As Lydia on that eventful day returned from her visit to Frau Belier,
who had detained her rather longer than usual with her chattering, she
found the old servant weeping in the ante-chamber. The Amtmann and a
police officer were in her master's rooms, sobbed Barbara, opening all
the drawers searching for papers in the writing desk and taking away
whatever seemed good to them. Surprised and indignant Lydia entered the
room and asked the Amtmann, what all this meant. Herr Hartmann
comforted her with delicate compliments, which he later accompanied
with vulgar familiarities. The angry girl pushed the blackguard from
her as he attempted to stroke her cheeks, lisping something about the
golden locks of Berenice. He however laughed mockingly: "We shall get
to know each other better later on, my little dove will think better of
all this. He, he, he. Be not so bashful, he, he, he." Lydia turned her
back on him and went into the neighboring room to look for her father.
But the Magistrate followed her even there, regretting that he was
compelled to examine her personal property. "Look wheresoever it
pleases you," said the indignant girl. But he had already felt the
pouch, hanging at her side. Angrily she jumped back but the gipsire
remained in his hands. At that moment she remembered that Laurenzano's
letter of assignation was still in it. Alas! why had she not destroyed
it sooner? With the courage of despair the frightened maiden threw
herself on the impudent man endeavoring to regain her property, he
however held the note high above his head and read it with malicious
eagerness. "Ha! it is thus, on the Holtermann! The demure maiden will
soon have to sing another tune," he said laughing mockingly, and whilst
Lydia burst into tears, the scoundrel packed up the papers together and
left the house. Lydia remained there thoroughly overwhelmed. In
breathless anxiety, with beating heart she waited at her window to see
her father on his return from his audience with the Prince. Only he
could advise her in her distress, and compel the impudent official to
return the letter. Every minute seemed an eternity. Finally after long
hours of misery her father appeared at the gate of the new court. But
how! Supported by two jailors, with a wild look and ruffled hair,
almost a corpse. The terrified girl felt like throwing herself out of
the window to reach her beloved father. She flew down the steps, to see
him once again, before that he was torn away. Alas, even at the second
landing she felt that she could never reach him. When she stood
breathless in the court he had already disappeared. Loudly did she call
her lost father's name, like a child astray in the woods. The neighbors
looked out of their windows sympathizing with the weeping girl who had
ever been a favorite in the castle. The stone figures above almost
seemed to look down on her with pity. In her distress Felix appeared.
The artist at that moment seemed to her like some messenger from God.
In his arms was she able to shed her first soothing tears. "I will
bring thy father back to thee," said Felix, "even if I must dig him out
of the Tower with this dagger." Comforted she looked up at the strong
bold man. But a hard hand was laid on her shoulder; Herr Hartmann
ordered her to follow him to the Witches' Tower. "Whoever lays his hand
on my affianced bride is a dead man," cried Felix, placing himself
before Lydia in a determined manner; he had scarcely however made an
attempt to draw his dagger, when he was knocked down on the stone
pavement at the foot of the staircase. The cowardly Magistrate had
wisely given the order, to watch the artist closely. A cunning blow
from one of the officers felled Felix backwards down the steps, and
when he again recovered his senses, he found himself near the well,
with Bachmann and Barbara bathing a severe wound at the back of his
head. "Where is Lydia?" asked the artist in a weak voice. Barbara wept
and Bachmann answered for her: "Do not ask, no one ever returns from
the place where she now is." Scarcely had Felix comprehended these
words, than his entire consciousness and full strength returned. He
ordered a damp cloth to be bound around his head, and went at once
across the new court to lay his complaint before the Kurfuerst. But the
Page came back with the answer, he should apply to the Amtmann. He
again prayed for admittance, not to complain of the injury done to
himself, but to demand the restoration of his affianced bride; the
officials refused however to announce him a second time, and on his
endeavoring to force his way in, the sentries levelled their halberds
at his breast. Dazed he returned back to the Burghof. He could do
nothing however but storm ragingly in the ante-chamber in the presence
of the Courtiers and the servants. He only met with disturbed faces,
and heard half-uttered warnings, to be careful not to sympathize over
much in a charge of witchcraft. In those moments, in which he found
himself opposed to much cowardice and contemptible selfishness, he
discovered in Frau Belier a faithful, brave, and prudent friend, who
felt more than a lukewarm sympathy for Klytia. Having met with but deaf
ears in the court, the young man hastened to the gable-house on the
market-place. The Frenchwoman had ejaculated a series of "_mon Dieu_,
_mon Dieu_," on hearing Felix's account of what had taken place. When
however in his rage the Italian declared that nothing was left for him
to do but to stab the villainous Amtmann in the open street, she
plucked the dagger out of his belt and locked it up in her cup-board,
assuring him that such a deed would be the most certain means of
destroying Klytia. He listened unwillingly to the advice of the
Chatterbox, who thus opposed all his plans. The screaming of the
insupportable parrot, which the louder the talking became swung all the
more contentedly on his ring, shrieking in shriller tones, put the
young Maestro in such a rage, that he would willingly have killed it.
Frau Belier warned him most decidedly against making any attack; the
only person who could aid in this matter was the Countess at the Stift
Neuburg, and the brave little lady hastened thither. Felix however
rushed out again with a dim impulse of rendering himself useful to his
friends. Restlessly he walked around the Witches' Tower, near which he
found excited groups, looking up at the windows, but none could tell
him on which side Lydia had been imprisoned. The heartless remarks made
by the people cut him to the quick. "Dost thou really take the pretty
fair-haired creature to be a witch?" he heard a young man ask in a
commiserating tone. "The Devil likes pretty girls and is not content
with old hags like the herb-picker," was the coarse answer. It was
well, that Frau Belier had locked up his dagger, as otherwise he would
have stabbed the man for this callous brutality. He asked an old man
standing at his side, whether he believed that the young girl would be
set at liberty.
"Ah! Sir," answered the old man. "I have now lived forty years opposite
this Tower, and have never yet seen a prisoner come out of these doors
except with racked limbs, and the most of them only on their way to the
stake." When he saw how pale Felix grew and how his eyes rolled, he
added, "My dear Sir, if you had been obliged, as I have been, to hear
at night time the harrowing shrieks and dreadful moans of those being
tortured, you would wish as I do, that those suspected should at once
be burnt, for the idea, that perhaps an innocent person is being thus
racked, is enough to drive one mad."
"And is there no help, none?" stammered Felix.
"If Lucifer himself, or the All-merciful God does not carry off the
prisoners with the aid of His hosts through the air, none," said the
old man, who with a "God bless you," returned to his house no longer
able to continue a conversation on this dreadful subject.
"Through the air," stammered Felice looking up at the tower, he walked
round it, he counted the windows. He believed it would be possible to
climb into the Tower from the Garden of the Augustine convent without
being noticed. He would thus from the upper rooms search cell after
cell and run anyone through who prevented him from seeing Lydia. If he
could not succeed in carrying her off, he would kill her first and then
himself, or set the Tower on fire and perish in the flames in case they
could not manage to escape in the confusion caused by the flames. After
carefully considering the subject, he determined on a plan. An old
chestnut tree at the back part of the Tower rendered it possible for an
active and daring climber to reach a window, which he certainly could
open. The way out must be down a rope ladder or with the help of a
dagger. The young man was so lost in thought, that he did not notice
that he was being watched. His plans for rescue could almost have been
read on his face. Once it seemed to him, as if a man on the other side
of the road stopped as if to address him. But looking across the
individual turned his back. It was Pigavetta, Felix took no further
notice. He hastily returned to his workshop in the Schloss, and after
carefully examining his borers, chisels and saws, he set aside those
which seemed to him to be the fittest, and then began to work at
knotting together with trembling hand a rope ladder long enough to
reach from the roof of the Witches' Tower to the ground.
In the meantime Frau Belier had hastened to the Stift Neuburg, and the
news she brought caused not a little consternation to the Abbess as she
sat in her dreary little room. "I shall immediately see the Kurfuerst,"
said the old lady. "His grace will believe, that I know as well as this
lewd Magistrate, whether a maiden who till lately was under the
protection of these holy walls, is a child of light or espoused to the
Devil. Oh! these _exercitia_, these _exercitia_," she added sighing,
"they were the cause of all this misery."
A carriage was quickly harnessed and the good lady hurried together
with the exiled Huguenot to the Castle as fast as the horses could
gallop. "A rare visit, my Lady Cousin," greeted the Prince looking in
astonishment at the two ladies. Quickly and earnestly did the Abbess
explain the motives of her visit, and related what she herself had
heard as the cause of Lydia's arrest. With a correct instinct she
ascribed Lydia's adventure by night to the assignation made by
Laurenzano, for the country people had immediately reported to the
eagerly listening nuns the event which had taken place on the
Kreuzgrund. The Kurfuerst listened attentively. "That is a nice sort of
fellow, that Pigavetta has brought into my dominions; but how did you
come to know that he had a love affair with Erastus' daughter."
The Countess hesitated. But remembering that nothing less than the life
of her darling pupil was at stake, she proceeded tremblingly and
repentingly with her account of the dreadful _exercitia_ which had led
her to find out Paul's sentiments towards Klytia, and she exposed the
false Priest all the more as she suspected that he himself had forged
this accusation against Lydia, to revenge his unrequited love. "I never
gazed into a blacker soul," she said shudderingly.
"In other words, my Lady Cousin," replied the Kurfuerst angrily, "a
punishment is once more being inflicted on you and others for having
turned your Institution into a refuge for Papists. What has been
reported to me is then true; you permitted this black traitor to
perform secret masses."
The Countess remained silent and looked down confused. The Kurfuerst
Frederic, enraged at this discovery was about to dismiss the two
petitioners without another word, had not Frau Belier, whose husband he
knew to be a stern Huguenot, beseeched him most affectingly, not to
permit the poor imprisoned Lydia to suffer for the sins of the wolf in
sheep's clothing, he therefore added he that he would order the Amtmann
to report to him.
"Oh, most Gracious Lord," prayed the lively Frenchwoman throwing
herself on her knees before him, "you do not know the horrible
treatment in the Witches' Tower. They will drive the poor child mad,
they will frighten her to death, if she must pass the night there."
"Order must exist," said the Kurfuerst. "Master Ulrich will be told that
he will answer with his head for the safety of the maiden. No person
must be allowed to enter her cell till the Magistrate comes in person
to fetch her out. I myself will vouch, that no hair of her head shall
be injured, if her innocence can be proved. She who however runs about
the woods at night, and kisses parsons on the cross roads, cannot
complain if the police lay hold of her. I am myself sorry for the
pretty child, but for the moment I only know your side of the story,
and not what the Magistrate may have to say. Till her trial is at an
end, she may keep company with her father in the great Tower, and that
is all I can do in the matter."
The ladies perceived that nothing more was to be obtained from the
Kurfuerst, and so as not to enrage the Prince against their _protegee_,
they returned sadly homewards.
Towards evening Laurenzano called on Frau Belier, to demand back his
dagger. "Your extravagant ideas would now answer no purpose," said the
little woman, "for to-morrow Lydia will be moved to the Tower to be
with her father, which is a kindness for her and him." She hastily
related to the Neapolitan how she had managed to obtain this from the
Kurfuerst. But the passionate young artist swore by the eyes of the
Madonna, that he would not suffer his affianced bride to be terrified
for another hour in the dreadful tower, if he could prevent it, and he
explained to her, the plans which he had formed for her rescue. "You
are a fool with your plans," said the spirited little woman. "To set
fire to the Tower, kill her, kill yourself, what is the use of such
help for the poor child? And allowing that you could carry her off,
where will you bring her to, and how thankful will she feel if through
your foolery here her father's fate is rendered worse?"
The artist gazed at her in an inane manner and declared he must do
something, if it were only to kill himself, but he could not endure the
thought that Lydia was suffering and that he lived unable to help her.
As Frau Belier saw that she could not move him from his plans she took
to temporizing. "Wait then," she said, "till Lydia and her father are
together and then save both at one and the same time."
"I cannot wait."
"Not wait till morning? Are you mad when it is a question of Lydia's
life and happiness?" Felix bit his lips furiously.
"_Filou Laurenzano_," shrieked out the bird in a shrill voice.
"_Maladetto_!" cursed the artist aiming in his blind rage a blow of the
dagger which had been returned to him at the parrot, with unfortunately
so good an effect that the head of the bird flew against the opposite
wall, whilst the body with a fluttering of the wings fell to the
ground. Loudly shrieked the Frenchwoman. "Detestable murderer, what has
this poor creature then done to you, that you should slay it?" The
artist looked about him with so much frenzy in his eyes, that the
frightened woman forgot the bird and sprang away from the raving
madman. "Oh well now," she called out, "murder me also, that will do
much towards helping Lydia," and she burst into convulsions of tears.
Felix stared vacantly at the quivering body of the bird, and saw a red
pool of blood tinging the floor. Finally he slowly passed both his
hands over his eyes and forehead: "Pardon me, gracious lady, sorrow has
turned my brain. You are right, I can undertake nothing now, till I am
calmer myself. What you say is likewise true, Lydia will not fly with
me without her father, and as all the plans of the Castle are in my
hands, it will be easier for me to rescue father and daughter from the
great Tower, than Lydia alone from the Witches' Tower." The little
woman seemed apparently to agree eagerly with these views, in order to
calm the maddened man. Her hope was, that the Kurfuerst would set Lydia
free the following day, and the conviction that the prudent Erastus
would never undertake an attempt at flight calmed her as to that
matter. So she dismissed Felix with the best wishes and rejoiced when
she finally succeeded in getting rid of the lunatic. She then with
bitter tears raised up the body of her many colored pet and kissed it.
"How much I must love Lydia," she said, "that I did not scratch out the
eyes of this wicked man. But he won't get off so easily." And she
carefully dried up the blood of the bird with a fine cloth, and weeping
laid the relic in an artistically carved box.