Hammer and Anvil Part 22

He let me fairly drag him a few steps. Then suddenly he seemed to awake as from a dream, and with his old voice and old manner said to me:

"How the devil did you come by this? Off with it!" and he flung down violently the pack from my shoulders.

"I have carried it the whole way," I murmured.

"Shameful!" he muttered; "shameful! But it all comes from---- My poor boy! my poor boy!"

The effect of the spirits he had drunk, to deaden as far as possible his feelings of shame, had entirely pa.s.sed away. He was again all that he could be at his best moments, and at once my old love for him returned. My heart began to throb with emotion. I was again ready to give my life for him.

"Let us make haste," I said, seizing his cold hand. "It is high time, by heaven!"

"They will not venture any further up here," he replied, "even if they have a guide. One man cannot guide them all. But there is treachery at work. Did you not say something of the sort to me?"

"Yes; and the traitors are Pinnow and Jock Swart."

"Jock was the very one that advised this route."

"Exactly."

"And the villain was the first one to make off."

"He was in haste to join his new friends."

We thus spoke in short detached sentences, while we hurried almost at a run over the open s.p.a.ce, where the darkness, which was now intense, offered the only security--but an ample one, it is true--against pursuit. A light rain began to fall; we literally could hardly see our hands before our faces. Nothing was to be seen or heard of our pursuers.

"The blundering dolts came too late," said Herr von Zehren; "they clearly planned to catch us on the narrow path. If our rascals had not run off, we might now go on comfortably."

"We cannot go back to Zehrendorf," I said.

"Why not?"

"If Jock Swart has betrayed us, as I would take my oath he has, they will certainly search Zehrendorf."

"Let them try it once," cried the Wild Zehren; "I will send them home with broken heads. No, no; they will not venture that, or they would have tried it long ago. At Zehrendorf we are as safe as in Abraham's bosom."

Just as he said these words there was a sudden gleam of light in the distance ahead of us, like a faint flash of lightning. Before I could frame any conjecture as to its cause, it flashed out once more, this time more vividly, and not vanishing again. The light increased every moment, rising higher and higher against the black sky with a steadily widening glare.

"Trantowitz is on fire!" cried Herr von Zehren.

It was not Trantowitz; it could not be Trantowitz, that lay further to the left and much lower. At Trantowitz there were not the lofty trees whose summits I could now distinguish in the glow which burned now red and now yellow, but ever brighter and brighter.

"By heaven it is my own house!" said Herr von Zehren, He rushed forward for a few paces, and then stopping, burst into a loud laugh. It was a hideous mirth.

"This is a good joke," he said; "they are burning the old nest down.

That is smoking the old fox out of his den with a vengeance."

He seemed to think that this also was the work of his pursuers. But I recalled the threats which old Pahlen had uttered when I drove her off the place. I remembered that among the rest she had said something about "the red c.o.c.k crowing from the roof."

But however the fire had originated in which the old castle was now rapidly consuming, it could not have occurred at a more critical moment for the castle's master. Although we were fully a mile distant, the flames, which now towered above the gigantic trees of the park, cast their light to our very feet; and as the awful glare was caught up and reflected by the black clouds, now changing to a lurid crimson, a strange and fearful light spread over the whole region. I could clearly see Herr von Zehren's features: they were, or appeared to me of the paleness of death.

"For G.o.d's sake let us hasten to get away from here," I said to him.

"The hunt is about to begin," he said.

The hunt had begun already. The pursuing party, who had beset the narrow pa.s.s, and had probably no other orders than to cut us off there, were now, by the strangest accident, enabled to continue the pursuit, and they made the best use of the opportunity. Spreading out like skirmishers, without venturing too dangerously near to the mora.s.s on either side, they pressed rapidly on, rousing from their hiding-places the fugitives, some of whom were stealing across the open s.p.a.ce to the narrow outlet, and others crouching to the earth or lurking in hollows, in hope that the pursuit would be given over. Here and there a flash pierced the dusky glow, and the report of a musket rang out; and everywhere I saw the figures of pursuers and pursued flitting through the uncertain light, and heard wild cries of "Halt!" "Stand!" and a loud halloo and laughter when one was caught.

The blood seemed frozen in my veins. To be hunted down, and shot down in this fashion, like hares at a battue!

"And no arms," muttered Herr von Zehren, through his clenched teeth.

"Here!" cried I, tearing the pistols from my belt and placing one in his hand.

"Loaded?"

"Yes!"

"Now then, _en avant!_"

At a rapid run we had nearly reached the outlet-pa.s.s, distinguishable to those who knew the localities by a dead oak and a clump of hazels, when I caught the gleam of musket-barrels above the bushes. It was as I had dreaded: the outlet was beset.

"I know another way," whispered Herr von Zehren. "Perhaps it will bear us, and if not----"

I did not let him finish--"On! on!" I cried.

We turned sharply to the right and entered the tall rushes that bordered the mora.s.s. But they had already caught sight of us; there was a cry of "Halt!" and shots were fired at us; and some came rapidly running towards us.

"It must be here," said Herr von Zehren, parting the high rushes and plunging into them. I followed closely behind him.

Slowly and cautiously, crouching almost to the earth, we crept forward.

It was a desperate attempt. More than once I sank to the knees in the black mora.s.s. I had made up my mind, in case I stuck fast in it, to blow out my brains.

"We shall do it yet," said Herr von Zehren in a whisper to me over his shoulder. "We have pa.s.sed the worst now. I know it well. I was here after snipe last spring, and the villain Jock was with me. So: now we are through."

He pushed through the rushes, and at the same moment three men, who had separated from the rest, and must have been lying for some minutes in ambush a few paces from the outlet, sprang upon us. The foremost man was long Jock Swart.

"Dog!" hissed Herr von Zehren through his clenched teeth. He raised his pistol, and long Jock fell to the ground a dead man.

At the same moment, I also fired, and one of the others reeled and fell with a loud cry. The third shot off his piece, and ran at full speed back to the mora.s.s. The wounded man then rose to his feet and limped off with considerable celerity, but with loud cries of pain.

Herr von Zehren, in the meantime, had stepped up to the fallen man. I sprang to his side, and seized the man, who was lying on his face, by the shoulders to raise him up. As I lifted him his head fell heavily forward. A cold shudder ran through me. "My G.o.d!" I exclaimed, "he is dead!"

"He would have it so," said Herr von Zehren.

The body of the dead man slipped from my hand. I arose, trembling in every limb; my brain began to swim. Here stood a man with a discharged pistol in his hand; there lay another like a log upon the ground, and a red glow, as if from the open gate of h.e.l.l, fell upon them both; the smoke of powder filled the air, and the rushes of the mora.s.s gave a hissing sound as of a thousand serpents.

However deeply the fearful sight and the feeling of horror with which I gazed upon it, imprinted themselves upon my memory, I remained stupefied and aghast for but a single moment. Then all other feelings were lost in the one thought: He must be saved; he must never fall into their hands! I believe I could have caught up the unhappy man in my arms and borne him off, had he resisted; but he offered no resistance.

I now know that he was not flying to save his life; I now know that he would not have stirred one step from the spot, had he known that I had the leather pouch with ammunition for the pistols in my pocket; but he supposed that he was weaponless, and he was resolved not to be taken alive.