Through Night to Light Part 57

Oswald tore himself away, and jumping back a little distance, so as to have elbow-room, he seized one of the iron-shod pikes which the fishermen use in propelling their sleds, and of which several were standing in the corner. He struck his adversary with it so terrible a blow that the latter, in spite of his gigantic size and enormous strength, fell down without uttering a sound.

In an instant Oswald had overtaken Emily, and putting his arm around her waist he bore her down the steep steps.

Below, on the snow of the narrow beach, stood the sleigh.

He put Emily in and followed her.

"We are betrayed, Claus," he said; "drive fast. It is a matter of life and death."

Claus clacked his tongue and the crop-eared hack went off.

"Thought so!" said Claus, turning half round. "A minute ago a sleigh came and stopped not a hundred yards from here. I saw two men get out and climb up the bluff. I was just going to follow them and to warn you, when you were coming out a the door. Now it's all right. I should like to see the horses that can overtake Claus Lemberg and his Fox."

"You might soon have that satisfaction," said Oswald who had been looking behind; "there they are coming. It seems these bulls do not fall at one blow, and want to make the acquaintance of a bullet. Where is the box I gave you, Claus?"

"Just behind you, in the straw."

Oswald opened the box, took one of the two pistols that were in it, and c.o.c.ked it.

"For Heaven's sake, Oswald, what are you going to do?" said Emily, who had not uttered a word since they were in the sleigh.

"Shoot down the first man who dares touch you."

"Oh, G.o.d! oh, G.o.d!"

"For whom do you tremble; for me? or for him? You have time yet. He will forgive you, I am sure, if you turn back now;--perhaps lecture you a little in Barnewitz's presence."

"How can you talk so? I turn back? Rather dead at the bottom of the sea!"

"That may come too," murmured Oswald.

Oswald thought the crop-eared hack, however swiftly he cut with his rough-shod shoes into the ice, could certainly not long keep up the speed so as to escape from the two thoroughbreds before the sleigh of his pursuers. He had a start of a few thousand yards, but that could not avail much, as the distance from Ferrytown to the village of Barow was over a mile. There they were to find another sleigh, provided by one of Claus's cousins, who was overseer on one of the Breesen estates, and ready to do and to risk anything in the world for Miss Emily.

"Once more, Emily: what do you want me to do if they overtake us?"

asked Oswald, bending down to the little woman, who sat there silently, wrapped up in her furs.

"Defend yourself like a man!"

"And if I succ.u.mb?"

"Then I jump into the first air-hole we meet with! Better at the bottom of the sea than in his power!"

"Are you quite sure?"

"As sure as I live, and as I love you."

Oswald bent down and kissed the beautiful, pale face.

"Now it is all right," he said; "now come what may." Those were terrible minutes, and the gloomy surroundings only heightened the impressive character of the situation. All was perfectly silent around them; nothing was heard but the ceaseless striking of hoofs on the ringing ice, and that peculiar sound, resembling a long-drawn sigh, which is produced when an object moves with great rapidity over a plain of ice. As far as the eye reached nothing but the fearful solitude of a plain covered with a thin layer of snow, and the dark night lowering over it like a leaden cover. Even the stars were now hid by a light, drizzling fog, and yet it began to be lighter and lighter every moment.

A reddish streak on the gray sky announced the rising moon. The sleigh of the pursuers could already be seen more distinctly, like a great black spot, which grew every instant greater and blacker as the light on the sky grew brighter.

Only a few minutes had pa.s.sed since they had left Ferrytown, but they appeared to Oswald an eternity. He looked ahead for the sh.o.r.e, but nothing could be seen yet; he looked behind at the pursuers, and the great black spot bad again grown larger and blacker.

"We can't do it, Claus," said Oswald.

"What will you bet, sir?" replied Claus. "I will eat Fox alive if he does not win. Why, sir, there is no such horse to be found far and near. We are some twenty sleigh-owners in Ferrytown, and thirty over in Grunwald, and all of us have good horses in our sleighs, but Fox beats them all. Eh, Fox?"

And, as if Fox had been cheered by the praise of his master, he shook his cropped mane, and cut with his sharp hoofs faster and faster into the clear ice.

"But those are uncommon horses."

Claus laughed.

"And that's exactly why I don't trouble myself. They can't stand it; and then they are afraid of the air-holes. In a few minutes you will see they will fall behind, or I will eat Fox alive."

Perhaps Fox was afraid of the terrible fate with which he was threatened if he should allow himself to be overtaken, and made desperate efforts; perhaps Cloten's horses began really to be tried by this unusual chase on the smooth ice, or to be frightened by the black water of the air-holes; at all events, Clauses prophecy began to become true almost as soon as he had uttered it. Although it was dawning brighter and brighter on the horizon, the black spot became perceptibly smaller and less distinct; and when at last the full moon rose over the gray edge of the ice, and poured her pale light over the vast level plain, the black spot was no longer to be seen on the white surface.

"Well, didn't I tell you?" asked Claus, turning round and showing his white teeth, "that there isn't a horse that can overtake Fox? Up, Fox!"

Claus had turned round towards his horse. On, on they flew, with the swiftness of an arrow, over the low thundering abyss, past the weird glittering of waters, on which the pale moon cast an uncanny sheen. The icy north wind whistled around their ears as it swept mournfully and plaintively over the snow-covered fields. Oswald and Emily held each other in close embrace. Glad to have escaped the danger, they enjoyed the bliss of a love whose sweet flowers they were gathering on the brink of a fearful abyss, and willingly forgot for a few moments how deep that abyss was, and how full of unspeakable horrors.

CHAPTER V.

It was March. On the twenty-fourth of February the Republic had been proclaimed in France. The grand event spread its effect in concentric circles over the whole of the civilized earth. Berlin too had been excited, and a feverish agitation had prevailed for a few days in all circles of society--a kind of confusion, of nervous trembling, such as befalls men when they are suddenly roused from deep sleep by a dazzling light, and do not know exactly where to find their head; and at the same time they feel a secret horror of the night in which they have so long slept an unnatural sleep--a confused idea that, after all, the golden light of the sun is a very precious thing; a hopeful expectant stretching and moving in all their limbs, so that the watchmen, who have kept and guarded the gigantic sleeper in his dreams, become anxious to begin to converse with each other. "We will have to put him in iron chains," they whisper, "or he may actually rise; and then, woe unto us!"

There was a lively time one fine bright evening at the "Booths," the princ.i.p.al resort of respectable citizens, who were in the habit of amusing themselves here on Sunday afternoons with wife and child by enjoying a mixture of music, beer, and sausages; but any one who had at all followed the events of the last days in the great city might have doubted for a moment whether this was a political meeting or a popular entertainment. Perhaps it meant both. Work, that strict task-master, had been cheated out of an hour only; and the simple fact that such ma.s.ses were here a.s.sembled, which no police constable would readily dare interrupt or trouble, aroused in the a.s.sembled crowds a sense of exuberant self-respect, a very unusual festive excitement. Then the blue sky of early spring looked so lovely; the slender, leafless branches and twigs of the trees in the park were so clearly defined against the clear background, and the evening sun was shining warm and hopeful down upon the thousands who crowded the vast open s.p.a.ce between the coffee-houses and the river on one side, and the park on the other side. The pressure was especially great near the wooden stand on the edge of the park, which was ordinarily occupied by a band, but from whence to-day a very novel kind of music was heard--a music which was so strange to the people, and perhaps on that account far more attractive than all the waltzes of Lanner or Strauss. Further off, towards the coffee-houses, where the speakers could no longer be heard distinctly, people seemed to be merrier. Here the waiters could scarcely hurry up as many gla.s.ses of the favorite white beer as thirsty gullets were clamoring for. Itinerant venders offered rolls and sausages, half-grown boys praised their cigars with gosling voices, and even jugglers and acrobats played their tricks.

Two men were slowly making their way arm in arm through the heaving crowd. Their appearance was signally different from that of the ma.s.s of the people, which consisted mainly of men, especially young men, of the lower cla.s.ses. One of the two was very tall and thin; his gray eyes looked so keen and bright from under the heavy brows, and around the well-shaped straight nose there was so much life and meaning, that one could very easily supply the lower part of the face, which was completely covered with a close black beard. His carriage was careless, like that of a man who is too busy with his thoughts to lay much stress upon external forms; and his clothes, which were made after the last fashion, and of the very best material, hung so easily and comfortably on his spare form that one could easily see the owner believed in the doctrine that clothes were made for men, and not men for clothes. The appearance of his companion was perhaps even more striking. He was nearly a head shorter than his tall friend, but much broader in the shoulders. And yet he stooped like a man who has spent half of his life in reading books. His large well-shaped brow, and his deep, meek, dreamy eyes, also bespoke the scholar, the thinker. His hair, which he wore rather long, was already nearly gray, and so were the bushy eyebrows, and the beard, which flowed in abundant ma.s.ses from cheeks, lips, and chin, down to his waist. He glanced restlessly at the crowd, and communicated his observations to his companion with a pa.s.sionate energy, which characterized his whole manner; the other simply smiling, nodded his head, or replied in a few short words to the point.

"Well, how do you like it?" asked the man of the broad shoulders.

"Not so badly," replied the tall one.

"But do you think this people will ever dare venture upon a revolution?"

"Why not?"

"Look at these stupid faces, listen to these miserable jokes with which they try to drown their instinct of the grave nature of the situation, and the painful feeling of their own insignificance. See how the people, at the very hour when they hear liberty and justice eloquently discussed, still have time and relish for _panem et circenses_, and you see enough to smother the last spark of hope that these men will ever talk of freedom, much less fight for it."

"You are still a pessimist, Berger! and in spite of the golden sunlight which at last shines once more after so many dark years of your life."

"It is this very sunlight which fills my heart with such impatience.

During the gray winter days we think it quite natural that the trees raise their bare branches to the sky; but when the first balmy air of spring plays around us, and the sky is blue once more, we long to see the green ocean of leaves twittering and rustling in the breeze; and above all, when the winter has been so long and so hard that it has taken all our strength from us, and we have no right to hope to live into summer!"