Debit and Credit Part 73

"Then I will go with you to the wood," said Lenore, resolutely.

"That is hardly necessary," replied Fink. "True, I fear no risk for you, but fatigue, and probably rain."

"Let me go with you!" prayed Lenore, looking up at him. "I have given you sensible advice; what more can be demanded from any one?"

"Between ourselves, I am rejoiced to find you so spirited. Gallop then, comrade!"

Arrived at Neudorf, Fink left the horses in the bailiff's stable, and led the band of villagers to the borders of the wood. There they deployed into a cordon, and the march now began; Fink walked with Lenore at the head of the right wing, which, according to the plan laid down, would be the first to join the Kunau detachment. All went silently onward, and looked with keen glance from tree to tree. As they got farther into the wood, there was a rustling in the tops of the trees, and looking through them, a leaden-colored sky was seen; but below, the sultriness was undisturbed, the birds sat supinely on the branches, and the beetles had crept into the heather.

"The very sky is on the side of these rogues," said Fink, pointing out the clouds to his companion; "it is getting so dark up there that in half an hour's time we shall not be able to see ten yards before us."

The forest now thickened and the light decreased. Lenore had some difficulty in discerning the men before her. The ground grew swampy, and she sank up to her ankles. "If only no cold be caught," laughed Fink.

"None will," replied she, cheerfully; but the forest expedition no longer appeared to her the easy matter it had done an hour before.

The man nearest to Fink stood still, his whispered word of command ran along the whole chain, and all stopped to wait for the Kunau men. The sky grew still blacker, the wood still darker. The thunder began to roll in the distance, hollow and m.u.f.fled, beneath the fir-wood arches. At first the rain sounded only on the tree-tops, but soon large, heavy drops came down, till at length all view was shut out by the sheets of water that fell. Each individual was isolated by darkness and rain, and when the men called to each other, they were hardly audible.

At that moment Lenore, as she looked at Fink, caught her foot in the root of a tree, and suppressing a cry of anguish, sank on one knee. Fink hastened to her.

"I can go no farther," said she, conquering her pain; "leave me here, I beseech you, and call for me on your return."

"To leave you in this condition," cried Fink, "would be barbarity, compared to which cannibalism is a harmless recreation. You will be good enough to put up with my proximity. But first of all allow me to lead you out of this shower-bath to some spot where the rain is less audacious; and, besides, I have, already lost sight of our men; not one of the worthy fellows' broad shoulders can I now discern." He raised Lenore, who tried to use the injured foot, but the pain extorted another cry of agony. She tottered, and leaned against Fink's shoulder. Winding his plaid about her, he lifted her from the ground, and carried her, as one carries a child, underneath some fir-trees, whose thick branches spread over a small dry s.p.a.ce. Any one stooping might find tolerable shelter there.

"I must set you down here, dear lady," said Fink, carefully placing Lenore on the ground. "I will keep watch before your green tent, and turn my back to you, that you may bind your wet handkerchief round the naughty ankle."

Lenore squeezed herself in under the fir canopy. Fink stood leaning against the trunk of a tree.

"Is nothing broken?" said he; "can you move the foot?"

"It hurts me," said Lenore, "but I can move it."

"That is well," said Fink, looking straight before him; "now bind the handkerchief round it; I hope that in ten minutes you will be able to stand. Wrap yourself up well in the large plaid; it will keep you warm; else my comrade will catch a fever, and that would be paying too dear for the chase after the stolen calf. Have you arranged the bandage?"

"Yes," said Lenore.

"Then allow me to wrap you up." It was in vain that she protested; Fink wound the large shawl round and round her, and tied it behind in a firm knot. "Now you may sit in the wood like the gray manikin."

"Leave me a little breathing s.p.a.ce," implored Lenore.

"There, then," said Fink; "now you will be comfortable."

Indeed, Lenore soon began to feel a genial warmth, and sat silent in her shady nook, distressed at the singular position in which she found herself. Meanwhile Fink had again taken up his post against the tree-trunk, and chivalrously kept aloof. After a time Lenore called out of her hiding-place, "Are you there still, comrade mine?"

"Do you take me for a traitor who forsakes his tent-companion?" returned Fink.

"It is quite dry here," continued Lenore, "only that a drop falls now and then upon my nose; but you, poor you, will be wet through out there.

What fearful rain!"

"Does this rain terrify you?" inquired Fink, shrugging his shoulders.

"It is but a weak infant, this. If it can break off a twig from a tree, it thinks it has done wonders. Commend me to the rain of warmer climates. Drops like apples--nay, not drops at all, streams as thick as my arm! The water rushes down from the clouds like a cataract. No standing, for the ground swims away beneath one's feet: no taking shelter under a tree, for the wind breaks the thickest trunks like straw. One runs to his house, which is not farther off, perhaps, than from here to that good for nothing stump that hurt your foot, and the house has vanished, leaving in its place a hole, a stream, and a heap of well-washed stones. Perhaps, too, the earth may begin to shake a little, and to raise waves like those of the sea in a storm. That is a rain which is worth seeing. Clothes that have been wet through by it never recover; what was once a great-coat is, after a whole week's drying, nothing more than a black and shapeless ma.s.s--in aspect and texture like to a morel. If one chances to be wearing such a coat, it sticks on fast enough indeed, but it never can be got off except by the help of a penknife, and in narrow strips, peeled away as one peels an apple!"

Lenore could not help laughing in spite of pain. "I should much like to have experience of such a rain as that," said she.

"I am unselfish in not wishing to see you in such a plight," replied Fink. "Ladies fare worst of all. All that const.i.tutes their toilette vanishes entirely in torrents such as these. Do you know the costume of the Venus of Milo?"

"No," said Lenore, distressed.

"All women caught in a tropical rain look exactly like that lady, and the men like scarecrows. Nay, sometimes it happens that human beings are beaten down flat as penny-pieces, with a k.n.o.b in the middle, which, on closer examination, proves to be a human head, and mournfully calls out to pa.s.sers-by, 'Oh, my fellow-beings, this is what comes of going out without an umbrella!'"

Again Lenore could not help laughing. "My foot no longer hurts me so much; I believe that I could walk."

"That you shall not do," replied Fink. "The rain has not abated, and it is so dark that one can hardly see one's outstretched hand."

"Then do me the kindness of going to look for the others. I am better now, and I crouch here like a roe, hidden alike from rain and robbers."

"It won't do," rejoined Fink from his tree.

"I implore you to do so," cried Lenore, anxiously, stretching out her hands from the plaid. "Leave me now alone." Fink turned round, seized her hand, pressed it to his lips, and silently hurried off in the direction the men had taken.

Lenore now sat alone beneath the fir-tree. The rain still rushed down, and the thunder rolled above her, and at times a sudden flash showed her the two long rows of trunks, looking like the yellow pillars of an unfinished building, a black roof over them. At such moments the forest seemed like an enchanted castle, rising out of the earth and sinking into nothingness again. Mysterious tones, such as fill the woods by night, sounded through the rain. Over her head there was a knocking at regular intervals, as if some wicked wood-sprite were seeking admittance to her shelter, which made her start, and ask herself whether it proceeded from a spectre or the branch of a tree. Farther off was heard the vehement croaking of some crow whose nest had been flooded, and whose first sleep was disturbed. Close to her there was ghastly laughter. "Hee, hee! hoo, hoo!" and again Lenore started. Was it a malicious forest kobold, or only a night-owl? Nature spoke around her in a hundred melancholy tones. Lenore sometimes enjoyed, and sometimes trembled at the wild charm of this solitude. Other thoughts, too, pa.s.sed through her mind: she blamed herself for having foolishly stolen out to join an undertaking that made such a result as this possible; she pictured to herself how they were seeking for her at home; and, above all, wondered what he who had just left her, at her earnest request, was thinking of her in his inmost heart. Pushing back the plaid, she listened, but there was not a human voice to be heard; nothing but the fall of the rain and the sighing of the wood. But near her something moved. At first she heard it indistinctly, then plainly as in leaps it came closer, and presently she felt something press against her plaid.

Terrified, she cautiously reached out her hand, and touched the wet skin of a hare, who, scared from its form by the incessant rain, now sought shelter like herself. She held her breath not to disturb her little companion, and for a while the two cowered side by side.

Then shots sounded afar off through the rain and thunder. Lenore started, and the hare bounded away. Yonder there were men fighting; yonder, blood was being poured out on the dark ground. A scream was heard--a fierce, ominous scream, then all was still. "Was he in danger?"

she asked herself; yet she felt no fear, and shook her head under her plaid, sure that, even if he were, no danger would reach him: the gun aimed at him would strike some broken branch, the knife drawn against him would break like a splinter before it struck him, the man who rushed on him would stumble and fall before he could touch that haughty head.

He was above all danger, above all fear; he knew neither care nor grief; alas! he did not feel like other men. His head was lifted freely, his eyes were clear and bright when all others were cast in terror down to earth. No difficulty affrighted, no hinderance stopped him. With a mere wave of his hand he could remove what crushed other men. Such was he.

And this man had seen her weak, precipitate, and helpless; it was her own fault that he had now a right to a.s.sume a transient intimacy. She trembled lest he should presume upon this right by a glance, a presumptuous smile, a pa.s.sing word. In this way her heart kept beating and her thoughts fluttering for long hours.

The storm pa.s.sed off. Instead of torrents there was small rain, and a dull gray succeeded to the black darkness and the fiery flashes. Lenore could now trace the trunk of the nearest trees. The feeling of solitariness oppressed her more and more. Just then she heard again the distant sound of human voices, call and counter-call grew louder, and the bailiff's voice cried, "They went beyond the quarry; look yonder, you Neudorf men." The steps of the speakers drew near, and Karl, making a speaking trumpet of his hands, shouted with all his might, "Halloa, hillo hoa, Fraulein Lenore!"

"Here I am," cried a female voice at his very feet.

Karl started back in amazement, and joyfully called out, "Found!" The peasants surrounded Lenore's shelter.

"Our young lady is here!" cried a youth of Neudorf, and hurraed in his delight as though he were at a wedding.

Lenore rose; her foot still pained her; but, leaning on Karl's arm, she exerted herself bravely to walk. Meanwhile the young men broke down a few poles, and laid fir branches across them. In spite of her resistance, Lenore was constrained to seat herself upon the rude litter, while some ran on to the bailiff's stable to get her horse ready for her.

"Have you found the thieves?" inquired Lenore from Karl, who walked at her side.

"Two of them," replied he. "The calf had been killed; we have got its skin and part of its flesh. The geese were hanging up on a bough, with their necks wrung, but the rascals had divided the money. We found very little of it on our prisoners."

"Those we have caught are Tarow men," said the bailiff, anxiously; "the worst in the village. And yet I wish they were any where but here, for there are some desperately revengeful fellows yonder."

"I heard shots," inquired Lenore, further; "was any harm done?"

"Not to us," answered Karl. "In their foolhardiness they made a fire, not much beyond the border where our riders formed a cordon. The embers were glimmering in spite of the rain, and thus they betrayed themselves. We dismounted, crept near, and surprised them. They fired their guns and ran into the bush. There the darkness swallowed them up.

It was a long time before the party on foot could join us, and but for the shots and the noise they would never have found us out. Herr von Fink described to us the place where we should meet with you. He is taking the prisoners with him to the estate, and to-morrow we will send them farther."

"But to think that Herr von Fink should have left you thus alone in the wood!" said the worthy bailiff: "that was a bold stroke indeed."