THE STONE SARCOPHAGUS
Fritz's death remained a mystery, at the solution of which we could
only hazard various conjectures. But that it was a man's work I had
little doubt. The death-wound in the throat was the clean stab of a
knife or dagger. My idea was that the man, a spy, had been hiding in
order to watch us, and being attacked by the dog had silenced him in
the most effectual manner; then before I could follow, making his
escape under cover of the nearest hedge, which would hide his retreat
right down to the road, whence, if he thought it necessary, he could
cross the river, and get off into the woods, when pursuit would be
hopeless.
But, whatever the explanation of the affair might be, it had happened
so swiftly and so mysteriously as to cause a very uneasy feeling, a
serious apprehension for my friends' lives, which I could not disguise
from myself. Now I was indeed beginning to realize the malignant
tenacity of Chancellor Rallenstein. All the same, this fresh evidence
rather braced my determination to outwit him. I gave up my long rides
in the country round, and confined myself to walking about the grounds
and the village, keeping a sharper look-out than ever.
A very uncomfortable feeling is that of being secretly watched. And
that we were under a stealthy observation we all instinctively felt.
It is annoying, putting aside the danger, and it plays the devil by the
nerves. To wake up in the morning with the feeling that your actions
that day will have mysterious eyes upon them, governed and directed
with an inscrutable and determined will, ah! it makes one pray for an
open enemy. The tension was telling upon us; on me probably least of
all, since I had the nerves of a steeplechase rider, and fresh air and
exercise kept me fit. But I felt things could not go on indefinitely as
they were. As the days and weeks wore on, Rallenstein would scarcely be
likely to rest content with merely keeping his marked-down quarry under
observation. Our staying on at Schönval was simply waiting for the
assassin's stroke that was being prepared. One side or other must force
the situation. I therefore determined that we should risk it; but, as
it turned out, the forcing came from the other side.
I was walking near the village one afternoon, turning over certain
plans in my mind, when I made a singular discovery. I ought to mention
that the neighbourhood was rich in geological treasures. There had
been, years before, a landslip, by which many hidden things of past
ages had been brought to light. I had several times climbed about
this region, more to explore its picturesque ruggedness than for any
geological curiosity I possessed. On this day something prompted me
to go through the landslip again. So I turned up the path behind the
inn, which led along a wooded ascent to where the fissured rocks and
tree-grown boulders lay in romantic confusion. At one point in the
irregular acclivity there was placed at some twenty yards from the path
an ancient stone sarcophagus, which had been unearthed at some time,
and, its value being probably deemed less than the cost of removal,
had been left there to form one of the attractions of the place, and,
indirectly, of the inn below. I had passed this before, but had never
taken the trouble to turn off the path in order to examine it more
closely. The present and future had been too absorbing to let one care
about the past. But now I did so. I stepped aside and strolled slowly
towards the object of my curiosity. As I approached, to my astonishment
a head appeared above the edge of the stone coffer, and a girl's
laughing face turned a sort of petulant inquiry towards me. Saturated
as I was with mistrust, I hardly knew whether to be suspicious of this
apparition or not. A village girl, perhaps, I thought, although she
certainly did not look it. I resolved to find out.
"I beg your pardon," I said in German. "I am sorry to have disturbed
you, but I was about to examine this old object, not thinking any one
was inside it."
Her smile deepened into a laugh. "How should you?" she replied. "It is
the last place you would expect to find at least a living person in."
I was German scholar enough to know that it was not her native tongue.
She spoke it prettily, indeed, but ungrammatically, and with a foreign
accent.
"I won't disturb you," I said. "Another day----"
She had risen, stepped on to the ledge of the great coffin, and now
jumped down on the ground beside me.
"There! I won't disturb your scientific studies," she said. "You are
English, are you not?" she added, in our language.
"I am. Like you."
"Am I?"
"I think so."
"A good guess."
"Hardly a guess. You could scarcely be anything else."
"By my bad German, or something worse?"
"By your good English."
"And my bad style?"
"Not at all."
I looked at her as she sat on the edge of the sarcophagus, kicking her
feet to and fro and keeping her eyes quizzically on me. She seemed
about nineteen; her manner rather older than that. It was sharp, and
had a suggestion of a woman of the world. On the other hand, she was
dressed quite girlishly; her skirt was short, she had on a simple straw
hat with little trimming, and wore no ornaments save a plain gold bar
fastening her collar.
"I hope you are not going to let me frighten you away," she said
roguishly. "I can easily find a more comfortable seat, and science must
be before everything, as I know to my cost."
"I cannot plead guilty to the charge of being scientific."
"That's a comfort. Why, then, do you want to examine this stupid old
coffin? Curiosity, eh? All tourists are so curious. They will go miles
to see a thing abroad they would not cross the road to look at at home."
"I cannot say that my curiosity has not been rewarded. Although not
quite satisfied."
"How?"
"I should like, if not asking too much, to know what made you choose
that gruesome relic for a resting-place?"
She looked at me queerly and laughed. "Your curiosity shall be
satisfied. In the first place, it is more comfortable than it looks."
I wondered a little at that, but did not say so.
"In the second place it is novel, in the third it is cool, and in the
fourth it is a wholesome reminder, what I suppose you would call a
_memento mori_."
Her voice had changed so with the unexpected conclusion that I looked
up at her sharply. The roguery was now only flickering about her face,
which was almost sad.
"_Memento mori!_ Why, what have you to do with that?"
"No more, perhaps, than the rest of the world. I might not have thought
of it but for this." She tapped the sarcophagus. "But life is uncertain
enough for us all, and--perhaps it was a fancy as I lay there to
imagine myself in the place of him or her who occupied it hundreds, or,
as my father will tell me, thousands of years ago; and then to think of
a day that is coming."
I had never before heard a girl talk like that, and no doubt my face
showed it.
"Well," she continued, changing her tone, "that's enough of the doleful
for one day. Now tell me; are you staying here? At the inn? No?"
"No. With friends. Are you?"
"We, my father and I, are staying at Eisenhalm, about four miles off.
We came over here to hammer at the landslip."
"Oh!" I confess I was fairly puzzled by this girl, and could not make
up my mind whether to be suspicious of her or not. I thought I would
wait and see what the father was like.
"Your father is scientific; a geologist?"
"Rather. I have been brought up on fossils and pliocene fragments.
You can hardly wonder at my taking naturally to this stone coffin as
a summer-house," she said wistfully. "Science is very interesting and
absorbing to a man who takes to it, but it is a horrible bore for his
family. I am very, very dull, and my feelings towards this landslip
are not fit to be expressed. Of course you have heard of my father,
Professor Seemarsh?"
I recognized the name as one I had often seen in the papers.
"Yes; I know your father well by repute. He lectures at the Royal
Institution, does he not?"
"Yes; you have heard him?"
"I am ashamed to say no."
"Don't be ashamed. You may be a very creditable member of society
and yet take no interest in old bones and old stones. Father is an
authority on the flint age. A boy once broke his study window with a
stone, and he was delighted. It was a paleolithic remainder. Nothing
modern interests him in the very least. A knife and fork of to-day are
to him an impertinence. Don't you pity me?"
"Is the daughter of so celebrated a man to be pitied?"
"Ah, I suppose that's what every one thinks. And I do so want to move
on from this stupid place, and there's no chance of it, because father
has lighted on an interesting cleavage and suspects flint remains. Five
o'clock! He shall not grub any longer."
She gave me an off-hand nod, and moved away towards the landslip.
"May I come with you?" I asked. "I should like to see Professor
Seemarsh at work."
She made no objection, so we strolled on together, chatting on
indifferent subjects. I fancy our talk was intermittent; anyhow, I
know I was preoccupied with turning over in my mind the possibilities
of this strange meeting. It was, in a way, natural enough; and yet
something seemed to put me on my guard. That was due to the occurrences
of the past fortnight and the danger we were hourly expecting to show
itself. Had it not been for these circumstances, I told myself, the
meeting with this extraordinary girl would have been simply one of the
queer episodes with which travel abounds.
We had not far to go. Fifty yards or so from the entrance to the
landslip I heard the tapping of a hammer, guided by which I looked up
and saw a man on his knees busily at work, and my companion sang out,
"Five o'clock, my flinty-hearted parent."
Professor Seemarsh turned round, gave an answering wave of the hand,
proceeding to collect his specimens into a canvas satchel which he
slung on his shoulder, and then clambered down from the ledge on the
fissured rock.
I had told Miss Seemarsh my name, and she introduced us. Naturally, I
took keen notice of the Professor. He was a learned-looking, untidy
man of about fifty-five, with shaggy grey eyebrows and whitish hair,
while his scrubby moustache and wisps of shaggy beard showed a lofty
disregard for grooming. There was nothing remarkable in his face,
except that behind his tinted spectacles the eyes seemed keen and
restless. His dress was quite professional in its negligent absence
of taste. A light tweed Norfolk jacket, a crumpled buff waistcoat,
dark grey trousers, and a weather-beaten soft felt hat were all in
accordance with the best traditions of science.
He bowed and shook hands jerkily, after the manner of men whose
pursuits absorb them from society. He had a quick, short manner of
speech as one who wishes to say what is necessary as soon as possible
and then get to his work.
"You are staying here? At the inn? Wretched place, isn't it?"
I told him.
"Ah, I know. House on the site of the old castle. Must have been an
interesting place. Ruins still exist, I believe?"
"Yes; very fragmentary."
He laughed. "I am used to fragments. They tell me all I want to know;
though a mere sight-seer wants something more. You are scientific?"
"I am afraid not."
He drew in his breath sharply in pitying disappointment. "Uth! Well,
you don't know what you miss. Most fascinating this sort of thing." He
waved his hand comprehensively towards the rocks.
From behind him his daughter made a grimace at me.
To save a smile, I hoped politely he had had a good day's work.
"Very fair. But I am only on the outer crust as yet. The great
fascination of my work is that one never knows when one may not come
upon a unique find. These," he took up a handful of fragments from his
bag, "these are interesting, but they tell us nothing we did not know
before. That," he tapped a piece with his finger nail, "is tertiary.
That's curious, the indentation was certainly made ten thousand years
ago. Yes. I hope to come upon something better in a day or two." He
threw them back, and buckled the satchel. I had never heard any one
talk so fast and jerkily. It seemed as though all the words of each
short sentence rushed out of his mouth at once.
"Well," he said, "we must say good-day. We have a long walk before us.
My daughter has probably told you she is not geological. But being all
day in the fresh air has set her up wonderfully. Perhaps, if you are
staying on here, we may meet again, and I may be privileged to try and
bring you under the spell of science. By the way, are the ruins of the
old castle shown to strangers?"
It was rather an awkward question for me to answer without appearing
churlish. I could hardly treat this man as a stranger.
"My host, Herr von Lindheim, is very ill just now," I said, "but I am
sure he would be glad for you to see them. Perhaps in a few days when
he is better. But there is really scarcely anything of interest to
see."
The Professor smiled. "Anyhow, my work will be here for some time to
come. If I am disappointed in this, perhaps I may remind you of your
kind words. The comparatively modern antique is so fast disappearing
that one likes to see it while one can. Goodbye. Come, Gertrude."
He shook hands and went off. The girl, who had not spoken a word for
some time, came up and gave me her hand in a shy manner, which was
rather contradicted by a laugh in her eyes.
"Don't let father make you a geologist," she said archly. "There are
quite enough of them in the world."
Then, without waiting for a word from me, she turned and ran after the
Professor, linked her arm in his, and so they went off down the winding
path.