Tales from the German Volume I Part 25

'Certainly, if it will afford you pleasure, and you prefer going with us to staying at home,' answered her father significantly. 'We have for some time past become somewhat strange to each other, without my being able to guess precisely what is the cause of it.'

Christine cast a melancholy and complaining glance upon her neighbor, Mac Donalbain, and Megret eagerly begged to be added to the company.

'Your society is always agreeable to me,' answered the governor. 'How stands it with you, sir Mac Donalbain?' he kindly asked the Scot, 'will you also be of our party? Rich as your Scotland is in natural wonders, you cannot see this spectacle there. Scandinavia is the only country of Europe which exhibits it, with the exception of poor Iceland, which hardly deserves to be regarded as belonging to our part of the world.'

'I do not know when you intend to undertake the excursion,' answered Mac Donalbain with some embarra.s.sment.

'We start to-morrow morning at day-break,' answered the governor.

'My engagements will not allow me to join the interesting expedition so soon,' said Mac Donalbain. 'It is barely possible that I may so manage my affairs as to be able to meet and pay my respects to you at Tornea.'

'It must be a strange business,' said Megret, 'which prevents your accompanying us, and at the same time permits you to meet us at the end of our journey.'

'I do not consider, colonel,' cried Mac Donalbain, with a look of deadly hate and a low bow to the scoffer, 'that I am under any obligation to account to you for my business, or the manner in which it is pursued.'

'By no means, sir Mac Donalbain,' answered Megret, returning his bow; 'I am not one of the police-officers of this province, and have no official inducement to trouble myself about your pursuits.'

'Death and h.e.l.l! what mean you by that?' exclaimed Mac Donalbain, springing from his seat,--but Christine pulled him down again and anxiously whispered to him some words of entreaty.

'Forget not, gentlemen,' cried the governor in an authoritative tone of voice, 'that you are both my guests, and that it does not become you to quarrel upon my hearth, where you have both been freely welcomed. I esteem you both and would resign the society of neither, but I have a right to demand that you respect this castle, and seek a more suitable place for the indulgence of the secret enmity which you appear to bear toward each other. This time, colonel, you are in the wrong. I regret to be compelled to say to you that, if sir Mac Donalbain took your remark somewhat too sharply, yet you gave occasion therefor by the scornful tone in which it was made. Therefore you owe it to me and to him to take the first step toward a reconciliation; and you cannot be considered my friend, if you refuse to drink the health of this n.o.ble Scot, which I now propose.'

A struggle was now seen in the proud Frenchman, between the hatred he bore his enemy and the respect due from him to the father of Christine.

He cast a tiger glance upon Mac Donalbain, which was met by one equally fierce, and not being able to come to a determination what to do, he waited in moody silence, neither accepting nor rejecting the goblet offered to him by the governor.

'Do you hesitate?' earnestly asked the governor. 'As yet neither of you has said any thing to the other which can be considered injurious to the honor of a gentleman. This is only a misunderstanding, which must be completely reconciled. If you refuse this, you thereby confess an intention to offend sir Mac Donalbain, and it will become my duty as host to resent it as if the offence were intended for me.'

Megret seized the goblet, 'The lord of this castle,' said he with suppressed rage to Mac Donalbain, 'calls you a n.o.ble Scot. As I have not the pleasure of an intimate acquaintance with you, I am willing to consider the statement which has so n.o.ble a voucher as true, and upon that supposition I drink your health.'

'I receive the toast and return it with as much sincerity as it was offered,' answered Mac Donalbain, emptying his gla.s.s.

The governor, observing that the anger of the two belligerents still remained, in spite of the constrained and ambiguous reconciliation, thought it prudent to give the signal for retiring.

'That we may be able to start early in the morning,' said he, rising, 'I hope my worthy guests will excuse me if I break up the sitting earlier than usual. I intend to seek my bed betimes, that I may be the better prepared for the fatigues of the journey, and therefore wish you a good night.'

'I shall have the honor to be at the door of your carriage by sunrise, ready for the journey,' said Megret, bowing and retiring.

'As I must start this evening for Arnaes,' said Mac Donalbain, 'allow me to wish you a pleasant ride. At Tornea I hope to meet you again.'

He departed with a significant glance at Christine, who followed him out, and Arwed was left alone with his uncle.

The governor remained some time in a deep reverie, rubbing the wrinkles from his forehead, which as constantly reappeared there, and finally asked Arwed: 'what think you of our two guests?'

'You must long since have observed that neither of them is particularly agreeable to me. Being your guests, I would have said nothing against them; but since you expressly ask my opinion, I will give it honestly: they appear to me like two wolves engaged tooth and nail in fighting for a n.o.ble deer. G.o.d grant that the victim may save herself during the contest, and both the monsters have an empty reckoning.'

'Your comparison appears to me to be overstrained; you may not, however be wholly wrong. As soon as I return from Tornea I will adopt different measures. I begin to think it would have been better had I done so at an earlier period. Good night.'

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

The rising sun of the next morning found every one busy at Gyllensten, and the travelers prepared for their excursion. Christine, who had hoped to fly in advance of the rest of the company on her swift dun courser, was compelled to take a seat in the carriage with her father, who feared his gout, and her n.o.ble horse was led after her by the domestics, who accompanied the expedition in another carriage. Arwed and Megret, with their grooms, were in the saddle. The company set forth in a northerly direction, having the gulf of Bothnia on their right, and the mountains of Lapland on their left, pa.s.sing the stations Beygde and Skelleste until they arrived at the little port of Pitea, which, yet poorer than Umea, lay at the mouth of the Pitea Elf. There, with the relay horses, six Swedish dragoons, furnished by the bailiwick and led by the sheriff, marched up with drawn swords to perform escort duty for the remainder of the governor's journey.

'Wherefore trouble these people, Mr. Sheriff?' said the governor. 'The road is safe, as far as I know, and for that reason I took no escort with me from Umea.'

'For some time past,' answered the sheriff, 'a band of robbers have beset this neighborhood. Two well planned and successfully executed burglaries, in quick succession, have created much alarm; and yesterday, a man who attempted to travel to Tornea, was found slain upon the road between here and Lulea.'

'And you have yet made no effort to apprehend the perpetrators of the deed?' asked the governor discontentedly. 'If the police do their duty such transgressors cannot long escape the vengeance of the laws.'

'The waste and desolate condition of that region,' said the sheriff by way of excuse, 'facilitates the flight of the robbers and renders pursuit difficult. The inhabitants of the scattered houses and small hamlets fear to seize a single robber while their helpless situation exposes them to the vengeance of the whole band, which numbers thirty men. Their leader is called Black Naddock, and always has his face colored black when he goes out upon his predatory excursions.'

'You must cause strict search to be made,' directed the governor.

'Write to the sheriff of Umea, in my name, for as many men as he can spare. Until they arrive you must do the best you can with your dragoons. They need not accompany us. We are numerous and used to danger. Should the robbers venture to attack us, we should suffer less from the encounter than they.'

He entered his carriage and the whole company continued their route, still in a northerly direction, by the little town of Lulea, where the greater and less Lulea Elf roll their mingled waters into the sea, until they arrived at Ranea, where the gulf of Bothnia forms an angle and the road turns off to the east. So far nothing had occurred to justify the apprehensions of the sheriff, and the caution of the travelers, which had hitherto kept them in close companionship, that they might be ready to aid each other, began to relax. Megret, whom Christine jestingly accused of riding near the carriage not for hers but his own safety, had angrily ridden forward; and Arwed, giving way to his own reflections, had turned into a fir-wood on the left, in which he followed a foot-path leading toward the north. He might have followed this path for the s.p.a.ce of an hour, when he heard at a distance ahead of him a sudden cry for help. Giving the spur to his horse, he flew in the direction whence the voice came. He soon came in view of Megret contending with four ill-looking fellows, who had seized his horse by the bridle and furiously beset him with cudgels and cutla.s.ses.

'However little he may deserve it,' said the youth to himself, 'one must help him in his extremity!' and, with a pistol in his left, and a drawn sword in his right hand, he rushed into the fight. This attack called the attention of the ruffians from Megret, who, taking advantage of the circ.u.mstance, recovered his bridle and made off with all possible speed.

Angry at the escape of their prey, the robbers now fell upon Arwed. The latter, having fired and missed, soon had full employment for his sword and the activity of his horse, in keeping off the ruffians, who attacked him on all sides, and appeared to be well accustomed to such combats. He made an attempt to wheel his horse suddenly to the right and thus make an opening for escape; but here two other men, who by their appearance belonged to the gang, met him with well aimed rifles.

'I could have wished a more honorable death,' he murmured, and at that moment a tall man in a green hunting dress sprang from a neighboring thicket. A red plume waved from his hat, and his face was black as a Moor's. He spoke some angry words in an unintelligible jargon to the robbers, upon which they immediately abandoned Arwed and disappeared in the bushes, and the Moor motioned to Arwed to depart.

'Thanks, captain!' said Arwed, rejoiced at this unexpected rescue, and pushing forward, he soon found himself upon the highway.

There he met Megret, with both of their servants, coming to seek for him. 'Here you are, then!' said Megret out of breath, 'and, as I hope, not wounded. I should never have forgiven myself if you had been injured in rescuing me!'

'G.o.d be praised that you are alive, Arwed!' cried the beauteous Christine, flying to meet him upon her favorite dun courser, and her blue eyes flashed upon him so affectionately as to cause a fluttering at his heart.

'You see, major,' said Megret flatteringly, 'how instantaneously all were hastening to your a.s.sistance.'

'Your promptness is worthy of all thanks, colonel,' answered Arwed; 'but your help would have been of little service to me had I not been so fortunate as to make the acquaintance of Black Naddock. His command caused the fiends by whom I was hard pressed, to vanish. Had he not appeared most opportunely, you would in all probability have found only my dead body.'

'That would indeed have been purchasing the safety of a man who could leave his preserver in the danger which had been incurred for his sake, at too dear a rate,' remarked Christine, with bitterness.

Megret did not notice the sarcasm, as at that moment he was begging of Arwed, with singular eagerness, that he would describe the personal appearance of the robber-captain.

'He was a tall, well made man,' answered Arwed, 'about Mac Donalbain's size, in a hunting dress, well armed, and with a black face.'

'But the features of that face?' asked Megret, anxiously. 'Bore they no resemblance to any you have heretofore seen?'

'Really!' answered Arwed with a smile, 'I did not give myself time to examine the blackamoor. In leaving him with all convenient haste I did what you surely will excuse, as you set the first example of a resort to the spur.'

'You ought to have shot him down!' continued Megret venomously, 'and then we should have been no longer in the dark with regard to his ident.i.ty.'

'At the moment when he had just saved my life?' asked Arwed, with earnestness. 'Surely, that cannot be your true meaning, colonel!'

'The countess is fainting!' screamed old Knut, spurring his horse to Christine's side, and catching the pale maiden in his arms.