Through Night to Light Part 75

"Hercules, here!" some one called.

"Coming!" replied Mr. Schmenckel, and hurried to where he was wanted.

"Now we want the best!" murmured Oldenburg, looking at what had been done and casting an inquiring glance at the roofs of the houses on both sides of the barricade, where men were busy taking off the slates and tiles as he had directed. "If Berger does not bring arms all our work is for nothing."

Just then Berger came with five or six young men. Each of them had a rifle. Others were dragging along a large bag filled with ammunition.

Berger, who had antic.i.p.ated the revolution for several days and made his preparations in his mind, knew all the gunsmiths and shops where arms were kept in the whole neighborhood. He had taken possession of the nearest. A shout of joy arose when the little troop reached the barricade. Soon after an old fowling-piece and a rusty gun with an old-fashioned flint-lock were brought up, and last of all four pistols from the lodgings of a couple of officers which had been luckily discovered. The arms were at once distributed, and every man had his post a.s.signed him. Every armed man had another man by him to load. In the kitchen, in the bas.e.m.e.nt of an adjoining house, bullets were cast under the direction of an old one-eyed man who was an old soldier; and boys, merry storm-petrels of every barricade-fight, were appointed to carry the b.a.l.l.s to the defenders.

The quarter of an hour which Oldenburg had allowed as the longest time that could be given to the erection of the barricade was out, and the very next moment showed how accurately he had calculated. The rifles had but just been loaded and the men had taken their places when a battalion of infantry came marching up the street. A major rode at the head. He ordered "Halt!" at some distance from the barricade, and rode up alone till within a few yards. He was an old, gray-haired soldier with a good-natured face, who evidently did not like the duty he had to fulfil. His voice sounded wavering, and trembled a little as he raised it as high as he could, and said,

"You, there! I must get through here with my men; and if you do not take that thing there out of my way willingly, I shall have to use force. I should be sorry, for your sake, to have to do so."

Oldenburg appeared on the barricade.

"In the name of these men!" he said, raising his hat politely to the major, "I declare that we are determined to stand by each other, and to hold this barricade as long as we can!"

Oldenburg's appearance and his words evidently made an impression on the old soldier.

"You are the leader of these men?"

"I have that honor."

"You seem to be an intelligent man. Then you must see that that thing there is of no avail, and that your few charges cannot possibly do you any good. Pull that thing down; it is all right."

"I am sorry I cannot comply with your request, and must adhere to my resolution."

"Well, then," said the major, more annoyed than angry, "you will all go to the devil."

With these words he turned his horse and galloped back to his men.

Oldenburg was glad when the conversation was at an end. His quick eye had showed him that the kindly words of the major had not failed to make an impression on the crowd, and that more than one looked undecided and doubtful. In a ma.s.s of people enthusiasm effervesces quickly. He turned round and said:

"If there is one among you who had rather live for country and liberty than die for them, he had better say so now. It is time yet!"

The men stood motionless and silent. Many a heart no doubt beat painfully, but every one felt that the die was cast, and that it would be disgraceful treason to turn back now.

The drums beat on the opposite side, and the terrible summons drove every hesitation out of their hearts.

Oldenburg cried, with a voice which drowned the rattling of the drums like loud trumpet-sound: "Every man to his post! Not a shot before I give the sign! Not a stone must move!"

Oldenburg remained standing on the top of the barricade and saw the column approaching at quick-step; in the centre the drummers, and the major, who commanded with his sepulchral voice,

"Battalion! Halt! Aim! Fire!"

The flash came; the b.a.l.l.s hailed upon the barricade and the walls of the houses.

"Shoulder arms! March!"

"Hurrah!" cried the men, rushing with charged bayonets upon the barricade.

"Hurrah!" cried Oldenburg, still standing on the barricade and waving his hat.

And the rifles of the little garrison gave fire, and the stones came down rattling from the roofs upon the heads of the unlucky soldiers; and when the smoke and the dust slowly blew away, the company which had come up in military regularity was seen running away in wild flight, and before them a riderless horse, and between them little groups of three or four men who carried dead or wounded men on litters beyond the reach of the barricade.

Of the men of the people only one had been wounded, and not by a hostile ball; the old, rusty flint-lock had burst at the first discharge, and a piece of it had struck the head of one of the marksmen. This accident only increased the good humor of the company.

They cried hurrah! they congratulated each other, they laughed, they joked, and everybody was in the best of humor.

There was perhaps but one man behind the barricade who did not share the general joy, and this man was Oldenburg. He was as fully convinced as any one that fight they must, but he doubted a happy issue. He had been in Paris during the month of February; he had fought there; and he could not but see the difference. There he had seen a people fully conscious of the weakness of the government against which they rose, and clearly understanding the whole situation; here he found nothing but uncertainty, divided opinions, and doubts. But the genius of mankind does not always require a clear, perfect understanding in its defenders; a vague impulse, a dim perception even, leads often to glorious deeds. These harmless men, knowing little of politics, and quite willing to rest content with very small concessions, might be fighting only against the brutal rule of a single caste, and not for the free republic of the future; but great effects could not fail to be obtained even here, and he who cuts off a diseased limb may by it save the whole body.

Thus Oldenburg tried to console himself for the fears with which the appearance of this revolution had inspired him. He had been on the square near the palace when the fatal two shots fell which were destined to be the signal for the explosion, and when the troops had made their first attack _en ma.s.se_ against the unarmed mult.i.tude. He and other good men had in vain tried to stop the shedding of blood; they had pushed their way through the soldiers at the risk of their lives in order to explain to the commanding officer the madness of such a butchery. But all they had heard in reply was open scorn, and at best rude orders to mind their own business. When Oldenburg saw that he could not be of any use in this way, and that matters had come to a crisis, he had tried to reach Melitta's lodgings in Broad street to place her and the children in safety. But he had been compelled to make a wide circuit, for the troops had already taken possession of all the approaches from the side of the palace, and he barely escaped more than once being arrested. Thus it happened that he reached the hotel only at the moment when the people were deliberating whether they should offer resistance or not Oldenburg took only time to inquire at the hotel after Melitta, where he heard to his delight that she and the children had already gone early in the morning to Doctor Braun's, who lived in a remote suburb, to which the _emeute_ was not likely to extend. Then he had thrown himself heart and soul into the torrent of the revolution.

And now he stood, after the first attack had been successfully repulsed, with crossed arms on the barricade, in a sheltered position, from which he could overlook at once the movements of the enemy and the s.p.a.ce behind the barricade, anxiously awaiting the return of Berger, whom he had sent out with a patrol to procure if possible more ammunition, and to establish a communication with the nearest barricades. For so far the rising was without any organization; no concerted plan to produce united efforts; every barricade was fighting by itself. Besides, day-light began to fade away, and night, although it might leave the troops in doubt as to the strength of the enemy, also tended to increase the confusion on the side of the people, which is always an element of weakness in popular risings. Berger returned soon afterwards, bringing a few more guns but no comfort. The adjoining streets, he reported, were also barricaded; but the barricades were badly constructed, and held by too few men, especially the nearest one, in Brother street.

"I do not think they can hold it long," he added, "and then we are lost, because the troops can flank us here through this narrow alley"--and he pointed to Gertrude street, which pa.s.sed by the hotel and led from Broad street into Brother street. "We must necessarily stop up that street also and occupy it, which can easily be done. I have directed Oswald and Schmenckel to do it at once."

"Whom?" inquired Oldenburg, who had no suspicion that Oswald could be here, and thought he had misunderstood Berger.

But he had not time to wait for Berger's reply, for at that moment the drums beat once more, and the second company came up to storm the barricade. This time the major on his white horse was not there. The old man, who had been dangerously wounded in the head by a ball, was on his way to the hospital.

The second attack was more serious, although no more successful than the first. The captain in command gave the order to fire three times in rapid succession, and then rushed his men with great violence upon the barricade. But as Oldenburg and his men had again reserved their fire till the last moment, the loss was very great for the attacking party; upon whom, moreover, such a storm of bullets, tiles, and stones rained down from the adjoining houses that they once more retreated, carrying their dead and wounded with them.

But this time the men of the people also had their losses. A young man who had imprudently exposed himself was shot through the breast and died instantly, while another had his arm shattered by a ricochet ball.

Thus the men of the barricade had had their blood baptism, and now only they felt as if they were indissolubly bound to the cause of the revolution. Men who had seen each other to-day for the first time shook hands and pledged themselves not to leave each other till death should part them forever. Women, who ordinarily went out of their way to avoid meeting common people, now went about among the fighting men and distributed bread and wine. Among these gentle Samaritans one was especially remarkable by her stately appearance and her venerable gray hairs. It was Mrs. Black, who found ample opportunity to-night to gratify her pa.s.sion for feeding the hungry and nursing the sick.

Oldenburg now suggested what he had learnt in Paris to be eminently useful under such circ.u.mstances: that lights should be placed in all the windows which looked upon the barricade, so as to improvise a brilliant illumination, to which the full-moon, shining bright and clear on the blue sky, contributed generously. It was a strange contrast: the sacred peace high up in the heavenly regions, and down here a city raging in the fever of revolution, where the howling of alarm-bells and the thunder of cannon, the rattling of small arms and the mad cries of the combatants, were horribly mingled with each other.

And to make the appalling scene still more so, low, hot clouds of smoke came now floating slowly over the roofs of the houses. Fire had broken out at several places at once; the city was threatened with a universal conflagration! Who had time to-night to help and to save?

Oldenburg looked for Berger but could not see him anywhere. He wanted to ask what he had meant when he spoke of Oswald, for he now recollected having caught a glimpse of a man who had reminded him somewhat of Oswald Stein. But just then loud cries were heard from Gertrude street, and a few shots fell. Oldenburg, fearing the troops might have taken the barricade in Brother street and were pushing on through Gertrude street, rapidly collected a handful of men and with them rushed down into that street. Here a surprise had been in contemplation, and the danger had only been averted by Schmenckel's giant strength and by the heroic bravery of Berger and Oswald.

Oswald had joined the barricade-builders in Gertrude street in order to avoid Oldenburg, whom he had seen to his great surprise first on the steps of the hotel in the midst of the excited crowd, and then as captain on top of the barricade. He felt it impossible to meet just now the man whom he had at one time revered as a superior being, and at another time hated as his bitterest enemy. He did not wish to renew the contest between such feelings in his own heart; he was so weary, weary unto death! The excitement around him felt to him like a song rocking him to sleep with his weary sick heart, and when he heard the first bullets whistle around him during the attack upon the barricade where he then was, his only thought was: Oh, that one of them were intended for me!

He said so much to Berger, as they were sitting on the barricade in Gertrude street to rest for a moment from their exhausting efforts.

"No," replied Berger; "that is not right. Death itself does not pay our bills; it only tears them, without paying them, and throws the fragments at the feet of the creditor. But death in the cause of liberty!--it pays them all."

He seized Oswald's hand, looking around anxiously to see that no one could hear them.

"I am afraid of life, Oswald! Death is a fearful asylum, in which one may awake again! Suicide is such a death to me, Oswald. If that were not so I should long since have died by my own hand. For it is easier to die, in order to escape from ourselves, than to live for others. I have found that out. I have drunk the bitter cup, and the dregs are very bitter. Oswald! at first I had courage enough, and lived bravely; but after six months of such life my courage is gone and my strength exhausted. My nerves cannot bear it any longer. That is why I feel so joyfully this day, on which the people have at last shaken off their disgraceful apathy to rise in their might. If I could die to-day for this people, whom now for the first time in my life I find not to be contemptible any more--Oswald! it would be such good fortune as I had never expected. And then," he continued, after a pause, "another piece of good fortune has befallen me to-day. I have met again my oldest enemy, whom I hated most bitterly, and my youngest and most beloved friend."

He pressed Oswald's hand, who said, smiling:

"Found your oldest enemy? was that fortunate?"

Berger told Oswald in a few words of his meeting with Count Malikowsky that morning, and that Schmenckel, who had helped them gloriously in building up the barricade, was Prince Waldenberg's father. "The low-born man the father of a prince, the prince the son of a low-born man--that would make a nice novel," he said with a grim smile.

"Perhaps I can give you a companion-story to yours," answered Oswald; and he informed Berger of the discoveries he had made that day with regard to his own birth. "That is strange!" said Berger; "very strange!