IN THE GHOST'S HOUR.
Grazian Likovay read the letter through two and three times, and could
not understand it. There is nothing more difficult than putting an idea
into an empty head. Then he had to call Master Mathias to his help.
"See this letter! A fool wrote it, a fool brought it, and only a fool
can understand it."
"It's plain enough to me."
"How so? How so?"
"You've not forgotten, have you, the disgrace you brought on Father
Peter at the Bittse wedding-feast? I was there myself. I saw it, and I
remember the face you tore the cowl from; it was exactly Tihamer
Csorbai's face."
"I hit him a blow that told, didn't I?"
"Yes, you did; but a wound of that kind is not forgotten, especially
when it falls on a wound that is not yet scarred over. Now you know
Tihamer Csorbai is the rejected suitor of your daughter Magdalene, and
that we live so near each other that the two castles stare each other
in the eye."
"Then you think the letter is about Magdalene?"
"I am sure there is no other woman in the household. But if all these
beautiful women, young and old, hanging in these frames, were living,
Tihamer would still give his heart to Magdalene alone. For if a handsome
woman were all he asked, he would have had it right there in Madocsany,
and he need not have made any pilgrimages for her."
"But just look out of the window. Do you see how the ice is crashing out
of the river? When the fool came over, the ice had just begun to move;
but now heavy blocks of it are rolling along. See, the huts along the
bank have been swept away, and the ice has cut off thick tree trunks
like a razor. Do you think a human being could cross the river
to-night?"
"Gracious Lord, I have read in the Bible that Peter trod the water with
bare feet, and that was a sea. Whatever is in the Bible, as a good
Lutheran, I must believe."
"But that was in old times, and it was Saint Peter; he could do
anything. To-day is To-day."
"All I know, gracious Lord, is that a priest can do a good deal, a
lover can do more, and when you get both in one, he can do everything."
"We must talk it over with Berezowski." The old suitor, since his return
from the wedding feast at Bittse, had been staying at Mitosin Castle. It
was understood that he should wed the beautiful Magdalene, and take her
to his house in Galicia. The license was all ready. The only reason that
the marriage had not yet taken place was that father-in-law and
son-in-law kept the bottle going from hand to hand until morning, and
then the lover had to be dragged off to bed by his hands and feet, and
neither a fire alarm nor a murderer's stroke could have roused him from
his bed. Afternoons, this bigot Lord would not enter into any churchly
ceremony, and so the wedding was put off from day to day; and the
wedding feast was secretly consumed by the guests in advance.
To-day too they shook and pulled the bridegroom elect; they roared in
his ear; but to all their attempts, his only reply was a movement of the
hand to brush away a fly, or of the foot, as aimed at a dog; and then he
slept on steadily.
"Wait," said Lord Grazian, "I have an idea. I will question the girl."
And he went in search of his daughter. He found Magdalene at an open
window.
"Well, my child, you must have hot blood to open the window in such
ice-cold weather as this."
"I am giving my doves their freedom. They will have nobody to feed them,
if I go away to-day or to-morrow."
"So you know that you are to be married to-day or to-morrow."
"Yes, I know, dear father."
"And you have stopped tearing your hair out and bursting into tears, and
crying out, 'I'd rather die a hundred times than marry him!'"
"I will not weep again in your presence, my father."
"Your nature is entirely changed. Has this been since the Bittse wedding
feast? When I tore the cowl from the head of your former lover, and you
learned that he was now the lover of a beautiful woman--that changed
you, did it?"
"That was a frightful moment, father."
"And you do not love the priest?"
"I swear to you, dear father, that I do not love the priest."
"That would be dreadful. I don't know what I should do with you if you
dared even to dream of that. But what's this little bag for?"
"I am going to put some little relics in it, that I have kept of my poor
mother's; the small medallion with her miniature, a lock of her hair,
woven into a flower, and a little silver cross that I used to wear when
I was a child. All are to go with me when I am far, far from here."
"You have changed entirely and become a good daughter. I shall live to
give you my blessing."
"Oh, do give me your blessing, if only one word," entreated the girl, as
she knelt before her father. "Just let me kiss your hand once, and then
lay it on my head."
Grazian let the girl draw his hand to her lips.
"Only say that you forgive me all the sorrow I have caused you against
my will."
Her entreaty deceived Grazian's sleepy mind.
"That's good, I am not angry with you," he growled out, and with his
hand stroked the head of his daughter, kneeling before him; it was meant
for something like a blessing. "But now you must consider yourself
ready, for the priest is here. To-night we must go to bed early, and get
up betimes to-morrow, for to-morrow shall be the wedding."
Then Lord Grazian went back to the room where he had left Master
Mathias.
"You're on the wrong track, young man," he said; "I have just shrived
the girl. She really is entirely changed. She does not cry at all when
I talk about her wedding, and I told her that to-morrow was to be the
day. She said, 'Very well,' and kissed my hand very prettily."
"Then that's the very best proof that she has something else in mind.
She has said good-bye because she intends to go away to-night with her
lover before the wedding to-morrow. That is why she consented so
readily. I know women better than that."
"All the devils of Hell! Suppose that should be so! I will eat fire and
drink poison if that's true. Wake that Pole up, even if he is half-dead.
One can't manage a thing of this kind alone. Rouse the household."
"We will do just the opposite. If we give the alarm, they too will learn
it and be on their guard. Instead of that, let everybody drink until he
cannot waken himself, and we will drug the bears. There is some secret
connection with the church--those bells at midnight, and the ghost in
the lighted church that your lordship himself has seen and heard,--all
that does not happen without the help of man. There is something
underneath it all. Just leave the whole matter to me, my Lord; by
evening, I will map out such a campaign as to catch Beelzebub himself if
he is in the business."
Until evening there were whispered consultations throughout Mitosin
Castle, but the women were kept out of the secret. While Magdalene was
at supper, the church was filled with Berezowski's armed servants. The
bridegroom, in a violent passion, insisted that he would be present
himself. As twilight came on, Berezowski slipped into the chapel, and
concealed himself there with his armed followers in the crypt. They had
a cask of beer and a checker board to make the time pass more rapidly.
When it was hardly dark, Grazian gave orders for all to go to their
night's rest, for the next morning they must rub their eyes open early,
for there was to be a wedding in the house. The whole night through, not
a soul must stir, and cellars and store-houses were to be kept locked.
At evening, the students sang the Maiden's song before the windows of
the bride's room, and then all the lights in the castle went out. There
was as deep a quiet as if no one were awake; only the cracking of the
ice on the Waag sounded on the still night.
When the great castle clock struck midnight, Magdalene arose, put on her
gown, fastened to her girdle the little bag with its relics, and slipped
noiselessly down the stairway to the little gate in the rear that led to
the bear den. She looked about her, but the bears were not to be seen.
After Candlemas, the bears begin their winter sleep, when the weather
outside is raw. The bears did not cross her path. Fearlessly she went to
the church-door. From there she breathed one last farewell to the castle
of her fathers, that she was to leave forever, and then entered the
door. As before, the moonlight fell upon the church, and lighted up the
pierced saints, the nameless gravestones, and the altar picture in its
carved frame. Now had she reason to fear, for she had learned what those
saints suffered from the darts that pierced them. She had learned who
slept under nameless gravestones, and the names of those terrible forms
that frightened and misled the hermit in the picture.
If her deliverer, if her lover, would only come sooner! The owls in the
tower hooted more than ever. Suddenly the bell rang and the altar
picture shone brightly. Her lover was near. What a wonderful altar
picture that was that appeared in the place of Saint Anthony,--a Saint
Ladislaus! This was a genuine Hungarian saint, not one tortured to death
by heathen, but one who struck the heathen down! Now he came down from
the altar frame to comfort the kneeling maiden.
"It is well that you hurried: to-morrow they are to take me away to
Poland. You might never more have seen me."
"Let us hasten, my love."
"Just wait a moment until I offer one last prayer at my brother's
grave."
"Let me add mine."
And so the two went and knelt before the monument of the murdered
brother, and hand in hand offered their prayer.
"Amen," and "Amen." The girl kissed the bust carved in stone. "You
forgive me, do you not, dear brother?" she said.
"How could I help forgiving you, my dear sister?" rang out a hoarse
voice from the depths, and with that the crypt door opened, and out
plunged Berezowski's armed force, and at their head the wronged
bridegroom with drawn sword. In the hand of Tihamer Csorbai too, the
sword suddenly flashed.
"Well, if you are no priest, I'll kill you on the spot," roared
Berezowski, raising his weapon for a heavy stroke; but Tihamer advanced
and struck him under the shoulder, so that his arm dropped. Berezowski
himself fell back on the floor without seeing the end of the struggle.
"Back underground again, you cowards!" shouted Tihamer, dealing deadly
blows at his assailants, who withdrew before his terrible anger toward
the crypt door. Just then, the church door opened and in rushed
Grazian's household of servants with torches and weapons; he himself
carried only his crutch in his hand.
"Here monk," he cried, "stand, parson, you Father Peter, tempter! You
shall be beaten down with a stick." And he rushed blindly toward him
with his crutch raised. Magdalene threw herself between the two.
"By all the saints! Father! Tihamer! Do not harm each other, trample
rather on me!"
"Out of the way!" growled her father, and with his foot he pushed aside
the maiden kneeling before him. Luckily for him, one of his own company
had thrown himself in the way, and received on his head the heavy sabre
cut that Tihamer had intended for the father. Two more servants fell
fatally wounded under the knight's grim strokes, and then his sword
broke off at the hilt. But this miserable pack of menials did not
conquer him: it was true he had no sword, but on the altar were great
candelabra in copper. He seized one of those, and struck such blows
right and left that soon his way was free before him. Whoever laid hold
of him was glad to let him go again. With one leap he was on the altar:
already was he in the altar frame, and behind him lay the secret
passage; he had only to open the oaken door and push the bolt, and he
was saved. But as he cast a glance from the altar down to the church
below, bright with the red light of the torches, he saw a sight that
held him riveted fast to the spot: he saw Grazian Likovay seize
Magdalene's long streaming hair, and drag the helpless maiden to the
church door.
This robbed him wholly of his senses; rage stifled every human thought
in his soul. He was now nothing but a wild beast--a lion robbed of his
lioness; roaring with anger, he sprang with one bound from the altar to
the floor; each hand was armed with the heavy candelabra, and with these
as clubs he threw himself on the pack of servants, crushing everything
before him in the way of human bones. Like Hercules in his Nessus-shirt,
he raged through the midst of the servants and forced his way to the
church door where Grazian was dragging his daughter by the hair. He
overtook the old man, and dealt a heavy blow at his head, but Grazian
caught it with his hand. Somebody from behind threw a cloak over
Tihamer's head, another made a plunge at his feet, and soon he was
overpowered, thrown down, and bound.