The passionate woman did indeed not act upon any plan or calculation
when she seized upon this last extreme means of cooling her revenge.
Her appearance in the Erlau's garden entirely concerned her hated
rival. She did not find Ella, but instead found the boy alone, without
supervision; and the idea, as well as the execution of his abduction,
were the work of a moment. At first the child willingly followed the
beautiful stranger, who drew it caressingly towards her, and when he
commenced to become frightened, and asked to be taken back to his
mother, it was already too late. Beatrice never thought of the possible
consequences of her step when she carried her prey away triumphantly;
she only felt that no stroke from a dagger could hit Ella's heart so
deeply and certainly as the loss of her child, and that this loss would
raise an everlasting barrier between the parents. It was this which she
had wished. But now she must see how to ensure the booty. Gianelli must
give his hand to aid the flight so hastily undertaken.
Now more than a day's journey lay already between the child and its
parents; but they must make a halt some time; some time this aimless,
planless flight must come to an end.
The vengeance had succeeded beyond expectation--what now?
Little Reinhold still slept. Had he only borne his father's features,
perhaps that had preserved him from all ill; but this golden fair hair,
this rosy countenance, and those deep blue eyes--just now closed, to be
sure--all belonged to the mother--the woman whom Beatrice hated as she
had never yet hated anything in the world, and this likeness was
ominous to the sleeping child. The burning eyes of his companion rested
for some minutes fixedly on his face; then she suddenly started as if
frightened at her own thoughts, tore her gaze away from the boy, and
turned aside.
Yonder, up above, she beheld the carriage which was following theirs. A
travelling carriage was very rare on this road, and it came in the same
direction--came with the greatest speed. Beatrice guessed at once what
it meant. So her track was already betrayed, and the pursuers were at
her heels--let them, indeed! She felt herself to be all-powerful so
long as she had the child in her hands.
Rising quickly, she ordered the coachman to lash the horses to their
greatest pace. He obeyed, and now commenced a wild race between the two
carriages. More than once the powerful animals could hardly keep up,
more than once the drag threatened to break and overturn the occupants.
None paid any attention to it, and promises of excessive rewards
spurred the two drivers on to scorn any danger. It was a furious,
reckless drive; rocks and ravines seemed to fly past on both sides;
ever higher rose the mountainous wall, the more the road descended;
ever nearer rushed the river; yet the four-in-hand had undeniably the
best of it. Both carriages now rolled down the valley, but the space
between them was diminished every moment--a few hundred yards, and the
fugitives would be overtaken.
The first vehicle thundered across the bridge which here united the two
banks. Beyond, it suddenly stopped. Beatrice herself had given the
order to do so; she saw that now no evasion, no escape was possible,
she must be prepared for extremities. The carriage stood close to the
edge of the river, which shot along with intense rapidity. Slowly
Beatrice opened the door, while with her left hand she grasped little
Reinhold, whom the mad gallop had awoke, and who gazed affrighted into
the foaming, raging waves which rushed past close below him. He did not
know how near his parents were. Now the second carriage had reached the
bridge, and the moment Ella beheld her child all consideration and
recollection were at an end. She forgot Reinhold's warning not to show
herself, to leave the decisive step alone to him; and bent far out of
the door.
"Reinhold!" resounded across--it was a cry of inexpressible, trembling
fear. The child cried out as it recognised its mother, and stretched
both arms to her. Weeping noisily, it tried to go to her: but this
sight was its ruin. Beatrice had become white as a corpse when she saw
the husband and wife side by side. Together, then! What should have
separated had united them, and if in the next moment Reinhold reached
the fugitive, and tore his son from her, they would be bound together
for ever, and for the forsaken one there would only remain contempt or
revenge.
But the choice was already made. A single step, quick as lightning
towards the stream, decided all. Beatrice had not loosed her hold of
the child, and with the strength of despair drew it down with her into
the flood of death.
A scene of indescribable confusion followed this horrible deed. The
drivers of both carriages had sprung down from their seats and ran
objectlessly up and down the banks; they did not even attempt to give
any succour, which was only possible at the sacrifice of their own
lives. Ella stood on the bridge; she wanted to cast herself in after
those whom she could not rescue; but better help was at hand. She saw
the waves splash up high as her dearest disappeared amidst them--saw
how these waves also closed the next moment over her husband's head.
Reinhold had thrown himself in immediately after his child, which, in
the fall, had torn itself away from Beatrice, and now re-appeared at
some little distance. Moments of agony ensued, in comparison with which
all previous suffering was but play. For Ella, life and death were
struggling together in these foaming, hissing waves, with which the two
bodies fought, the one helpless, almost powerless to resist, the other
toiling fiercely to the one point which at last he attained. The father
grasped his child, drew it to himself, and strove to reach the shore
with him. Now he planted his foot upon the rocky ground, now he seized
the overhanging rocky points on which to support himself; and now, too,
the mother regained power and motion. She rushed to both. Slowly
Reinhold mounted the cliff; his breast heaved with fearful exertion;
his arms bled, wounded by the sharp stones to which he had held, but
these arms encircled his boy whom he clasped against his heart for the
first time for years, and sinking down half-unconsciously, he placed
the child in its mother's arms.
* * * * *
"Then this is really and irrevocably to be a farewell visit?" asked
Consul Erlau of Captain Almbach, who sat near him. "Your departure
comes very suddenly and unexpectedly. What will your brother, what will
Eleonore, say to it? Both calculated quite positively upon keeping you
here a few weeks longer."
On Hugo's usually light brow there lay a shadow to-day, and on his
features a strange, bitter expression, as he replied--
"You will soon reconcile yourselves to the parting. Reinhold will
not feel my absence in the constant society of wife and child; and
Ella--" he broke off suddenly. "Consider it as being all for the best,
Herr Consul. They will both be far too much occupied with each other
and their newly-recovered happiness to ask after _me_."
"Yes, indeed," rejoined the Consul, "and the greatest loser in this
reconciliation am I. For years I have looked upon Eleonore as my child,
have considered her and the little one as my indisputable property; and
now, all at once, her husband makes good his so-called rights and takes
them both from me, without my being able to raise any objection to it.
I do not understand Eleonore, that she has pardoned him so readily."
"Well, it was not done so very readily," said Hugo gravely. "He met
with resistance enough, and I hardly believe ha would ever have
overcome it without that catastrophe which finally came to their
assistance. He bought the reconciliation with his child's rescue. Ella
would have been no wife and mother if she had turned away from him
then, when he laid her boy, uninjured, in her arms. That moment atoned
for all, and you know as well as I that saving the child nearly cost
the father's life."
"Yes, certainly, he could do nothing more sensible than become
dangerously ill after the affair," grumbled Erlau, who decidedly seemed
to be in a very uncharitable mood. "That was enough to call Ella to his
side at once, from which she was not to be removed again, and he very
wisely would not let her leave him. One knows all that. Danger and
fear, care and tenderness without end! You surely do not require me to
rejoice over this reconciliation? I wish we had left this Italian
journey alone, then I should have kept my Eleonore, and Herr Reinhold
could have continued his genial, romantic artist's life here. That
would have been perfectly right for me."
"You are unjust," said Hugo reproachfully.
"And you out of sorts," added Erlau. "I do not understand exactly what
has happened to you Herr Captain; your brother is out of danger, your
sister-in-law amiability itself, the little one has attached himself
most tenderly to you, but your cheerfulness seems quite to have left
you since everything has been swimming in love and peace around us. You
play no jokes upon any one, you annoy no one with your teasings and
nonsense, one hardly ever hears a word of fun from you. I fear
something has got into your head, or even your heart."
Hugo laughed loudly but somewhat forcedly.
"Why not, indeed! I can no longer bear to remain such a time on shore,
and give up the sea. This inactivity of months wearies me. Thank God,
it is coming to an end at last. Early to-morrow I depart, and in a few
more days I shall be out on the waves again."
"And then we all fly apart quite prettily to every point of the
compass," said the Consul, who still could not get the better of his
irritation. "You sail to the West Indies, your brother and Eleonore
will also leave; I go back to H----, a most pleasant solitude which
awaits me there at home! Herr Reinhold certainly was gracious enough to
promise me that I should see his wife and child from time to time. From
time to time! As if that could satisfy me, after having had her about
me every moment for years. Of course, now the husband and father must
decide about it! I am convinced he will never let her leave him for a
week; he is just as overwhelming in his tenderness as he once was in
his carelessness."
It almost seemed as if the subject of the conversation were painful to
Captain Almbach, as he broke it off quickly by rising and taking leave
of the Consul heartily, but yet rather curtly and hastily. Erlau
evidently saw him go with regret, as however great was the prejudice
which he entertained against Reinhold, he was as decidedly prepossessed
in Hugo's favour, and if the latter had been the repentant prodigal,
the Consul would have regarded the reconciliation with a much more
favourable eye than he did now where every feeling of justice was lost
in the pain of the impending separation from his favourite. It only
slightly consoled the old gentleman that he took his restored health
home with him; his house appeared very desolate to him now, and he
sighed deeply as the door closed after his guest.
Hugo, in the meantime, returned to his brother's abode which he still
shared. His room, in consequence of the preparations for his departure,
was in the greatest disorder already. He had ordered Jonas to pack up,
and put all ready for the early morning, and the sailor had partly
obeyed these directions, as the boxes stood open on the floor, and the
travelling requisites lay about on the table and chairs.
But there seemed to be no talk of packing at present, as Jonas sat
quite calmly on the lid of the large travelling chest, and near him
little Annunziata, whom he had probably called to help him in this
difficult business. The conversation between them, notwithstanding the
young Italian's very defective knowledge of German, was in full course,
and Jonas had also placed his arm, unabashed, round her waist, and was
just in the act of stealing a kiss from her, which did not seem to be
the first, and most likely would not have been the last, if Hugo's
appearance had not put an end to any farther confidential arrangements.
The couple started up, alarmed at the unexpected opening of the door.
Annunziata recovered herself first. She fled with a slight exclamation
past Captain Almbach into the ante-room, where she disappeared and left
the explanation of the situation to her companion. Jonas however,
transfixed from fright, and stiff as a statue, stood without moving,
looking at his master, who now entered completely and shut the door
behind him.
"Do you call that packing the boxes?" asked he. "Then you have gone so
far happily with your exercise of pity?"
Jonas sighed deeply--
"Yes, Herr Captain, I am so far," replied he, resignedly.
The confession was made with such comical humiliation, that Hugo had
difficulty to suppress a smile; still he said with a grave face--
"Jonas, I never thought to experience such things in you. It is only
lucky that you are a man of principles, which will not allow you to let
such follies become serious. Principles before everything! Our
'Ellida,' lies ready to sail; to-morrow we start for the harbour, and
when we return from the West Indies, you will have driven this love
story out of your head, and Annunziata in the meanwhile will have taken
another--"
"She will leave that alone," cried Jonas furiously. "I will kill her
and myself too if she does anything of the kind."
"Will you not extend the killing to me also?" asked Hugo coolly. "You
seem to be quite in the humour for it. You have gone so far as kissing,
that is certain. I have actually witnessed with my own eyes how seaman
William Jonas, of the 'Ellida,' has kissed a woman, and I should have
thought that with this fact, enough to set one's hair on end, all would
have stopped."
"Preserve us," said Jonas, defiantly. "That is only the beginning--then
comes the marrying."
"Will you marry too?" asked Captain Almbach, in a tone of most intense
indignation. "You will marry a woman? But consider, Jonas, that women
are to blame for everything, that all mischief in the world originated
with them, that a man only has peace and quiet when far from them,
that--"
"Herr Captain," replied the sailor, who contrary to all respect,
interrupted his master in the middle of his speech, as he heard his own
words from the other's lips--
"Herr Captain, I was an idiot."
"Oh! your Annunziata seems to have inspired you with much
self-knowledge already, and that is the more admirable as language in
your conversation plays a very inferior part. Your chosen one speaks
German thoroughly badly, and you have not caught much more Italian than
merely her name. To be sure I saw just now how capitally you managed to
help yourselves. Your conjugation of '_amare_,' if not quite
grammatical, was extremely comprehensible."
"Yes, indeed, we know how to help ourselves," said Jonas, full of
self-consciousness. "We understand each other however always, and on
the main point we understand each other at once. I like her, she will
have me, and we shall marry each other."
"And so it ends!" finished Hugo. "And how about our departure, amid
these suitable arrangements?"
"I shall still go to the West Indies, Herr Captain," answered Jonas
eagerly. "We cannot marry in quite so head-over-heel a fashion, and my
bride will meanwhile remain with young Frau Almbach, who has promised
to take care of her. When I return, however, Annunziata thinks my
seafaring must end. She thinks when she takes a husband that he must
stay with her also, and not sail about for years on all kinds of seas.
We could set up a little public house in some place, where I should not
be so far from the ocean, and should always meet with my comrades,
Annunziata thinks."
"Your Annunziata seems to think a great deal," remarked Captain
Almbach, "and you naturally submit like a converted woman-hater and
obedient bridegroom to this opinion of your 'future.' Then on this
voyage, the 'Ellida' is to have the honour of counting you amongst her
crew? Afterwards she must look out for another sailor and I for another
servant?"
"Yes, afterwards," said Jonas, somewhat shamefacedly. "If--if you do
not also--Herr Captain--you had better marry too."
"Don't come to me with your proposals!" cried Hugo, jumping up angrily.
"I should have thought it would be sufficient at present, that you come
under petticoat-government. Now, pack my boxes and take leave of your
Annunziata! As we start very early tomorrow, I--have also still to take
leave."
The last words sounded so peculiarly forced, that Jonas looked up
astonished. He knew that it was not his master's wont to let farewells
in any place be hard for him, and yet he fancied that this one made
Hugo's heart right heavy. Fortunately the sailor was in similar plight;
therefore he did not trouble much about it, but set to work to pack,
while Hugo went across to the rooms which his sister-in-law inhabited
now. He stood motionless for a few moments before the closed door, as
if he did not dare to enter; then all at once, as if with sudden
determination, he put his hand on the latch and opened it.
Ella sat at her writing table. She was alone, and in the act of closing
a letter she had just concluded, when her brother-in-law entered, and
came quickly to her.
"Have you announced your return to Germany?" asked he, pointing to the
letter. "Herr Consul Erlau will make all H---- rebellious with his
despair at being obliged to return without you and the little one."
Ella laid her pen aside and rose. "I am sorry that uncle should feel
our parting so much," replied she; "I have already tried my utmost to
procure a substitute, and by letter begged one of his relations to take
my place in his house now that other duties call me. His wish for us to
accompany him to H----, and for us to live with him for a time, I could
not agree to on Reinhold's account. We have once already given society
there cause to busy themselves about us; if we return now, there would
be no end to the painful curiosity and interest, and Reinhold still so
much needs consideration. He cannot bear the slightest allusion to the
past as yet, without exciting himself dangerously. We must certainly
seek another quieter residence."
"At all events, it is fortunate that you have decided him to return to
Germany at all," said Hugo; "he has been estranged from home long
enough, both as regards his life and his musical labours. It is time
that he should at last take root in his fatherland."
Ella smiled. "You preach that to me and him daily, and yourself long
restlessly to go far away? Confess it now, Hugo, you can hardly wait
for the day of your departure, and it is difficult enough for you to
endure the few weeks you still have with us."
"The difficulty is removed already," said Hugo, with feigned unconcern,
"I leave tomorrow."
"To-morrow?" cried Ella, half-astonished, half-alarmed. "But you
promised, though, to remain until our departure."
Captain Almbach bent low over the papers and writing materials on the
table, as if searching for something amongst them.
"Things have changed since then, and I have received news from the
'Ellida' which calls me away at once. You know that with us sailors
that sort of thing often happens quickly and unexpectedly. I was just
going to tell you and Reinhold of it, and bid you farewell at the same
time, as I must start early in the morning."
He had poured it all out hastily, without looking up. Ella's eyes were
fixed gravely and searchingly upon his face.
"Hugo, that is an excuse," said she, decidedly; "you have received no
news, at least, none so urgent. What has occurred? Why will you go?"
"You interrogate me like a criminal judge," said Hugo, jokingly, with
an attempt to regain the old cheerful tone. "Be prudent, Ella! you have
to deal with a confirmed sinner, who will indeed confess nothing."
"Yes; I see that something has happened to drive you away," said Ella,
uneasily, "and for long I have known that something has come between us
which estranges you from Reinhold and me more every day. Be candid,
Hugo. What have you against us? Why will you forsake us now?"
She had gone closer to him, and laid her hand upon his arm
beseechingly, but perfectly unembarrassed. Captain Almbach's
countenance was intensely pale, as he looked silently on the ground; at
last he slowly raised his eyes.
"Because I can bear it no longer," he broke out with sudden violence;
"I have urged your reconciliation with Reinhold so long, and now that
it has taken place, and I must look on at it daily, hourly--now only I
feel how little talent I have for being a saint or for platonic
friendship. I must go away if I do not wish to be ruined. My God, Ella,
do not look at me as if an abyss were opened out before you! Have you
really had no conception, then, of the state of mind I am in, and what
these last weeks at your side have cost me?"
Ella had shrunk back at these last words, her pallor and the expression
of deadly fear in her face gave an answer, even before she opened her
lips to reply.
"No, Hugo, I had no conception of it," replied she, in a trembling
voice. "When we first met, I felt myself obliged to repel a fleeting
fancy. That it could ever be serious with you, I never deemed
possible."
"Nor I either," said Hugo, glumly. "At the beginning, I too, believed I
could laugh and scoff away this feeling--scoff it away like all others;
and now it has become earnest, such bitter earnest, that I was on the
high road to learn to hate my brother, to loathe the whole world, until
the latter part of my time here became a hell--perhaps it will be
better out on the sea, perhaps not either. But go I must, the sooner
the better."
Something so wild, so passionate lay in those words, and Hugo's whole
manner betrayed so plainly the difficulty with which he had suppressed
his internal agony, that Ella found no courage for a harsh reply. She
turned silently away. After a few moments Captain Almbach again came to
her side.
"Do not turn from me, Ella, as from a criminal!" said he, with
returning gentleness. "I am going, perhaps never to return, and the
hour of my confession is also that of my farewell. I might, indeed,
have spared you it, should not have made your heart heavy too with what
oppresses mine. God knows I had the honest intention of being silent,
and bear it until I had departed; but after all, one is but mortal, and
when you begged me to remain, and looked so kindly at me, there was an
end of my self-control. Reinhold himself prophesied that I should some
day meet those eyes which would put a stop to all scoffing, all
thoughtlessness. The only misfortune was, that I must find them in his
wife. If this were not so, I had better have bid adieu to all freedom
and independence for these eyes' sake, have become a quiet, steady
married man, and have denied my whole nature; but it would have been a
pity for old Hugo Almbach after all--therefore, probably Heaven raised
an obstacle, and said 'No.'"