Tales from the German Volume II Part 2

'How can you think so, sir?' quickly replied Faith. 'I thank my G.o.d and yourself for my release.'

'Well, one cannot always know,' said Dorn, jestingly. 'The heart may often have attachments in a place otherwise particularly disagreeable.'

'If I thought you alluded to the captain,' said Faith, with some asperity, 'I could become angry with you, in the first hour of our acquaintance.'

'He is not, indeed, a very fascinating suitor,' continued Dorn; 'but there nevertheless may be in the city of Sagan, some slender rosy youth, who has eyes for so beauteous a maiden.'

'I know none here for whom I could have eyes,' answered the maiden, quickly, and immediately became somewhat alarmed at the traitorous emphasis she had laid upon the word _here_.

'Not here, but elsewhere?' asked Dorn, seizing her delicate white hand.

'These bold questions come from the evil customs of your hateful military profession,' said Faith, endeavoring to withdraw her hand. He suffered her to regain it only by slow degrees, letting but one rosy finger out of his hand at a time, while his pulse was becoming greatly accelerated by the soft, caressing touch. His eyes sought and met hers, which looked kindly upon him, not with the sun's consuming fire, but with the mild chaste light of the friendly moon.

'So you have not yet loved, charming Faith?' he earnestly asked, holding fast the last little finger of the imprisoned hand.

'What a question,' whispered she, turning away from him. 'I am scarcely sixteen years old.'

'Then the first silver-tone is yet to be drawn from this untried 'harp of a thousand strings;' O, how happy,' cried the youth, 'will be that artist who shall one day succeed in awakening its thrilling music!'

Faith suddenly exclaimed, 'Good night, captain!' The farewell bow released the yet imprisoned finger, and the delightful vision disappeared.

CHAPTER III.

When Dorn opened his eyes the next morning, a corporal and six halbardiers were standing before his bed.

'Dress yourself quickly,' commanded the corporal. 'I am ordered to bring you before the duke.'

Having soon become satisfied that no opposition was, in this case, to be thought of, Dorn obeyed. As he and his guards were pa.s.sing through the streets, he saw many things which went to prove the arbitrary power of the man before whom his own emperor and all Europe were then trembling. Notwithstanding the misery and suffering produced by the war, he saw whole rows of houses which had been repaired, newly painted, and splendidly furnished, that the city in which the Friedlander dwelt and governed might present an agreeable appearance to the eye. The beautiful flocks and herds of the city, driven by weeping burghers, were making their way toward the gates, having been expelled because their continuance in the city was inconsistent with the dignity of a capital. The work of demolition was yet going on in the vicinity of the palace, and more than fifty houses were lying in ruins. To all of Dorn's questions, however, the corporal had but one answer:--'the duke wills it.' They had now reached the castle. The corporal conducted Dorn through the crowd of halbardiers, footmen and pages, to the ante-chamber of the audience-room, where fifty of the body guards were on duty. Two Silesian n.o.blemen, amba.s.sadors to the duke from Leignitz and Oels-Bernstadt, were here waiting in patient humility to learn if the dictator would please to grant them an audience.

At length one of the duke's counsellors came out of the audience-room, and with insolent hauteur beckoned the Leignitz amba.s.sador, who reverentially approached the proud knight.

'What you have delivered to my lord in behalf of your province,' said the counsellor, with contemptuous disrespect, 'he will take into consideration and communicate his pleasure to your duke at the next a.s.sembly of the princes. Your complaints against the troops are not deserving of consideration. The soldier must have something for his trouble and toil. In that respect, my lord has far heavier and more just complaints against your duke. The latter has put a man to death who wished to take service in our army.'

'The culprit was a subject of our duke, and a wilful murderer,'

answered the amba.s.sador. 'He was executed in accordance with the right and in pursuance of the judgment of the court of Aldermen of Leignitz.'

'No court of justice,' continued the counsellor, 'may presume to punish any one who claims the Friedlander's protection. My lord directs you to say to your duke, that he must send him two hundred infantry from his own troops as an indemnification, or the heads of a dozen of the Leignitz n.o.bility shall be answerable for the neglect.'

The Leignitz amba.s.sador retired with a deadly paleness, and the messenger from Oels-Bernstadt was beckoned to approach.

'Duke Wenzel,' said the counsellor, in a cutting tone, 'has ventured to hang same soldiers of count Terzky's regiment.'

'As robbers taken in the act,' interposed the messenger; 'in obedience to the orders of the generalissimo himself, to keep the high roads safe, and punish all convicted criminals.'

'Terzky has written to him,' continued the counsellor, without noticing the interruption, 'that he has ordered the same number of the prince's counsellors to be hanged, and that he has already set a price upon their heads. Thereupon lord Wenzel immediately complained to the emperor, and the complaint, as was proper, has been transmitted to my master, who has decided upon the affair. He directs it to be announced to your master that he approves and will sustain the acts of count Terzky, and to give an example to the Silesian princes generally, the princ.i.p.alities and baronies of your master will be confiscated and divided among those soldiers who have merited them by their services.

With this message you are at liberty to depart.' He turned his back upon him and with a haughty step returned to the audience-room. The messengers departed in speechless sorrow, and at that moment a corporal conducted two well dressed ladies into the ante-chamber. They were closely veiled and weeping bitterly. Another corporal led a bound Wallensteiner, with wild, staring eyes, blue lips and bristling' hair, through the ante-chamber into the audience-room. The ladies now looked up, and, perceiving Dorn, quickly removed their veils. He instantly recognized his hospitable hostess and her lovely daughter.

'My dear Faith!' cried he with tender compa.s.sion; but the corporal rapped him upon the shoulder, and whispered to him, 'silence, if you have any regard for your neck. Without the duke's permission no word must be uttered here.'

A deep and awful silence now prevailed in the ante-chamber, broken only by some plaintive tone which occasionally reached them through the double doors which separated the two rooms. An angry voice suddenly cried within, 'let the brute be hanged!'--'That was the duke,'

whispered one of the soldiers to another. The doors opened, and the delinquent was again led through the ante-chamber by his companion.

'G.o.d be merciful to me!' stammered he, as he staggered onward and disappeared.

Again a deep silence, again the doors of the audience-room opened, and the counsellor cried out, 'the Dane, with the two gentlewomen!'

'Forward!' commanded each of the corporals, and with a firm step Dorn walked into the hall, supporting the almost fainting females.

A tall haggard man, with a dreadful sternness in his yellow face and small twinkling eyes, frightfully expressive of anxiety, a magnificent plumed hat upon his short red head, a black velvet Spanish jacket decked with the stars and chains of various orders, an ermine-trimmed, dark violet-colored velvet mantle upon his shoulders, was standing by his gilded armchair before a table, at which three counsellors and a Jesuit were seated. Six barons and the same number of knights, stood in files by the wall in respectful silence, that the behests of the all-powerful n.o.ble might be followed by instant execution, as the deed follows the will, or thunder the lightning. Behind the arm-chair stood the well known captain of the life guards, who met the entering group with a smile of Satanic triumph.

With the majesty of a prince of the lower world, the duke advanced to Dorn, looked at him with his little piercing eyes as though he would interrogate his soul, and in a gruff repulsive tone asked him, 'Danish captain?'

'By virtue of this commission,' quietly answered Dorn, handing the doc.u.ment to him.

The duke glanced through it, gave it back to him, and said, 'a prisoner of war, then!'

'When count Mannsfeld was driven through Silesia by you,' answered Dorn, 'I was left in Oels severely wounded. I there found a charitable merchant who had my wounds healed and afterwards took me with him to Schweidnitz. Tired of the trade of war, I have remained there for the last two years, and served my benefactor in the capacity of book-keeper. Under these circ.u.mstances, I leave it for your sense of justice to decide whether I can be considered a prisoner of war.'

'Or spy?' asked the duke.

'My free pa.s.sport remains with the commandant of the city,' answered Dorn.

'What was your object in coming to head quarters?' asked the duke.

'To bring a scholar from Schweidnitz,' answered Dorn, for your school at Gitschin, and to take back to Schweidnitz my employer's mother-in-law and her daughter.'

'Prove it!' cried the examiner.

'Send to the merchant Engelmann,' said Dorn; 'who must have left his prison last evening; and Madam Rosen must yet have the letter which she wrote to Schweidnitz and which I brought back to her as my credential.'

'Here is the unlucky letter,' sobbed the trembling widow, handing it to the duke on bended knee.

He took it, read, and turned towards the captain.

'We have your portrait here,' said he; 'not flattered, but well drawn.

Did you know the object of his coming here?'

The captain replied only by stammering some unintelligible words.

'He wished to prevent their departure,' said Dorn.

'To know and keep silence, is called lying!' observed the duke, with anger. Then to Dorn, 'you have, however, abused the emperor!'

'That is not true!' cried the latter with vehemence. 'He drank the emperor's health with the captain!' cried the trembling Faith, encouraged by her anxiety for the youth. 'I and my mother are witnesses, and because he drank the emperor's health, the captain pretended that he had enlisted for a soldier.'

'Shame upon you!' thundered the duke. 'Has a lord who has all Europe for a recruiting ground, need of such miserable devices?'