Hertha banged with her fist on the side of the boat. When she
commanded, she expected blind obedience. A few seconds later the little
implement, covered with rust, was thrown into her lap.
A sudden furious ardour came over her. With the unfastened lock still
in her hand, she tore the oar out of its old resting-place, and dug it
with all her strength deep in the morass, from which glittering bubbles
came gurgling to the surface. Poor Elly's lamentations died away
unheeded. The boat began slowly to break through the reeds and sedges,
and to drift up the stream.
Hertha calculated that if she kept to the calm shallows near the bank
and worked her way up to a point where she would have left the island a
hundred paces behind her, she might hope by skilful steering and even
with only one oar to master the current, and reach her goal by a
circuitous route.
When she saw that she was really making progress, she uttered a cry of
triumph, and worked on with yet hotter zeal.
Meanwhile Elly, like a motherless chicken, ran wildly up and down
amongst the reeds and rushes on the bank, getting her shoes stuck in
the slime, and falling over willow-stumps. She wrung her hands, and
implored Hertha to come back, but for answer was laughed to scorn.
But Hertha's Nemesis soon overtook her. The boat that unintentionally
she had launched into a whirling side-current began to turn round of
itself. For a few moments it stayed motionless, as if not sure what to
do next, then began to glide, at first slowly, and afterwards more and
more rapidly towards the valley. It passed the bathing-house and the
island, and descended gaily in mid-stream.
Elly saw how Hertha lost her grasp of the oar and threw it away, how
she spread out her arms, and called out some words quite
unintelligible, so that she did not know whether they meant triumph or
despair. She went back to her cart, sat down on the grass beside the
pony to await coming events, and wept.
Thus it happened that when supper was ready at Halewitz, neither of the
girls put in an appearance. Leo tried to laugh away his mother's
uneasiness, but at once ordered the mare to be resaddled, which stood
sweating in the stable, put a flask of brandy in his pocket, whistled
for his namesake, and started off two minutes later over the dewy
meadows to the river.
The thunderstorm, which had been threatening all day, had dispersed. A
crescent moon shone serenely in the blue and gold expanse of cloud. He
could not deny that he was anxious about the girls. Two such giddy
young creatures, it was true, might certainly lose themselves without
being in any particular danger. But Hertha had the devil in her, and
her escapades were generally serious. The dog, who had bounded on
before him, discovered the pony cart with a howl of joy. He was about
to give a sigh of relief, when he saw Elly was crouching on the ground
alone, bathed in tears. The reins slid from his hand, and the mare and
everything else seemed to spin round.
"Where is Hertha?" he burst forth.
His sister with a sob pointed to the stream.
He saw nothing but green and yellow sparks dancing before his eyes.
"Drowned?" he asked hoarsely.
She shook her head, but it was some time before he could get a clear
account of what had happened.
"Why did you not instantly make for home and fetch help?" he demanded,
his hand tightening on the bridle.
"You really mustn't shout at me like that, I am so awfully afraid of
you," was her plaintive reply, accompanied by one of her practised
glances from tear-filled eyes which would have melted a heart of stone.
He laughed, half annoyed, half mollified, and gave her orders to drive
home at express speed and tell the bailiff to send a conveyance with
servants and lanterns immediately to Newferry, the nearest village,
three-quarters of a mile away in the valley.
She climbed obediently into the cart, and he lashed his horse and tore
over stubble, marsh, and sedge into the dusk; his gaze fixed on the
stream, which, glowing and vapouring as if covered with burning petrol,
ran beside him on the other side of the reed-wall. Every sandbank and
every drifting plank stood out black and sharply defined from the fiery
gold channel beneath. Yet night was drawing on apace. In another
quarter of an hour even, it would be impossible to discern the little
craft, driven on noiselessly through the shadows. And from the side of
the reed-hedge a quarter of the stream's breadth was hidden from view
already. He drew up, and called her name through the silence. There was
no answer, except the barking of his hound, who had taken advantage of
the pause to go off on a hunt for birds' nests and nocturnal vermin
sneaking amongst the wheat and stubble.
He rested in his stirrups, and surveyed the landscape.
From this point the river could be seen for a quarter of a mile, but
there was not a sign of a boat upon it, for during the summer droughts
shipping was at a standstill, and what lighter craft might be about
sought a haven at nightfall in the little landing-places of the inns,
where the shrubs and woodwork protected them from the current.
He rode on.
The surface of the water became darker and darker, and his uneasiness
increased. If she spent the night on the mist-enveloped stream, sitting
in the little boat half-filled with water, she would probably catch her
death.
The bank which, so far, had sloped down to the reeds in slight
declivities, became lower here. A dyke made by human hands replaced the
natural one of boscage.
Now the prospect was more open, but this availed nothing, for the face
of the stream had become a monotonous dark blue. The moon had sunk, and
only the reflection of a star here and there trembled, softly gleaming
on the waters.
Once more his call rang out into the distance. Croaking frogs held
their tongues, and that was the only result. Here the outlying houses
of Newferry showed in black outline near the dyke. Two or three
mongrels rushed out of the yards, and set up a furious yapping, which
Leo the hound received in lofty silence, till they, growing more
impertinent, ventured to touch him. Then he seized them one after the
other by the back, and administered a sound shaking. There was a faint
whine, and all was still again. In the houses every one seemed to have
gone to bed. The inn itself lay dark and deserted. Nowhere did a boat
cast its shadow on the bank.
Nevertheless, he stopped and called her name across to the house. He
listened awhile, but no sound came except the renewed barking of the
dogs.
There would be time enough on his way back to wake the people of the
inn, if he had not found her before that. He resumed his gallop over
the loamy ground of the dyke, the black line of which uncoiled itself
like a serpent before him, and was lost in the bluish haze down-stream.
He passed more villages, two, three altogether, and met with the same
luck everywhere.
A cloud of steam rose from his horse's haunches, its head was sticky
from sweat, and great flecks of foam flew about from its snorting
nostrils. The dog's breath came in short, panting gasps, as if he too
apparently had begun to come to the end of his powers.
Leo calculated that he had ridden about two miles along the bank of the
river. Further than this it would be impossible for her to have reached
in the last four hours. Somewhere, then, within this compass she must
yet be afloat, if she was not making her way home to Halewitz. He sent
the dog into the reeds and began to ride back at a walking pace. The
late-summer night slowly spread its white damp veil over the landscape.
The crickets chirruped, and now and then there was a swish in the
water, as a water-rat shot out from the shore into the mirror-like
surface.
By the time he had reached Newferry again, he had given up the search,
and resolved to raise the alarm among the inhabitants. The conveyance
from Halewitz had not arrived, for the inn still lay in darkness and
silence.
He got off his horse, tied the bridle to the sunk fence over which
sunflowers poked their round faces, like night-capped women giving a
sleepy and sulky greeting. He stretched his limbs with a groan, for
they had become damp and stiff from riding through the mist.
He regarded the excitement of the last few hours almost in the light of
a blessing, for it had taken his mind off the one eternal thought that
had tormented it for weeks. Now, of a sudden, it came back and then was
gone again, like an arrow whizzing past the ear as a reminder from a
hidden enemy.
"When once I have found her," he thought, "I don't mind what I go
through into the bargain."
He would never have thought it possible that the strange young
creature, whose stony defiance and noisy, boisterous tricks had
alternately annoyed and amused him, could have become so dear to his
heart.
He walked with stiff legs in high riding-boots along the dark wooden
palings to the front door, on the stone threshold of which the dog,
stretched on all fours, was howling and scratching as if he wanted to
bore his way inside like a mole. The low door yielded to a push. He
stumbled down into a dark vestibule, but through the door beyond a fire
flickered brightly on the open hearth, and, lifting his eyes, he beheld
the lost girl standing before him illuminated by the flames.
She wore a short red gathered peasant's skirt, from beneath which her
naked feet shone forth. She held a coarse woollen crossover with her
thin brown arms tightly round her bosom. The short sleeves of a rough,
yellowish linen chemise of the kind that peasants spin themselves
showed under it. She stared aghast at the intruder, her face deadly
pale. The dog sprang up on her with a yelp of pleasure, but she did not
touch him.
"My dear, dear child," cried Leo, stretching his hands out to her in
unfeigned gladness, "I have found you. Thank God--found you."
The blood came rushing back into her cheeks, and she cast down her
eyes, but made no sign of taking the hands held out to her.