The Youth of the Great Elector Part 55

And with loud voice, occasionally interrupted by the convulsive groans which escaped his breast, he read: "I am grieved to announce to you, beloved and honored father, that our affairs have not prospered, as we hoped and expected. Through the intercession of good Father Silvio, I had a long interview yesterday with the Emperor. And the result of it is this: The Emperor loves you, it is true; he calls you his most faithful servant, and promises ever to be a gracious Sovereign to you, but he will never further your projects of becoming an independent ruler, and will not a.s.sist you to effect the Elector's ruin, that you may usurp his place. He rather wishes you to remain what you are--Stadtholder in the Mark--and to exert all your energies in maintaining that position, since the Emperor relies upon your good offices for securing him an ally in the Elector. The Mark is to remain Frederick William's domain, but the Elector must become an Imperialist. Such is the will and pleasure of the Emperor. He urged me to beg you to evince more complaisance and deference for the Elector, that you may acquire influence over him. The Emperor had been much shocked by the news sent him from Konigsberg by Martinitz. It appears certain from this information, my dear father, that the Elector is much set against you, and that he only makes use of your continuance in office as a mask, behind which he may, unseen, direct his missiles against you. The Elector has taken your refusal to come to Konigsberg upon his invitation in very ill part, and it has excited his highest displeasure. We have played a dangerous game, and I fear we have lost it."

"Lost!" screamed the count, crus.h.i.+ng the paper in his hand into a ball and das.h.i.+ng it to the ground. "Yes, I have lost and am ruined! The end and aim of my whole life are defeated! I aimed at the summit, and when I have nearly reached my goal an invisible hand hurls me back, and I am plunged into an abyss!"

"As serves you right, for G.o.d is just!" said a solemn voice behind him, and a hand was laid heavily upon his shoulder.

Count Schwarzenberg uttered a shriek of horror and turned round. A soldier stood behind him--an Imperial soldier in dirty, tattered garments, a poor, miserable man. And yet the count sprang from his chair, as if in the presence of some prince or superior being before whom he must bow with reverence. With bowed head he stood before this soldier, and dared not look him in the face!

Yes, it was a prince, it was a superior being before whom he bowed! He stood before his judge, he stood before his conscience! He knew it, he felt it! A cold hand was laid upon his heart and contracted it convulsively; it was laid upon his head and bowed it low. Death was there, and his name was Gabriel Nietzel!

"Gabriel Nietzel!" murmured his ashy pale lips, "Gabriel Nietzel!"

"You recognize me, then?" said the soldier quietly and coldly. "Look at me, count, lift your eyes upon me! I want to see your countenance!"

With a last effort of strength Count Schwarzenberg resumed his self-control. He raised his head, affecting his usual proud and self-satisfied air. "Gabriel Nietzel!" he cried, "Whence come you? What would you have of me? How did you come in here?"

"How did I come in?" repeated he. "Through yon door!"

And he pointed at the door opening upon the secret staircase. "I came twice and begged to be allowed access to you, but was refused. This time I admitted myself. You once sent me down the secret stairway, and pointed out that mode of exit to me yourself, when your son was coming to visit you. What do I want? I want you to give me my wife, my Rebecca; and if you have murdered her, I want _your life_!"

"Would you murder me?" exclaimed the count in horror, while moving slowly backward. Keeping his eyes fixed upon Gabriel Nietzel, he sought to gain the door to his bedchamber. But Nietzel guessed his design and disdainfully shook his head. "Do not take that trouble," he said. "I have abstracted both keys and put them in my pocket. You can not escape me."

Count Schwarzenberg's eyes darted a quick, involuntary glance across at the round table on which stood his bell. Nietzel intercepted this glance and understood that the count meant to call his people. He took up the bell and thrust it into his bosom.

"Give up your efforts to evade me," he said. "G.o.d sends me to you. G.o.d will punish your crime by means of this hand, which you once bribed to commit a murderous deed. Count Schwarzenberg, you have acted the part of the devil toward me! You have robbed me of my soul! Give it back to me! I demand of you my soul!"

"He is insane," said Count Schwarzenberg, softly to himself. But Nietzel caught his meaning.

"No," he said sorrowfully--"no, I am not insane. G.o.d has denied me that consolation. I know what has been, and what is. There was a time--a glorious, blessed time--when I forgot everything, when all pain was banished, and I was happy--ah, so happy! They said, indeed, that I was mad; they called it sickness, forsooth, and locked me up, and tormented me. But I was so happy, for _I_ saw my Rebecca always before me, she was ever at my side and--Count, where have you left my Rebecca? Where is she?

Give her to me! I will have her again, my own Rebecca! Give her back to me, directly, on the spot!"

He seized him with both his arms, his hands clutching his shoulders like claws. "Where is Rebecca--my Rebecca?"

Gabriel Nietzel stared at the count with frenzied fury, with devouring grief. Schwarzenberg cast down his eyes, a shudder pa.s.sed over his frame, and terror-stricken he turned his head. It seemed to him as if, while Gabriel pressed upon his shoulders in front, some one came stealthily up to him from behind. He heard a cry--a death cry! The Fury was there again!

He could not escape her now!

"Let me go, Gabriel Nietzel," he said feebly. "Quit your hold, go away. I will give you treasures, honors, distinctions, if you only quit your hold and go away!"

"What will you give me, if I let you go?" screamed Gabriel Nietzel, tightening his grasp and shaking him violently. "What will you give me?"

"I will give you a fine house, I will give you thousands, I will give you rank and t.i.tles. Tell me what you want, and I will give it to you!"

"Give me Rebecca! I want _her_ and her alone! Tell me where she is or I will kill you!"

"She is in my house at Spandow," said the count hastily. "Come, we will go away. You shall have your Rebecca again. Come, let us go! Rebecca is longing for you! Come!"

"You are deceiving me!" laughed Gabriel Nietzel. "I see it in your eyes, you are deceiving me. You want me to open the doors, and then you will call your people. There is no truth in what you say. Rebecca is not at Spandow; I know that, for I have been there. I stood many hours before the windows of your palace and called upon her name. She would have heard if she had been there; she would have come to me--she would have freed me from all my sufferings. For, you must know, my Rebecca loved me! Because she loved me, that she might expiate the crime which you had tempted me to commit, that she might lift the weight of sin from my head, she went back to Berlin and bade me go on with our child. I had solemnly sworn that to her, and I kept my oath. I went on, following the route we had agreed upon together. I waited for her at every resting place, and always waited in vain. I came to Venice, and went to the house of Rebecca's father; but she was not there. I wanted to go in search of her, but they held me fast, they imprisoned me in a dark dungeon. And there I sat a whole century, and yet was patient, ever waiting for the moment when I might escape from them and go to look for my Rebecca. And at last the moment came. The jailer entered to bring me my food; we were quite alone, and they had taken off my chains, for I had been harmless and gentle for some months past. I seized him, choked him, so that he could not scream, took his keys, and fled. G.o.d helped me; he always pities the poor and unfortunate--he knew that I wanted to search for Rebecca. I came to Germany; I enlisted as a soldier, for I durst not die of hunger, else I could not reach Berlin and find my Rebecca. But now I am here, and ask you in the name of G.o.d and in view of the judgment day, where is Rebecca?"

"I do not know," murmured Count Schwarzenberg, whom Gabriel Nietzel still held closely pinioned in his grasp.

"You do not know?" shrieked Gabriel Nietzel. "I read it in your face, you have murdered her. Yes, yes, I see it, I feel it--you have murdered her!

Confess it, wretch! fall down upon your knees and confess that you have murdered Rebecca!"

Schwarzenberg would have denied it, but he could not; conscience paralyzed his tongue, so that it could not utter the falsehood. He wanted to make resistance against those dreadful hands which held him fast, but he had no more power. Everything swam before him, there was a roaring in his ears, his knees tottered and shook, and the perspiration stood in great drops upon his brow.

"Mercy," he murmured, with quivering lips--"mercy! I will make good again, I--"

"Can you give me Rebecca again?" asked Gabriel, who now suddenly pa.s.sed from the extreme of wrath to a cold tranquillity. "Can you undo and make null your evil deeds? Can you take from me the guilt you brought upon me?

_No_, you can not, and therefore you must die, for crime must be expiated!

You murdered my Rebecca, and therefore I shall murder you. Adam Schwarzenberg, pray your last prayer, for I am here to kill you!"

"No, you will not!" cried Schwarzenberg. "No; you will be reasonable--you will accept my offers! I promise you wealth and consideration, I--"

"Silence and pray, for you must die! Death is here, Adam Schwarzenberg, for Gabriel Nietzel is here!"

He saw it, he knew that Gabriel spoke the truth. He knew that this man, with the pale, distorted, grief-worn face, with those large eyes flaming with the fires of insanity, was to be his murderer. Death had come to summon him away--death in the form of Gabriel Nietzel!

And so, he was to die! He, the mighty, the rich, the n.o.ble Count Schwarzenberg! _He_ whose name all Germany revered, _he_ before whom all bowed in humility, who had had control over millions! _He_ was to die by the hand of a madman, to die alone, unwept! If his son were only with him, his dear, his only son, who loved him, who--"Have you prayed?" asked Gabriel Nietzel, who had been waiting in silence.

"No," said Schwarzenberg, startled out of his train of thought--"no, I have not prayed! Why do you ask that?"

"Because you must die!" replied Gabriel Nietzel, grasping him more firmly with his left hand, and with his right drawing forth a dagger from his breast. The count profited by this moment, tore himself loose, jumped back, and rushed toward the open door of the secret pa.s.sage. But Nietzel sprang past him, and already stood before the door, confronting him again!

As he saw the dagger glitter in the air, he remembered, with the rapidity of thought, the instant when he had stood before Rebecca, with the drawn dagger in his hand.

She had cried "Mercy! mercy!" He wanted to cry so, too, but could not!

Like a flash of lightning it darted across his eyes, like a crus.h.i.+ng blow it fell upon his brain. He uttered a piercing shriek, tumbled backward, and fell upon the ground, with rattling in his throat and with dimmed eyes!

Gabriel Nietzel bent over him and looked long into that convulsed countenance, and into those eyes which were fixed upon him with a look of entreaty! Nietzel understood that look. "No," he said roughly--"no, I do not forgive you, I have no pity upon you. Be you cursed and condemned, and go to the grave in your sins! G.o.d has been gracious to me; he has not willed it that I should be stained with your blood. He has laid his own hand upon you and smitten you. You will perhaps have long to suffer yet.

Suffer!"

He put up his dagger, strode through the apartment, stepped out upon the secret pa.s.sage and closed the door behind him.

"And now," he said, when he found himself outside--"now I shall go and acknowledge my sins to the Elector. He will be compa.s.sionate, and allow me to mount the scaffold. I shall then have atoned for all, and will once more be united to my Rebecca!"

Was it possible that this wretched, sobbing, deathly pale something, lying there on the floor of the cabinet, was but a few hours since the proud, the mighty, the dreaded and courted Count Adam von Schwarzenberg, the Stadtholder in the Mark? Now he was a poor dying beggar, longing for a drink of water, and with no one near to hand him the refres.h.i.+ng draught; who longed for a tear, and had no one to weep for him; who longed for forgiveness, and G.o.d himself would not forgive him! Hours, eternities of anguish went by, and still he lay helpless and solitary upon the floor! He plainly heard how they came and knocked, and then moved softly away, because they supposed that he had shut himself up to work. He heard them, but he could not call, for his tongue was palsied! He could not move, for his limbs were paralyzed!

Hours, eternities of anguish went by. Then his old valet came through the secret door, creeping softly in, and found him, that pitiable creature, on the floor, and screamed for help. Then the doors were broken down, and the servants came and the physicians. They lifted him up and bore him to the divan. He breathed, he lived! Perhaps help might not yet be impossible!

Everything was tried, but all in vain. He still lived and breathed, but he was paralyzed in all his limbs, and soon the inner organs, too, refused to exercise their functions. They removed the invalid to Spandow because the mutinous regiments were perpetually threatening to renew their attack upon the count's palace, and might disturb the repose of the dying man. There he lay in his castle, a living corpse for four days more, with open eyes, giving token that he heard and understood what was pa.s.sing about him.

Finally, at the end of four days, on the 4th of March, 1641, Count Adam von Schwarzenberg closed his eyes, and of the haughty, powerful, dreaded Stadtholder in the Mark, nothing was left but cold, stiff clay![47]

VII.--THE SEALING OF THE DOc.u.mENTS.

A courier, sent to Regensburg by Herr von Kracht, commandant of Berlin, immediately upon the decease of Count Adam Schwarzenberg, had prompted his son Count John Adolphus to expedite his departure from that place, and to journey by forced stages to Berlin. He repaired first to Spandow. and had his father's embalmed remains interred with great pomp in the village church. After having thus discharged this first filial duty, he proceeded to Berlin to take possession of the inheritance left him by his father.