastern sky.
Unable to lie longer in bed, Alfonsine rose and went down-stairs. A
cab stood in the courtyard. She ordered the porter to bring down her
hand-bag, and then drove to the judge-advocate's house. She knew him
well,--as the sexton knows the undertaker,--and she felt sure of
finding him at home and awake. She was shown into his presence without
delay. The judge-advocate was a man of few words.
"Have you finished your night's work?" asked Alfonsine.
"Yes."
"What were the sentences?"
"Death."
"In every case?"
"Without exception."
"And Richard Baradlay?"
"Is on the list."
"He is condemned?"
"To death."
Alfonsine pressed the judge-advocate's hand and hastened away to her
train. The city clocks were striking five,--the last hour they would
ever strike for Richard Baradlay, said she, as she hurried on, feeding
her imagination with the last grim scenes of his earthly career.
On arriving at Vienna she found the family carriage awaiting her, and
she lost no time in reaching her home. Hastening from room to room in
quest of Edith, she found her sewing on a black dress for herself.
"I have fulfilled my vow," cried Alfonsine, smiling with gratified
malice. "He is dead!"
Edith raised her eyes sadly and met her cousin's gaze. Then she bowed
her head on her breast, but she did not weep or cry out.
Hearing her daughter enter, Baroness Plankenhorst hastened to join her
and hear all about the success of her mission. Nor did the other omit
any detail in recounting her experiences of the night and the early
morning. She dwelt with pride on the instant and entire success that
had crowned her efforts. Thereupon the mother and daughter embraced
and kissed each other in their joy, nearly forgetting in their
congratulations the presence of a third person. But was the victim
determined not to wince?
"Haven't you a single tear to shed for him?" they asked, scornfully.
But perhaps she had not yet grasped the meaning of it all. "Don't you
hear me?" screamed her cousin; "your Richard Baradlay is dead."
The other only sighed. "God has taken him," said she to herself, "and
I shall mourn him as long as I live." But she could not trust herself
to say anything aloud. Her anguish was too keen.
"Weep for him, I tell you!" cried the beautiful fury, stamping her
foot, while loose locks of her fair hair fluttered about her face.
At that moment the servant opened the door and announced, "Captain
Richard Baradlay." There he stood, but no longer in the uniform of a
captain of hussars. He wore plain citizen's clothes.
The tormented victim of the headache had employed the last hours of
his tenure of office in causing one hundred and twenty of the chief
prisoners under his care to be tried and sentenced with the utmost
expedition. They were condemned to death, but he exercised his right
of pardon, and set them all free, without exception. He thus, as he
had vowed in his hour of torment, took ample revenge--not on the
accused, but on the minister who was about to remove him from office.
He issued a wholesale pardon. "Now let the minister, in his zeal for
milder methods, outdo me if he can!" he exclaimed, as he threw down
his pen.
Richard had been summoned before the judge-advocate immediately after
receiving the unexpected announcement of his pardon.
"You are set free, it is true," said the high official; "yet for a
time you are not allowed to live in Hungary, but are ordered to make
your home in some city of the empire outside your own country. Let us
say Vienna, for example. The governor, who has to-day given you your
liberty, wishes you to call on the young Baroness Alfonsine
Plankenhorst, upon your arrival at Vienna, and thank her for her good
offices in securing your liberation. Without her intervention you
would not so soon have left your prison cell. So give her your
heartiest thanks."
"I shall not fail to do so," was the reply.
"And one thing more: your brother Eugen, or A-dAśn, as you call him, has
paid the penalty of his treason with his life--"
"Yes, I know it," interrupted the other; "but I am puzzled how the
German and the Hungarian names--"
Here he was sharply cut short. "In the first place," said the
judge-advocate, sternly, "it was against all rules and regulations
for you to hear anything about it, since you were a prisoner, and
communication with a prisoner is treason. In the second place, I did
not ask you for a lecture on philology; you are here to attend to what
I have to say." Therewith he took a little pasteboard box out of a
drawer. "Your brother left you a lock of his hair, which I now deliver
to you."
Richard opened the box. "But this is not--" he began, in great
surprise, when the other again shut him off.
"I have nothing more to say to you. Good morning."
With this, the released prisoner was shown to the door. A little more,
and he would have blurted out his astonishment at finding blond hair
in the little box, whereas A-dAśn's hair was dark.
Hastening to the railway station, Richard caught the early train to
Vienna, and so made the journey all but in Alfonsine's company. She,
however, took her seat in a first-class compartment, while he, as a
poor released prisoner, contented himself with a third-class seat. And
while the young lady was revelling in her supposed revenge, only a few
yards away sat the object of her hatred, puzzling his brain over three
baffling riddles. The first was: "What is the meaning of the blond
lock of hair, and why _Eugen_ Baradlay instead of _Edmund_?" The
second: "How is it that I am indebted to Alfonsine Plankenhorst for
my freedom?" And the third: "Where shall I find Edith, and when I find
her what is to be my next step?"
He could solve neither of the three riddles.