RETRIBUTION
Carriage after carriage drove from Edeldorf to the foot of the
Waldenberg, and deposited its living freight in a picturesque gorge or
cleft of the mountain, where the only road practicable for wheels and
axles terminated, and whence the sportsman, however luxurious, must be
content to perform the remainder of his journey on foot. A hearty
welcome and a sumptuous breakfast at the Castle had commenced the day's
proceedings; but Madame de Rohan had kept her room on the plea of
indisposition, and the only ladies of the party were the Princess and
Countess Valerie. Victor was in unusual spirits, a strange, wild
happiness lighted up his eye, and spread a halo over his features; but
he was absent and preoccupied at intervals, and his inconsequent answers
and air of distraction more than once elicited marks of undisguised
astonishment from his guests. The Princess was more subdued in manner
than her wont. I watched the two with a painful interest, all the
keener that my opportunity had not yet arrived, and that the confidence
in my own powers, which had supported me the previous evening, was now
rapidly deserting me, as I reflected on the violence of my friend's
fatal attachment, and the character of her who was his destiny. If I
should fail in persuading him, as was more than probable, what would be
the result? What ought I to do next? I had assumed a fearful
responsibility, yet I determined not to shrink from it. Valerie was gay
and good-humoured as usual. It had been arranged that the two ladies
should accompany the sportsmen to the trysting-place at the foot of the
mountain, and then return to the Castle. The plan originated with
Valerie, who thus, enjoyed more of her lover's society. Nor did it meet
with the slightest opposition from Victor, who, contrary to his usual
custom of riding on horseback to the mountain, starting after all his
guests were gone, and then galloping at speed to overtake them, had
shown no disinclination to make a fourth in his own barouche, the other
three places being occupied by an Austrian grandee and Prince and
Princess Vocqsal. Had he adhered to his usual custom, the Zingynie
would have met him before he reached the lodge. English thorough-bred
horses, harnessed to carriages of Vienna build, none of them being drawn
by less than four, make light of distance, and it seemed but a short
drive to more than one couple of our party, when we reached the spot at
which our day's sport was likely to commence.
A merry, chattering, laughing group we were. On a level piece of
greensward, overshadowed by a few gigantic fir-trees, and backed by the
bluff rise of the copse-clothed mountain, lounged the little band of
gentlemen for whose amusement all the preparations had been made, whose
accuracy of eye and readiness of finger were that day to be tested by
the downfall of bear and wolf, deer and wild-boar, not to mention such
ignoble game as partridges, woodcocks, quail, and water-fowl, or such
inferior vermin as hawk and buzzard, marten and wild-cat, all of which
denizens of the wilderness were to be found in plenty on the Waldenberg.
A picturesque assemblage it was, consisting as it did of nearly a score
of the first noblemen in Hungary--men who bore the impress of their
stainless birth not only in chivalry of bearing and frank courtesy of
manner, but in the handsome faces and stately frames that had come down
to them direct from those mailed ancestors whose boast it used to be
that they were the advanced guard of Germany and the very bulwarks of
Christendom. As I looked around on their happy, smiling faces, and
graceful, energetic forms, my blood ran cold to think how the lightest
whisper of one frail woman might bring every one of those noble heads to
the block; how, had she indeed been more or less than woman, a cross
would even now be attached to every one of those time-honoured names on
that fatal list which knows neither pity nor remorse. And when I looked
from those unconscious men to the fair arbitress of their fate, with her
little French bonnet and coquettish dress, with her heightened colour
and glossy hair, I thought, if the history of the world were ever
_really_ laid bare, what a strange history it would be, and how unworthy
we should find had been the motives of some of the noblest actions, how
paltry the agency by which some of the greatest convulsions on record
had been effected.
She was fastening Victor's powder-horn more securely to its string, and
I remarked that her fingers trembled in the performance of that simple
office. She looked wistfully after him, too, as he waved his hat to bid
her adieu, and stood up in the carriage to watch our ascending party
long after she had started on her homeward journey. She who was
generally so proud, so undemonstrative, so careful not to commit herself
by word or deed! could it have been a presentiment? I felt angry with
her then; alas! alas! my anger had passed away long before the sun went
down.
"Help me to place the guns, Vere," said Victor in his cheerful,
affectionate voice, as we toiled together up the mountain-side, and
reached the first pass at which it would be necessary to station a
sportsman, well armed with rifle and smooth-bore, to be ready for
whatever might come. "I can depend upon _you_, for I know your
shooting; so I shall put you above the waterfall. Vocqsal and I will
take the two corners just below; and if there is an old boar in the
Waldenberg, he _must_ come to one of us. I expect a famous day's sport,
if we manage it well. I used to say '_Vive la guerre_,' Vere--don't you
remember?--but it's '_Vive la chasse_' now, and has been for a long time
with me."
He looked so happy; he was so full of life and spirits, I could not help
agreeing with his head forester, a tall, stalwart Hungarian, who
followed him about like his shadow, when he muttered, "It does one good
to see the Count when he gets on the mountain. He is like _himself_
now."
Meanwhile the beaters, collected from the neighbouring peasantry, and
who had been all the previous day gradually contracting the large circle
they had made, so as to bring every head of game, and indeed every
living thing, from many a mile round, within the range of our fire-arms,
might be heard drawing nearer and nearer, their shrill voices and
discordant shouts breaking wildly on the silence of the forest, hitherto
uninterrupted, save by the soft whisper of the breeze, or the soothing
murmur of the distant waterfall. Like the hunter when he hears the note
of a hound, and erects his ears, and snorts and trembles with
excitement, I could see many of my fellow-sportsmen change colour and
fidget upon their posts; for well they knew that long before the
beater's cry smites upon the ear it is time to expect the light-bounding
gambol of the deer, the stealthy gallop of the wolf, the awkward advance
of the bear, or the blundering rush of the fierce wild-boar himself; and
as they were keen and experienced sportsmen, heart and soul in the
business of the day, their quick glances and eager attitudes showed that
each was determined no inattention on his own part should baulk him of
his prey.
One by one Victor placed them in their respective situations, with a
jest and a kind word and a cordial smile for each. Many a hearty friend
remarked that day how Count de Rohan's voice was gayer, his manner even
more fascinating than usual, his whole bearing more full of energy and
happiness and a thorough enjoyment of life.
At last he had placed them, all but Ropsley and myself, and there was no
time to be lost, for the cry of the beaters came louder and louder on
the breeze; and already a scared buzzard or two, shooting rapidly over
our heads, showed that our neighbourhood was disturbed, and the game of
every description must ere long be on foot.
"Take the Guardsman above the waterfall, Vere, and put him by the old
oak-tree," said Victor, fanning his brow with his hat after his
exertions. "He can command both the passes from there, and get shooting
enough to remind him of Sebastopol. You take the glade at the foot of
the bare rock. Keep well under cover. I have seen two boars there
already this season. I shall stay here opposite the Prince. Halloa!
Vocqsal, where are you?"
"Here," replied that worthy, from the opposite side of the torrent,
where he had ensconced himself in a secure and secret nook, commanding
right and left an uninterrupted view of two long narrow vistas in the
forest, and promising to afford an excellent position for the use of
that heavy double-barrelled rifle which he handled with a skill and
precision the result of many a year's practice and many a triumphant
_coup_.
Unlike the younger sportsmen, Prince Vocqsal's movements were marked by
a coolness and confidence which was of itself sufficient to predicate
success. He had taken off the resplendent wig which adorned his
"imperial front" immediately on the departure of the ladies, and
transferred it to the capacious pockets of a magnificent green velvet
shooting-coat, rich in gold embroidery and filagree buttons of the same
precious metal. Its place was supplied by a black skull-cap, surmounted
by a wide-brimmed, low hat. On the branches of the huge old tree under
which he was stationed he had hung his powder-horn, loading-rod, and
shooting apparatus generally, in such positions as to ensure
replenishing his trusty rifle with the utmost rapidity; and taking a
hunting-knife from his belt, he had stuck it, like a Scottish
Highlander, in his right boot. Since his famous encounter with the bear
at this very spot, the Prince always liked to wear his "best friend," as
he called it, in that place. These arrangements being concluded to his
own satisfaction, he took a goodly-sized hunting-flask from his pocket,
and, after a hearty pull at its contents, wiped his moustache, and
looked about him with the air of a man who had made himself thoroughly
comfortable, and was prepared for any emergency.
"Here I am, Victor," he shouted once more, "established _en
factionnaire_. Don't shoot point-blank this way, and keep perfectly
quiet after you hear the action has commenced."
Victor laughingly promised compliance, and Ropsley and I betook
ourselves, with all the haste we could make, to our respective posts.
It was a steep, though not a long climb, and we had little breath to
spare for conversation. Yet it seemed that something more than the
exhausting nature of our exercise sealed our lips and checked our free
interchange of thought. There was evidently something on Ropsley's
mind; and he, too, appeared aware that there was a burden on mine. It
was not till I reached the old oak-tree at which he was to be stationed,
and was about to leave him for my own place, that he made the slightest
remark. Then he only said--
"Vere, what's the matter with De Rohan? There's something very queer
about him to-day; have you not observed it."
I made some excuse about his keen zest for field-sports, and his
hospitable anxiety that his guests should enjoy their share of the day's
amusement, but the weight at my heart belied my commonplace words, and
when I reached the station assigned me I sank down on the turf oppressed
and crushed by a foreboding of some sudden and dreadful evil.
Soon a shot afar off at the extreme edge of the wood warned me that the
sport had commenced; another and yet another followed in rapid
succession. Branches began to rustle and dry twigs to crack as the
larger game moved onwards to the centre of the fatal circle. A fine
brown bear came shambling clumsily along within twenty yards of my post;
I hit him in the shoulder, and, watching him as he went on to mark if my
ball had taken effect, saw him roll over and over down the steep
mountain-side, at the same moment that the crack of Ropsley's unerring
rifle reached my ear, and a light puff of smoke from the same weapon
curled and clung around the fir-trees above his hiding-place. A "Bravo"
of encouragement sprang to my lips, but I checked it as it rose, for at
that instant an enormous wild-boar emerged from the covert in front of
me; he was trotting along leisurely enough, and with an undignified and
ungraceful movement sufficiently ludicrous, but his quick eye must have
caught the gleam of my rifle ere I could level it, for he stopped dead
short, turned aside with an angry grunt, and dashed furiously down the
hill towards the waterfall. "Boar forward!" shouted I, preparing to
follow the animal, but in a few moments a shot rang sharply through the
woodlands, succeeded instantaneously by another, and then a scream--a
long, full, wild, ear-piercing scream! and then the ghastly, awful
silence that seems to tell so much. I knew it all long before I reached
him, and yet of those few minutes I have no distinct recollection.
There was a group of tall figures looking down; a confused mass of
rifles, powder-horns, and shooting-gear; a hunting-flask lying white and
glittering on the green turf; and an old woman with a bright crimson
handkerchief kneeling over _something_ on the ground. Every one made
way for me to pass, they seemed to treat me with a strange, awe-stricken
respect--perhaps they knew I was his friend--his oldest friend--and
there he lay, the brave, the bright, the beautiful, stretched at his
length, stone dead on the cold earth, shot through the heart--by whom?
by Prince Vocqsal.
I might have known there was no hope. I had heard such screams before
cleaving the roar of battle--death shrieks that are only forced from man
when the leaden messenger has reached the very well-spring of his life.
I need not have taken the cold clammy hand in mine, and opened his
dress, and looked with my own eyes upon the blue livid mark. It was all
over; there was no more hope for him than for the dead who have lain a
hundred years in the grave. This morning he was Count de Rohan; Victor
de Rohan, my dear old friend. I thought of him a merry, blue-eyed
child, and then I wept; and my head got better, and so I learned by
degrees what had happened.
[Illustration: "I might have known there was no hope. _The Interpreter_
_Page 418_]
The boar had dashed down at speed towards the waterfall He had crossed
the range of Count de Rohan's rifle, but the Count--and on this fact the
forester laid great stress--the Count had missed his aim, and the animal
almost instantaneously turned towards Prince Vocqsal. The Prince's
rifle rang clear and true; with his usual cool precision he had waited
until the quarry was far past the line of his friend's ambush, and had
pulled the trigger in perfect confidence as to the result. He, too, had
failed for once in the very act of skill on which he so prided himself.
His ball missing the game had struck against the hard knot of an old
tree beyond it, and glancing thence almost at right angles, had lodged
in poor Victor's heart at the very moment when the exhausted Zingynie,
staggering with fatigue, had reached his post, murmuring a few hoarse
words of warning, and an entreaty to abandon the sport only for that
day. As he turned to greet her, the fatal messenger arrived, and with a
convulsive bound into the air, and one loud scream, he fell dead at her
feet.
Old Prince Vocqsal seemed utterly stupefied. He could neither be
prevailed upon to quit the body, nor did it seem possible to make him
comprehend exactly what had happened, and the share which he had himself
borne so unwittingly in the dreadful catastrophe. The Zingynie, on the
contrary, although pale as death, was composed and almost majestic in
her grief. To her it was the fulfilment of a prophecy--the course of
that destiny which is not to be checked nor stayed. As she followed the
body, with head erect and measured tread, she looked neither to right
nor left, but her black eyes flashed with awful brilliance as she
fastened the dilated orbs on what had once been Victor de Rohan, and
murmured in a low chant words which I now remembered, for the first
time, to have heard many years before, words of which I now knew too
well the gloomy significance. "Birth and Burial--Birth and
Burial--Beware of St. Hubert's Day!"
So we bore him down to Edeldorf, slowly, solemnly, as we bear one to his
last resting-place. Down the beautiful mountain-side, with its russet
copsewood, and its fine old oaks, and its brilliant clothing of autumnal
beauty; down the white sandy road between the vine-gardens, with their
lightsome foliage and their clusters of blushing grapes, and the buxom
peasant-women, and ruddy, happy children, even now so gay and noisy, but
hushed and horror-bound as they stopped to look and learn; down across
the long level plain, where the flocks were feeding securely, and the
cattle stood dreamily, and clouds of insects danced and hovered in the
beams of an afternoon sun. Slowly, solemnly, we wound across the plain;
slowly, solemnly, we reached the wide park-gates. A crowd of mourners,
gathering as we went, followed eager and silent in the rear. Slowly,
solemnly, we filed up the long avenue between the acacias, bearing the
lord of that proud domain, the last of the De Rohans, to his ancestral
home.
Two ladies were walking in the garden as we approached the house; I
caught sight of their white dresses before they had themselves perceived
our ghastly train. They were Constance de Rohan, and Rose, Princess
Vocqsal.
There was deep and holy mourning, there were bitter scalding tears that
night in the Castle of Edeldorf. On the morrow, when the sun rose,
there was one broken heart within its walls.