“My friends, Jonas, Norbith, what matters it if Kennybol is late? There
are enough of us; we need fear nothing. Did you find your standards at
Crag ruins?”
“Yes, Mr. Hacket,” replied several voices.
“Well, raise your banners; it is high time! Here is gold! Here is your
invincible chief! Courage! March to the rescue of the noble Schumacker,
the unfortunate Count Griffenfeld!”
“Hurrah! hurrah for Schumacker!” repeated many voices; and the name of
Schumacker echoed and re-echoed from the subterranean arches.
Ordener, more and more curious, more and more amazed, listened, hardly
daring to breathe. He could neither believe nor understand what he
heard. Schumacker connected with Kennybol and Hans of Iceland! What was
this dark drama, one scene in which he, an unsuspected spectator, had
witnessed? Whose life did they wish to shield? Whose head was at stake?
“In me,” continued the same voice, “you see the friend and confidant of
the noble Count Griffenfeld.”
The voice was wholly unfamiliar to Ordener. It went on: “Put implicit
trust in me, as he does. Friends, everything is in your favor; you will
reach Throndhjem without meeting an enemy.”
“Let us be off, Mr. Hacket,” interrupted a voice. “Peters told me that
he saw the whole regiment from Munkholm marching through the
mountain-passes to attack us.”
“He deceived you,” replied the other, in authoritative tones. “The
government as yet knows nothing of your revolt, and it is so wholly
unsuspicious that the man who rejected your just complaints--your
oppressor, the oppressor of the illustrious and unfortunate Schumacker,
General Levin de Knud--has left Throndhjem for the capital, to join in
the festivities on the occasion of the marriage of his ward, Ordener
Guldenlew, and Ulrica d’Ahlefeld.”
Ordener’s feelings may be imagined. To hear all these names which
interested him so deeply, and even his own, uttered by unknown voices in
this wild, desolate region, in this mysterious tunnel! A frightful
thought pierced his soul. Could it be true? Was it indeed an agent of
Count Griffenfeld whose voice he heard? What! could Schumacker, that
venerable old man, his noble Ethel’s noble father, revolt against his
royal master, hire brigands, and kindle a civil war? And it was for this
hypocrite, this rebel, that he, the son of the Norwegian viceroy, the
pupil of General Levin, had compromised his future and risked his life!
It was for his sake that he had sought and fought with that Iceland
bandit with whom Schumacker seemed to be in league, since he placed him
at the head of these scoundrels! Who knows but that casket for which he,
Ordener, was on the point of shedding his lifeblood, contained some of
the base secrets of this vile plot? Or had the revengeful prisoner of
Munkholm made a fool of him? Perhaps he had found out his name;
perhaps--and this thought was painful indeed to the generous youth--he
wished to ruin the son of an enemy by urging him to this fatal journey!
Alas! when we have long loved and revered the name of an unfortunate
man, when in our secret soul we have vowed everlasting devotion to his
misfortunes, it is bitter to be repaid with ingratitude, to feel that we
are forever disenchanted with generosity, and that we must renounce the
pure, sweet joys of loyal self-sacrifice. We grow old in an instant with
the most melancholy form of old age; we grow old in experience, and we
lose the most beautiful illusion of a life whose only beauty lies in its
illusions.
Such were the dispiriting thoughts that crowded confusedly upon
Ordener’s mind. The noble youth longed to die at that instant; he felt
that his happiness had vanished. True, there were many things in the
assertions of the man who described himself as Griffenfeld’s envoy which
struck him as false or doubtful; but these statements, being only meant
to deceive a set of poor rustics, Schumacker was but the more guilty in
his eyes; and this same Schumacker was his Ethel’s father!
These reflections agitated him the more violently because they all
thronged upon him at once. He reeled against the rounds of the ladder on
which he stood, and listened still; for we sometimes wait with
inexplicable impatience and fearful eagerness for the misfortunes which
we dread the most.
“Yes,” added the voice of the envoy, “you are to be commanded by the
much-dreaded Hans of Iceland. Who will dare resist you? You fight for
your wives and your children, basely despoiled of their inheritance; for
a noble and unfortunate man, who for twenty years has languished
unjustly in an infamous prison. Come, for Schumacker and liberty await
you. Death to tyrants!”
“Death!” repeated a thousand voices; and the clash of arms rang through
the winding cave, mingled with the hoarse note of the mountaineer’s
horn.
“Stop!” cried Ordener.
He hurriedly descended the remainder of the ladder; for the idea that he
might save Schumacker from committing a crime and spare his country
untold misery had taken entire possession of him. But as he stood at the
mouth of the cave, fear lest he might destroy his Ethel’s father, and
perhaps his Ethel herself, by rash invectives, took the place of every
other consideration, and he remained rooted to the spot, pale, and
casting an amazed glance at the singular scene before him.
It was like a vast square in some underground city, whose limits were
lost amid endless columns supporting the vaulted roof. These pillars
glittered like crystal in the rays of countless torches borne by a
multitude of men, armed with strange weapons, and scattered in confusion
about the cave. From all these points of light and all these fearful
figures straying among the shadows, it might have passed for one of the
legendary gatherings described by ancient chroniclers,--an assembly of
wizards and demons, bearing stars for torches, and illuminating antique
groves and ruined castles by night.
A prolonged shout arose.
“A stranger! Kill him! kill him!”
A hundred arms were raised to strike Ordener down. He put his hand to
his side in search of his sword Noble youth! In his generous ardor he
had forgotten that he was alone and unarmed.
“Stay! stay!” cried a voice,--the voice of one whom Ordener recognized
as Schumacker’s envoy.
He was a short, stout man, dressed in black, with a deceitful smile. He
advanced toward Ordener, saying: “Who are you?”
Ordener made no answer; he was threatened on every side, and there was
not an inch of his breast uncovered by a sword-point or the mouth of a
pistol.
“Are you afraid?” asked the little man, with a sneer.
“If your hand were upon my heart, instead of these swords,” coldly
answered Ordener, “you would see that it beats no faster than your own,
if indeed you have a heart.”
“Ah, ha!” said the little man; “so you defy us! Well, then let him die!”
And he turned his back.
“Give me death,” returned Ordener; “it is the only thing that I would
accept from you.”
“One moment, Mr. Hacket,” said an old man, with a thick beard, who stood
leaning on a long musket. “You are my guests, and I alone have the right
to send this fellow to tell the dead what he has seen.”
Mr. Hacket laughed.
“Faith, my dear Jonas, let it be as you please! It matters little to me
who judges this spy, so long as he is condemned.”
The old man turned to Ordener.
“Come, tell us who you are, since you are so boldly curious to know who
we are.”
Ordener was silent. Surrounded by the strange allies of that Schumacker
for whom he would so willingly have shed his blood, he felt only an
infinite longing to die.
“His worship will not answer,” said the old man. “When the fox is
caught, he cries no more. Kill him!”
“My brave Jonas,” rejoined Hacket, “let this man’s death be Hans of
Iceland’s first exploit among you.”
“Yes, yes!” cried many voices.
Ordener, astounded, but still undaunted, looked about him for Hans of
Iceland, with whom he had so valiantly disputed his life that very
morning, and saw with increased surprise a man of colossal size, dressed
in the garb of the mountaineers. This giant stared at Ordener with
brutal stupidity, and called for an axe.
“You are not Hans of Iceland!” emphatically exclaimed Ordener.
“Kill him! kill him!” cried Hacket, angrily.
Ordener saw that he must die. He put his hand in his bosom to draw out
his Ethel’s hair and give it one last kiss. As he did so, a paper fell
from his belt.
“What is that paper?” asked Hacket. “Norbith, seize that paper.”
Norbith was a young man, whose stern, dark features bore the stamp of
true nobility. He picked up the paper and unfolded it. “Good God!” he
exclaimed, “it is the passport of my poor friend, Christopher Nedlam,
that unfortunate fellow who was beheaded not a week ago in Skongen
market-place, for coining counterfeit money.”
“Well,” said Hacket, in a disappointed tone, “you may keep the bit of
paper. I thought it was something more important. Come, my dear Hans,
despatch your man.”
Young Norbith threw himself before Ordener, crying: “This man is under
my protection. My head shall fall before you touch a hair of his. I
will not suffer the safe-conduct of my friend Christopher Nedlam to be
violated.”
Ordener, so miraculously preserved, hung his head and felt humiliated;
for he remembered how contemptuously he had inwardly received Chaplain
Athanasius Munder’s touching prayer,--“May the gift of the dying benefit
the traveller!”
“Pooh! pooh!” said Hacket, “you talk nonsense, good Norbith. The man is
a spy; he must die.”
“Give me my axe,” repeated the giant.
“He shall not die!” cried Norbith. “What would the spirit of my poor
Nedlam say, whom they hung in such cowardly fashion? I tell you he shall
not die; for Nedlam will not let him die!”
“As far as that goes,” said old Jonas, “Norbith is right. Why should we
kill this stranger, Mr. Hacket? He has Christopher Nedlam’s pass.”
“But he is a spy, a spy!” repeated Hacket.
The old man took his stand with the young one at Ordener’s side, and
both said quietly: “He has the pass of Christopher Nedlam, who was hung
at Skongen.”
Hacket saw that he must needs submit; for all the others began to
murmur, and to say that this stranger should not die, as he had the
safe-conduct of Nedlam the counterfeiter.
“Very well,” he hissed through his teeth with concentrated rage; “then
let him live. After all, it is your business, and not mine.”
“If he were the Devil himself I would not kill him,” said the triumphant
Norbith.
With these words he turned to Ordener.
“Look here,” he added, “you must be a good fellow as you have my poor
friend Nedlam’s pass. We are the royal miners. We have rebelled to rid
ourselves of the protectorate of the Crown. Mr. Hacket, here, says that
we have taken up arms for a certain Count Schumacker; but I for one know
nothing about him. Stranger, our cause is just. Hear me, and answer as
if you were answering your patron saint. Will you join us?”
An idea flashed through Ordener’s mind.
“Yes,” replied he.
Norbith offered him a sword, which Ordener silently accepted.
“Brother,” said the youthful leader; “if you mean to betray us, begin by
killing me.”
At this instant the sound of the horn rang through the arched galleries
of the mine, and distant voices were heard exclaiming, “Here comes
Kennybol!”