Tales from the German Volume II Part 33

'I will foster and protect her like a beloved daughter,' answered Fabricius, taking Clara by the hand, and with a light heart the youth then followed the general.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Glowing with anger and sorrow, Graf von Waldeck, bishop of Munster, strode up and down in his gilded tent. At the door, with a pale malefactor face, stood poor Hanslein, in chains, and surrounded by guards. Oberstein and Alf entered.

'This wretch,' cried the bishop to the general, 'proposes to purchase his forfeited life by betraying the city. He has, however, three times forfeited his life,--formerly a rider in my cavalry, he wounded his superior officer and went over to the enemy, swearing allegiance and adopting their faith. I am half inclined to compel him to show us the way to Munster and then hang him; for it would be contrary to all right, human and divine, to allow him to escape punishment by such an act.'

'The greatest right is often the greatest wrong,' said the general soothingly. 'Too much severity is often injurious, and with your grace's permission, if the spiritual lords had not formerly held so rigidly to their notions of right and wrong, and had not wielded the rod of authority too vigorously, much of the mischief against which the a.s.sembled christians of Germany of all denominations now appeal to heaven, would have been avoided. My voice is for mildness.'

'You have lost none who were dear to you, through these monsters!'

cried the bishop, making great efforts to suppress his tears. 'I have just learned, that the reprobate tailor has murdered both of my pages, for making an effort to rescue themselves from his paws.'

'That is sad news,' said Oberstein, sympathisingly; 'but if you should outdo all these horrors by committing greater, you might thereby bring a stain upon your princely reputation; but you would remedy no evil. My advice is, that you grant a free pardon to the deserter, and thereby obtain a faithful guide into the city, the speedy surrender of which is yet nearest your heart. A resort to the rack, is, in my mind, as it must be in that of every man, highly objectionable, beside being a very unsafe means of accomplishing our purpose.'

'You may be right,' said the bishop, after a pause, somewhat softened by the decided tone and plain good sense of the old warrior.

'I bring you another individual who may be trusted to guide our forces to the attack of Munster,' proceeded Oberstein, pointing to Alf, 'and we shall be able by this means to divide and direct our troops.'

'Is this he?' cried the bishop with suddenly rekindled rage. 'Wretch!

thank G.o.d--that I have you in my power. You shall learn to your sorrow what it is to fall into my hands.'

'What mean you, sir bishop?' asked the general.

'What harm can have been done to you by a youth, whom you probably now see for the first time in your life?'

'Oh I know him but too well,' raved the bishop. 'When the lying prophet Matthias surprised our camp last year, this villain led the anabaptists as their commander. I saw him rushing onward at the head of his troops, as I was mounting my horse to escape the danger of capture.'

'Heigh! you are again strangely severe!' cried Oberstein. 'Misled, like thousands of others in the city, to whom you long ago offered a general pardon, the young man only fulfilled what at that time he considered his duty as a christian and a soldier. Now, however, he has become disgusted with the tailor's government, and has voluntarily come out to us.'

'At that onslaught was my unhappy----pupil taken prisoner with his companion!' cried the bishop. 'Who was it, moreover, who dragged him to his death, but the profligate leader of that frantic host? Matthias is already judged. This one has the Most High given into my hands, and if G.o.d from heaven should cry mercy! he should die.'

'Such a speech little becomes a prince, much less a spiritual lord,'

said Oberstein with melancholy earnestness. 'As for the rest, the duty of grat.i.tude at this time compels me to spare you the commission of a crime. This youth has saved my life. I will never deliver him up to your revenge.'

'Forget not, sir earl,' cried the bishop angrily, 'that I am a prince upon this ground, and that you are only general of the forces!'

'The forces of the empire!' vehemently exclaimed Oberstein,--'not yours, and I am expressly commanded to execute the decrees of the Diet of Worms,--of which, as you appear to have forgotten it, it is my duty to remind you.'

'Unheard of insolence!' growled the bishop. 'It may be worth while to inquire whether I am yet sovereign of Munster.' With fury in his rolling eyes, he beckoned to the door an officer who stood near him, as if he desired to confide to him an order of serious consequence:

'Spare yourself steps, your princely grace, which you will be compelled to retrace,' said Oberstein; and at that moment the bishop's body servant, a pious, blameless, silver haired old man, entered with his master's morning meal.

'Jesus Maria!' screamed the servant the moment he saw Alf; and, letting fall the smoking platter, threw himself at the youth's feet and clasped his knees. 'G.o.d in his mercy has granted me an opportunity to thank the preserver of my life!' cried he, sobbing.

'Preserver of your life!' cried the bishop wonderingly.

'You are mistaken, father,' said Alf, gently putting aside the old man, 'I do not know you at all.'

'I am not more certain of future bliss,' said the old servant.--'Know you not, sir colonel, or whatever else you may have been, when you fell upon our camp, with the terrible Matthias, and his princely grace had fled, and Matthias had broken into this tent, and had already cut down the cook and two lacqueys, and the pages were kneeling before him, and the Goliath-spear was already raised to destroy them. I stood in a corner tremblingly awaiting the moment when my turn would come. Then you rushed into the tent and valiantly stayed the monster's upraised arm, although he was your superior, and commanded him and gave him hard words, and compelled him to spare their lives and take them with him prisoners to Munster. And then you dragged him away, together with the boys; I, however, slipped out of my corner, and in this place I kneeled down and prayed a devout Ave Maria for myself, and two for the salvation of your poor soul, that G.o.d might rescue you from eternal death, as you had rescued me from the murderous prophet.'

'How now, sir bishop?' said Oberstein, in an upbraiding tone. 'It appears that the youth saved the lives of those whose blood you would avenge on him. His crime is, that he could not be about them every moment to guard them against the beasts of prey who constantly beset their path.'

'Can you swear upon the Host,' asked the bishop of the servant, 'that this is the man who saved the lives of the boys?'

'As G.o.d may help me to a good dying moment!' answered the servant with his hand upon his heart.

The traits of pa.s.sion disappeared from the bishop's features. He advanced towards Alf and said sorrowing, 'thou hast meant well, my son, but G.o.d has willed it otherwise.' Then, turning to Oberstein, he proceeded, 'I leave both the deserters to your unfettered disposal, and shall expect from you some indication of what I can do for the youths.

I trust you will forget our little misunderstanding, when you recollect in how many ways and how deeply I have been injured by all these enormities, as a man, as a father, as a temporal prince, and as a dignitary of the church.'

Oberstein took the freely offered hand of the bishop, with a reverential bow; after which the latter, with an humble air, pa.s.sed to an inner apartment of the tent. At the nod of the general, Hanslein's chains fell from him.

'It was hard clearing the gallows this time,' cried Hanslein, shaking himself. 'It shall be a warning to me forever to avoid the spiritual lords. I feared to make myself known to the general, who I supposed would not be able to comprehend my position; and therefore I went to the lord bishop;--but the crook, under which I had hoped safely to repose, had very nearly broken my brain-pan.'

'That also must be an old acquaintance,' said Oberstein, smilingly contemplating the chatterer.

'I now recognise his features. Anxiety about his fate had lengthened them a little.'

'Sure enough,' cried Hanslein, kissing his hand; 'and you, my prince of warriors, have spoken like a man in behalf of an unknown anabaptist, without suspecting that you were under obligations to him for a former service.'

'Follow me now, children,' said the good general, 'and forget in my tent all the trouble you have just experienced, and so put an end to the anxiety of the trembling little bride.'

'With a thousand pleasures!' cried Hanslein; 'besides, it is not good to set up our tabernacle here.' With a few vigorous leaps he found himself before the general's tent. The others followed.

'Perhaps you would like to be married to your little maiden to-day?'

Oberstein affectionately asked of Alf, while on their way to the tent.

'There is no lack of monks and preachers in the camp. I will furnish forth the marriage feast, and you may safely reckon upon a magnificent wedding present from the bishop.'

'Until the city is gained,' answered Alf, 'I must postpone the consummation of that holy act. If I should fall in the attack, then would my wife become an early widow, and more unhappy than if she mourned her promised bridegroom only as one betrothed. Besides, I cannot be married with any satisfaction, or really enjoy the greatest festival of my life, until my poor native city is freed from the domination of the devil who now lacerates her with his infernal claws.

When good old Munster has found peace and safety I will seek the consummation of my own domestic happiness.'

'Thou hast a good faith, my son,' cried Oberstein, pleased with the self-denial of the youth.

By this time they stood before the general's tent, when they were met by Fabricius holding by the hand the amiable and sweetly smiling Clara, already modestly clad in the dress of her s.e.x.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Yielding to the voice of clemency, the worthy Oberstein sent messengers into the city to admonish them to surrender and save the lives of the starving people; but the answer which orator Rothman gave in the presence of the king, was, like the preceding one, the sending back of the messengers with a paraphrase of the pa.s.sage in the prophet Daniel of the four ferocious beasts, in the description of which, he said, the bishop might easily learn to know himself.

The last of mercy's sands had finally run, and the next night was determined on for the attack. It was on the 13th of June, 1533, an hour before midnight, that Hanslein, in perfect silence, led five hundred volunteers through the shallow place in the ditch and thence upon the walls. The sleeping sentinels were cut down, and the detachment reached the little gate without hindrance. This was broken down and the soldiers rushed into the city. The alarm was, however, now given. The armed burghers, who had hastily collected, beat back the last of the entering troops, closed, and occupied the gate, and then attacked with redoubled rage those who had already entered. An hour and a half they endured the b.l.o.o.d.y onslaught in the dark, until Hanslein with the rest of his band broke through the nearest weakly guarded gate. The commander in chief, guided by Alf, waited for this event with the main force; and, as the gate was burst open from within and its wings flew asunder, the bishop's troops poured with loud cries into the city. The victory was not, however, yet won. Each footstep in advance was at the expense of much blood of the half starved fanatics; and when finally Oberstein with resistless power forced them back, they retired only towards the market-place at St. Lambert's church; there once more to make a stand. Here was the king, who had suddenly sprung from his bed, with the best of his people, and this availed to renew the fight.

Bloodily the red morning rose upward over the promiscuous slaughter; and the battle, now that friends and enemies could rightly discern each other, became regular; by which the anabaptists gained nothing. Alf kept himself constantly at the side of the general, only defending himself when necessary, as he did not like to draw his sword against his fellow citizens; but now, amid the tumult, he caught a glimpse of the infamous Johannes as he was stimulating his troops to the fight.

Then the wrath of the youth kindled into a mightier flame. 'Eliza!'