 Part 3 CHAPTER III. When I reached the Slosh Groban, I stood a moment to reconnoiter, and found myself in the same still cobble-paved road where I had met Anna a few hours before. On my left rose the high garden walls overtopped by a web of bare interlacing branches, and over that again the palace windows and its mansard roof. On my right the row of silent brown or red stone houses, well-to-do and snugly private, with beaten iron bars to the low windows and great scallop shells over the doors. This was the house down the stone steps of which my wife's servant had come this morning, and this was number ten. Of course! How clear it was all becoming to me! I dashed the sweat from my brow, for I had come like a lamp-lighter. Then I tramped up the three steps, and again halted a second. How quiet the house was! But I should soon put some bustle into it, I said to myself, and smiled. I plied the knocker till the sleeping echoes awoke, and I hung on the iron rope of the bell till the shrill protest of the jingling peel rang out into the street. There came other sounds from within as of a flutter in a dove-coat. Doors were opened and shut precipitately, a window was thrown back above my head, there was a vision of a white-capped face thrust forward and withdrawn, and indeed like rabbits from a warren, most I believe, of the idle servants in the street were popping out to see whence could proceed such unholy clanger. The door before me was at length cautiously and slowly opened, and through the aperture the frightened rose-red face of a maid looked out at me. I saw that I had been incautious and therefore addressed her with a suave mock courtesy. Indeed now that the actual moment had come I felt stealing over me a very deadly calm. Forgive me, said I, my winch, for disturbing you, thus rudely. I see I've alarmed you. These are, however, but old soldiers' ways which I trust your good mistress will pardon to an old friend. Her mistress is, if I mistake not, now the doctor's lady, but when I knew her she was frailined odorily pollen. The girl's mouth had, during this long speech which in my new mood came glibly enough to my lips, become broadened into a grin. There are very few girls in the empire I have been told that will not feel mollified toward a soldier. Is your mistress within, I pursued. She dropped a curtsy, and after a comprehensive glance over my person threw open the door. With the gentleman walk in, she brought me through a brick-paved hall into a long, low oak-paneled room, all dark and yet all shining with polish. It was very hot from my high china stove. What visitor shall I announce to the gracious lady? She asked, sliding towards me, and thrusting her apple-face as forward as she dared. I am so old a friend, in fact, I may say so near a connection, that I should like to give your gracious lady a pleasant surprise, said I. I will not therefore give my name. As a propitiatory afterthought, I pinched the hard red cheek and dropped a coin into her apron pocket. I tried to make my smile very sweet, but it felt stiff upon my lips. She, however, saw not a miss, and pattered out well content. Then followed a few minutes waiting. All had grown still again around me. Through the deep, recessed windows I looked forth into a little courtyard with one bare tree. This then was the home Otterly had chosen instead of an English estate. Instead of Tolendall, instead of all I could offer her, in Cortley, Vienna, or Great London, how she must love this man, or was it only the plebeian instinct reasserting itself in spite of all the court doctor's lady. I heard a footfall on the bare-boarded stair, and with a smile that was this time the natural expression of the complicated bitterness of my soul, I moved a few steps so as to place myself in the best light. My wife was perhaps still in ignorance of my escape from death. Anna had not yet carried her grievous news of the failure of their endeavours. Indeed, this was evident from the general placidity of the household, as well as the staid regularity of the approaching steps. To witness her joy at the discovery was sufficient revenge for the moment. After that the reckoning would be with—well, with my successor. Such was the state of my thoughts at the crucial moment of my strange story. I have said that I was calm, but, during the little pause that took place between the cessation of the footsteps and the turning of the lock, I could hear the beating of my own heart, like the measured roar of a drum in battle. Then was the door opened, and before me stood, not Othly, who had been my Othly, but the other Othly, the Princess. She was advancing upon me with the old, well-remembered, gracious smile, when all at once she halted with much the same terror-stricken look with which Anna earlier in the day had recognized me, and clashed her hands, crying, God, be merciful to us, Mr. de Yenoko, and seemed the next instant, ready to burst into tears. In the first confusion of my thoughts, in the rage created by this eternal quid pro quo, that I should ever find the lady in waiting when I wanted the Princess, and the Princess when I wanted the lady in waiting, I might have been inclined to think that Anna had, after all, spread her tidings, and that my wife's former mistress had come to her aid at this awkward moment. But the surprise and consternation on this woman's countenance were too genuine to have been counterfeit. Whatever reason brought the Princess here, I was in no humour to inquire. I came to see my wife, madame," said I, and not to presume upon your highness's condescension. I am determined to see my wife. I insisted that Othly Palin, who was your maid of honour and lived with me as my wife for a month as your highness well knows, and who was in such haste to wed this court doctor of yours at the first rumour of her husband's death. I spoke in a very uncourt here like rage. But she whom I addressed showed neither anger nor astonishment, but sank into the nearest chair in mere heap of soft, distressed womanhood, wringing her plump, dimpled hands, while tears of extraordinary size suffused her eyes and overflowed upon her cheeks. In sight of this, my heat fell away. I threw myself on my knees beside her, and all forgetful of the distance between us took one of her hands in mine and poured forth an appeal. You are always kind to me. Be kind now. I must see my wife. I have been cruelly treated. I am surrounded with the enemies. Be you, my friend," she lent forward and looked at me earnestly with swimming eyes. "'Is it possible?' she exclaimed. "'Is it possible?' said the mystery to Yenakou that you have not found out yet, that you do not suspect? Even as she spoke, and while I knelt looking up at her, the scales fell from my eyes. I needed no further word. I knew. How was it possible, indeed, that I should not have known before? I saw as in a flash that this cumbly burger woman was not, had never been, never could have been, the Princess. I saw that the hand I still unconsciously held bore marks of household toil, that on the third finger glittered a new wedding ring. Then a thousand memories rushed into my mind a thousand confirmatory details. Oh, blind, blind, blind that I had been. Fool and worse than a fool. The mystery of my wife's mocking smile, the secret that had so often hung unspoken on her lips, her careless pretty ways, the depth of her injured pride, and then the manner in which she had been guarded from me. The force employed against me, the secret diplomatic attempts to free her, followed on their failure by the relentless determination to do away with me altogether. Before my reeling brain it all rose into towering conviction, a joy, a sorrow, both too keen for humanity to bear, seized upon my weakened frame. I heard as if in the far distance the words the woman near me was saying, it all began by a freak of her highness. And with the echo of them whirling, as it were, in a mad dance through my brain, to the sound of thundering cataracts, a whirl pool of flame spreading before my eyes, I fell with a crash, as it seemed, into a yawning black abyss. When I again came to myself, the cold air was blowing in upon me through the open casement, and I was stretched full length on a hard floor, in what seemed a perfect deluge of the very strongest vinegar I had ever smelt. At one side of me knelt my hostess, her healthy face blanched almost beyond recognition. On the other between my wandering gaze and the window swam the visage of the maid. Eyes and mouth as round as horror could make them. But with cheeks the ruddiness of which it seemed no emotion could mitigate. Both my kind attendants gave a cry as I opened my eyes. "'He is recovering, Trude,' said Madame Lothar, to call her now by her proper name. "'Oh, gracious lady,' answered the wench in an unctuous tone of importance, his face is still as red as the beat I was pickling when I heard her scream. "'Oh, God, the master were here to bleed him. Shall I send him to the town to seek him?' "'God forbid!' cried her mistress in a hasty and pramptory tone. "'No, I tell you, Trude, he is recovering, and I have not been a doctor's wife these six weeks for nothing. The flush is fading even as I look at him. See thee here? Fetch me some of the cordial water.' I do not know how far her six weeks' association with the medical luminary, her husband, had profited, Madame Lothar. I have since been told that her administration of cordial, immediately upon such a blood stroke to the head as mine, ought really to have finished me off. But as it happened it did me a vast deal of good, and I was soon able to shake off the giddiness, the sickness, and the general confusion of my system. With recovered wits it gradually became apparent to me that while Madame Lothar continued to ply me with every assistant she could think of, regarding me with eyes in which shown most kindly and womanly benevolence, her chief anxiety nevertheless was to get rid of me with all possible dispatch. But I was not likely to give up such an opportunity. The chaos in my mind consequent upon the unexpected revelation and its disastrous physical effect was such as to render me no very coherent inquisitor. Nevertheless the determination to learn all that this woman could tell me about my wife rose predominant above the seeding of my thoughts. Otterly, my wife, was Otterly the princess after all? I had felt the truth before it had been told me, but whilst I removed an agonizing supposition, these struck me nevertheless as strange, unhomely tidings which opened fresh difficulties in my path, difficulties the full import of which were every second more strongly borne upon me. Otterly, the princess! Everything was changed, and the relentless attitude of the princess bore a very different aspect to the mere resentment of the injured wife. When my letters had been flung back in my face, when I had been kidnapped and expelled the country, it had been then by her orders. She had sent to demand the divorce. Who had set the bravo on my track? By whose wish had my life been so basely, so persistently attempted? By hers? Otterly? The princess? A princess who had repented of her freak whose pride, whose reputation had suffered from the stigma of an unequal match. The man whose sword had twice passed through my body had called out, Ha! Otterly! Who dare call on a princess thus save her kinsmen, or her lover? I felt the blood surged through me again, but this time in my anger it brought a sense of courage and strength. I interrupted Madame Lothner as with a joyful exclamation that I was now quite restored, she was about to issue an order for the summery fetching of a hired coach. Let your maid go, I said authoritatively, but not for a coach. I have yet much to say to you. I was without pity for the distress this demand occasioned, deaf to the hurried whisper. For pity's sake, go now that you can, you are in danger here. Think of yourself, if you will not think of me. I can think of but one person, I said harshly. I have come a thousand miles to learn things which I know you can tell me, and here I remain until I have heard them. Any delay on your side will only pour along the danger since danger there be. She looked up in tearful pleading, met my obstinate gaze and instantly submitted, a woman born to be ruled. Go, Trude, she said faintly, and warn me if you see your master coming. What will she think of me? sighed the poor lady as the door closed upon an awestruck but evidently suspicious Trude. But no matter. That just now than the truth. Now, sir, for God's sake, what is it you would have of me? Let me go back, said I, to the beginning. When I married my wife at Tolendall, she was then for a freak, as you say, acting the lady and waiting while you assumed her role of princess? It is so, said Madame Lothner, but I never knew till the deed was accomplished to what length her highness had chosen to push her folly. I could not then attempt to interfere or advise. How else could I be the person to send tidings to the court? So, said I, as she paused, so said she, in great fear and trembling I deemed it past to obey her highness's strict command and await events at the castle of Shrekendorf, still in my assumed part. But when my wife returned to you, I said, and my voice shook, returned to you in a peasant's cart. Oh, I know all about it, Madame. I know that I drove her forth through the most insensate pride that ever lost soul in its paradise. When she returned, the truth must have already been known. Huck, yes, murmured the sentimental Saxon, her eyes watering with very sympathy at the sight of my bitter self-repoach. Yes, it was because of rumors which had already reached the residence. From your friends in England, I believe, that his serene highness the duke sent in such haste to recall us. He would not come himself for fear of giving way to the scandal, but it was her highness who chose to confirm the report. How, cried I eagerly, why, sir, answered the doctor's lady, flowing on, not unwillingly, in her soft guttural, though visibly perturbed, nevertheless, and now and again anxiously alive to any sound without. Why, sir, her highness, having returned to Shrekendorf before the arrival of the ladies and gentlemen from Los Eats, and being it seemed determined, here she hesitated and glanced at me timidly, determined not to return to Tolendall ever again, her highness might easily, had she wished, have denied the whole story, and indeed, continued a speaker with a shrewdness I would not have given her credit for, had she so behaved it would have best pleased her relations, she was not so made. Ah, no indeed, said I, her pride would not stoop to that. You are right, said Madame Lothner, with a sigh. She is very proud. She was calm and seemed to have quite made up her mind. I will give no explanation to any one, she said to me, and I recognize in no one the right to question me, but my father shall know that I am married, and that I am separated from my husband forever. I am not the first woman of my rank on whom such a fate has fallen. That was her attitude. And here the good creature broke forth, as if in spite of her shelf, with a passionate expostulation, a mistery of Yenneco, but she suffered. Oh, if you would atone, leave her now, leave her at least in peace. You have brought enough sorrow already into her life. Ah, I do not know how it has been between you, but now that she thinks you dead, for God's sake, let it be. By heaven, Madame, cried I, half mad, I believe between pain, remorse, and fury. These are strange counsels. Do you forget that we are men and wife, and this by her own doing? But truly, I need not be surprised, for you do not hesitate before the crime at the Court of Los Eats, and if murder be so lightly condoned, sure it is that bigamy must seem a very peccadillo. Madame Lothner stared at me with startled eyes and dropping jaw. Murder! She whispered. Mr. Yenneco, what terrible thing do you say! Then she put her hand to her head, ejaculating true. It was the Margrave himself who brought us news of your death on his return from England. It was in the English papers. I feared I know not what, but this, this, God save us! I looked at her and fresh bewildered it. She was, as one seized by overwhelming terror. I felt that her emotion had its origins and causes still unknown to me. And who is the Margrave? I cried quickly. She lowered her voice to the barest breath of sound, and glanced fearfully over her shoulder as if afraid of eavesdroppers even in this retired room. Prince Yujin, as they call him, she said, one of her harnesses, cousins. He has, I do not quite know how, hopes of sovereignty in Poland, and they were to have been married. It was her father's wish, and it is so still. I sprang up with an imprecation, but the lady almost flung herself upon me and clapped her hand over my mouth. In the name of God, she said, be still or you will ruin us. My husband is his most devoted adherent. In this house he rules, and we bow to the earth before him. I sank back into my seat, docile, in spite of myself, impressed by the strength of her fear. New trains of revelations crowded upon me. Yujin of Lignitz Rothenburg, Rothenburg, Villarouge, I saw it all. She went on, bringing her mouth close to my ear. The princess hated him, and indeed he has grown into a strange and terrifying man, so oddly impulsive, cruel, willful, vindictive. He always professed to love the princess, but I cannot but think that it was the love of taming. He would dearly love to break her, just as he loves to break the proudest spirited horse. His gray eyes make me grow cold. As I said from a child, she hated him, and it was for that. Having seen one whom she thought she could love, here she paused and glanced at me, and hesitated. It was for that. I remembered. She had told me of the unhappy fate that threatened the princess that evening when we met under the fir trees to decide upon my crazy match, and when, as I had deemed, she had fooled me to the top of my bent. She had spoken in tones of scathing, contempt, and hatred of some cavalier, and now, suddenly gripped by the old devil of doubt and jealousy, I cried out, and now, after all the fate of being wedded to an obscure gentleman seems to her more dreadful than that of sharing her place with her cousin, and the peculiar qualities of a hated relative have barren very usefully employed in ridding her of the inconvenient husband. Oh, madam, of course you know your court of lawseats, and I think I begin to see your drift, you think, in your amy ability, that it would be preferable to see your mistress bigamously united than that she should legitimize her position by yet another and more successful attempt at assassination. I fail to understand you, sir, drawing back from me nevertheless with a glance of mistrust, in indignation. I will be plain, said I. When the princess, who is my wife, left me, I will own I bear some blame. But then I had been strangely played with. She had doubtless already begun to repent what you call her freak. When I followed her and implored her forgiveness, you yourself know all about it, madam, for you must have acted under her orders. She flung back my letters, through your agency, with a contemptuous denial of any knowledge of such a person as Mr. Duganico. When I wrote to her, her whom I believed to bear your name, a pleading abject letter, for I was still but a poor loving fool, and her only answer was to have me seized and driven from the country like a criminal. Later on, when I refused to be a party to her petition for divorce, she thought, no doubt, she had given me chances enough, and this time she deputed the noble bully her cousin to marriage the matter in his own fashion. My life was attempted five times, madam, and when it all failed, your Prince Eugene, you tell me, he was in England, and there was a certain great bulky chevelier de Ville Rouge who particularly sought my acquaintance, to his he, is it not, your Prince Eugene, honoured me by seeking a duelo, and by running his august sword through my common body, and that more often be it said, than custom sanctions in honourable encounters, I was given for dead. No wonder it seems to be the sport of hell to keep me alive, I can scarce think it is the will of heaven. Madam Lothner had followed my tirade with what appeared the most conflicting sentiments, blank astonishment, horror, indignation. It was the last, however, that predominated. Her countenance became suffused with crimson. Her blue eyes flashed to fire I had not deemed them capable of harboring. She forgot the precautions she herself had so strenuously enjoined. And do you dare, sir, cried she, accuse my mistress of these things, you whom she loved. You knew her as your wife for four weeks, and yet you know her so little as to believe her plotting your death. Those letters, sir, you speak of, she never received. Nor did I, nor did she, nor I ever hear of your presence in this land. It is true that after you had left, for you left her first, remember, after well night a year without tidings of you, she did herself send to you to request the annulment of the marriage. It was to free you, because she believed you repented of it, and she felt she had entrapped you into it. And when, sir, you refused, she had hope again in her heart. For she loved you, and she suffered persecution on your account, and was kept and watched like a state prisoner, she that had always lived for the free air and for her own way. They were cruel to her, and put dreadful pressure upon her that she should make her appeal alone to the pope. But she held firm, and bore it all in silence, and lived surrounded by spies, her old friends and old servants banished from her sight, until the news came that you were dead. Then she mourned as never a woman mourned yet for her first and only love. As to marriage, what dreadful things have you been saying? Your highness will never marry again. She will be faithful as long as she lives to you whom she believes dead, and God forbid it should be otherwise, for Prince Eugen would wed her from no love, I believe, but solely to punish her for resisting him so long, to break her to his will at last, and triumph over her. Oh no, she would never wed again. You must believe me, for I have been with her through it all, and though she would mock me and laugh at me once, she turned to me afterwards as to her only friend. Get up, Monsieur de Yenakou, get up! Oh, God, what a coil this is! My good sir, get up! Think if the doctor were to come in. Oh, God, what is that you say? Nay, I have been a fool, and this is the worst of all, my poor friend. There is no room for happiness here, for I had fallen at her feet again, and was covering her hand with kisses, blessing her with tears, I believe, for the happiness of this moment. She ended good soul by weeping with me, or rather over the pity of the joy that was doomed, as she thought, to such brief duration. Oh, you are mad! You are mad! She said, as I poured forth I know not what extravagant plans. Utterly loved me, cried I, in the depths of my exultant soul. What could be difficult now? You are mad! Have you not yet learned your lesson? Do you not understand that they will never, never let you have her? Go back to your home, sir, and if you love her, never let her know you are still alive, for if they heard it here, God knows what she would be put to bear, and if she knew they had tried to murder you, it would kill her. I tell you, sir, a court is a dreadful place, and Prince Eugene, you know what he is, and his Serene Highness himself, he is hard as the stones of the street. You have seen what they have done. No law can reach them. They will not fail again. And if a second scandal she paused, hesitated, shuddered, then bending over to me she whispered, half inarticulately, if a second scandal came to pass, who knows what forfeit she might not have to pay. But I rose, clasped her two hands, and looked into her eyes with all the bold joy that filled my heart. My kind friend, I said, you cannot frighten me now, keep you but our secret, and you will yet see your mistress happy. I wrung her hands and hurried to the door, as eager now to be gone, as I had been to enter. I must act, and act at once, and there was much to do. She followed me, lamenting and entreating to the steps where stood faithful Trude, with garments blown about in the cold wind. But as I turned to take a last farewell, my hostess caught me by the sleeve. Keep close, she said, keep close, and if you are hurt, if you are ill, she hesitated a second, then leaned forward and breathed into my ear. Do not send for the court, doctor. I rushed out into the street, treading as if on air, my cloak floating behind me, my head thrown back, all warnings unheeded in the first overpowering tide of this joy which had come upon me at the darkest hour of all. I had told myself that I must act, and act at once, but till I had had a moment's breathing time to realize the extraordinary revelations by which the whole face of the past and of the future was changed to me. I could form no coherent thought, much less could I form plans. I wanted space for this, space and solitude. And so I hurried along, as I have described, looking neither to the right nor to the left, when I was seized upon from behind, and by no means gentle hands brought me first to withstand still, and next, through the folds of my cloak around me in such a fashion, as once more to cover my face. Are you mad, said Janos, with a fiercer display of anger than I had ever known him to show me, though he had marshaled me pretty rigidly through my illness? I have been following you these five minutes and all the town stairs at your honor. It is lucky you took a side turning just now, or you would have been straight into the great place, perhaps into the main guard. If you want to look for death you can go to the wars like my old master, but it is an ill thing to find it in the assassin's blade, as I thought you had learned by now. Do you forget, continued Janos, scolding more vehemently, that they are all leagued against you in this country? Do you forget how they packed you out of the land last year, and warned you never to return? It is very well to risk one's life, but it is ill to throw it away. O Janos, true soul, said I, as soon as I could get air to speak with, for his grasp upon the folds of my cloak was like an iron clamp. All has changed, all is explained. You saw me last the most miserable of men. You see me now the happiest. We had paused in a deserted alley leading into the gardens on the ramparts. As I looked round I saw that the sky had grown darkly overcast, and by Janos's pinched face, as well as by the bowing and bending of the trees, that the wind had risen strong and cold. To me it might have been the softest breeze of spring. I drew the man over to a bench, all frosted already by tiny flakes, which fell persistently, yet sparsely, and there I told him my tale of joy. He listened, blinking and grinning, at length when it was duly borne in upon him that the wife I was seeking was really and actually the princess of the land. He clasped his hands and cried with a certain savage enthusiasm. Oh, my old master, I'd live to see today. But the next instant the bristling difficulties of the situation began to oppress his aged heart. He pondered with a fallen face. Then your honour is in even greater danger than I had thought, said he, and every second he passes in this town of cutthroats adds to the risk. Even so, said I, clapping him on the shoulders, my spirits rising higher, it seemed, with every fresh attempt to depress them. Even so, my good fellow, and therefore since my wife I mean to have, and since I mean to live to be happy with her, what say you, to our carrying her off this very night? He made no outcry. He knew the breed. He himself had said it too well. As you may see a dog watch his master's signal to dash after the prey, wagging his tail faintly the while, so the fellow turned and fixed me. And how will your honour do it? said he, without protest. How, said I, and laughed aloud, by my soul I do not know. I know nothing yet. We will home to the inn and deliberate. There is not so difficult, but love will find the way, and Romeos will scale walls to reach their Juliet's, so long as this old world lasts. I rose as I spoke, and so did Janos, shaking his snow from his bent shoulders. I know nothing of the gentleman your honour speaks of, nor of the ladies. But, mild master, your honour's uncle did things in his days. God forgive me that I should remember them against a holy soul in heaven. There was a time when he kept a whole siege—it was before Reichenberg in fifty-nine—a whole siege waiting, ordered a cessation of fire for a night that he might visit some lady in the town. He was the general of the besieging army, and he could order as he pleased. By St. Stephen he got into the town somehow, and I with him, and the next morning we got out again. No one knew where we had been but himself, and myself, and herself. And before midday we had that town. Fie, fie, Janos, said I, these are sad tales of a field-martial. Let us hope my good aunt never heard them. Her excellency, said Janos, and crossed himself, would have gloried in the deed. But, your honour, we have the heavens against us tonight. I have not seen a sky look blacker even in England, since the great storm at Tolendall. Ah, your honour remembers when. All the better, said I, as we turned to honour. A stormy night is the best of nights for a bold deed. And I thought within myself, I lost her in the storm. In the storm shall I find her again. Thus does a gladhark frame his own omen. It was all very fine to talk of carrying off my wife in such fashion. But when, seated together near the fire in my room, talking in whispers so that not even the great stove-door could catch the meaning of our conclave, Janos and I discussed our plans. We found that everything fell before the insuperable difficulty of our ignorance of the topography of the palace. There seemed nothing for it but to endeavour to interview Anna once more, dangerous as the process might be. And we were already discussing in what character Janos should present himself when, fortune, that jade that had long turned so cold a shoulder upon me, came to the rescue in the person of the good woman herself. There was a hard knock at the door, which made us both, the spiriters, as we were, jump apart. And I involuntarily felt for the pistol in my coat-skirts, while Janos stopped to open. And there stood the blank black figure which had once seemed to cast a sort of shadow on my young delight, but which now I greeted as that of an angel of deliverance. She loved her mistress. Her mistress loved me. What could she do me then but good? I sprang forward and drew her in by both hands. She threw back the folds of her hood and looked round upon us. And her grim, anxious countenance relaxed into something like a smile. Then she dropped me a stiff curtsy, and coming close to my ear I gave my mistress the gracious master's letter. She said and paused. I seized upon her hand again. Oh, Anna! Dear Anna! How is she? How did she take it? Was she much concerned? Was she—? I hesitated. Was she glad to learn I am not dead? The woman's eyes looked as if they would faint speak volumes, but her tasseturned tongue gave utterance to few words. My mistress, she said, wept much and thanked God. That was all. But I was satisfied. She is in much fear for you. The messenger went on after a pause. She bade me say she dared not write because of the danger to you. She bade me say that the danger is greater than you know of, that your enemies are other than you think. Now they believe you're dead, but you may be recognized, and you were out to-day again. Said Anna, suddenly dropping the sing-song whisper of her recitation, and turning upon me sternly with uplifted finger out in spite of my warning, I know for I came to the inn to find you. All this is foolish! And this is the end of your message? Said I, who had been drinking in every word my wife's sweet lips had so sweetly spoken for me. Was there nothing else? Said I again, for my soul hungered for a further sign of love. There was one thing more, said Anna in her stolid way. She bade me say she would contrive to see you somehow soon. But that as you love her you must keep hidden. I shut my eyes for a second, to taste in the secret of my heart the honeyed savor of that little phrase that meant so much, as you love me. For there rang the unmistakable appeal of love to love, and I smiled to think that she was still reserving the telling of her secret. I guessed it was because she was pleased that I should want her for herself, and not for the vain pride that had been our undoing. And then with my bold resolve a thousandfold strengthened I caught Anna by the arm. No, listen, said I, and stooped to bring my lips to her ear. When I went out this afternoon it was to good purpose. I have seen Frau Lothner. I know all. Lord God! cried Anna, and snatched her hand from mine and threw her arms to heaven. Her long-brown face overspread with power. And she has seen you and recognized you, the court doctor's wife? Then God help us all. If the secret is not out today it will be tomorrow. Oh, my poor child, my poor child! She rocked herself to and fro in a paroxym of indignant grief. But, said I, trying to soothe her that she might listen to my plan, Madam Lothner is an old friend of mine. She is devoted to the Princess. She has a kind heart. She has promised me discretion. She, said Anna, and paused to throw me a look of unutterable scorn. She the sheep-head, in the hands of such and one as the court doctor! My lord, I give you but to midnight to escape, for as it happens, and God is merciful that it happens so, the mark-rave has sent for the doctor at his camp of Leetnitz, and he will not return until after supper. So be it, said I, gaily. Say it by shell, Anna, but not alone. The woman's shallow face grew paler yet. The depth of the love for the child she had nursed at her breast gave her purse poccacity. Her eyes sought mine with fearful anticipation. I drew her to the furthest end of the room and rapidly expounded my project, which developed itself in my mind even as I spoke. Outside the snow was falling. All good citizens were within doors. There was as yet no suspicion of my presence in the town. The palace was quiet and my bitterest enemy was absent. To delay would be to lose our only chance. The passion of my arguments, nonetheless forcible, perhaps because of the stress of circumstances which kept my voice at whisper pitch, bore down on Anna's protests, her peasant's fears. I had, I believe, a powerful auxiliary in the woman's knowledge of all that her beloved mistress might be made to suffer upon the discovery of my reappearance. She felt the convincing truth of my statement, that if the attempt was to be made, at all, it must be made this very night. And she saw, too, that I said true when I told her I would only give up such attempt with my life. Moreover, joy, as yet hardly realized, she knew that my wife's happiness lay in me alone, and so she agreed with unexpected heartiness to every detail of my scheme. She was to meet me at the end of the palace garden lane before the stroke of eight, two hours hence, and admit me through a side poster into the garden itself. We were obliged to fix so early an hour to avoid the necessity of running twice past centuries, who, it seemed, were doubled around the palace after eight o'clock. The princess's apartments were upon the first floor on the garden side, and from the terrace below it was quite possible it appeared for an active man to climb up to her balcony. I would bring a rope ladder, Yanov should make it for he had no doubt some knowledge of that scaling implement. As soon as she had shown me the way, Anna was to endeavor to prepare her mistress for my coming. Once in his turn was to be waiting with my carriage and post-horses, as near the garden gate as he dared. The princess, the nurse told me, was want to retire about nine. It might be a little earlier or later, and life then to be left in solitude, Anna herself being the only person admitted to her chamber. Among the many risks there was one inevitable, the danger of being discovered by my wife lurking on her balcony before Anna had had time to carry her message, for it was impossible, the woman warned me that she should now see her mistress before the latter descended to meet the duke at supper. I was, however, gaily prepared to face this risk, and even foolhardy as it may seem, desired in my inmost soul that there should be no intermediary on this occasion, and that my lips only should woo her back to me, that this first meeting after her hard parting should be sacred to ourselves alone. I reckoned, besides upon the fact that since utterly new I was in the town she would not be surprised at my boldness, however desperate, that she would ascertain with her own eyes who it was who dared to climb so high before she called for help, at length when everything was clear and the woman showed after all a wonderful mother-wit, and had departed in the storm, and I and Janos were left to our own plans and preparations. As for me, my heart had never ridden so high, never for a second did I pause or hesitate. In a few minutes we had devised half a dozen alternate schemes of flight, all equally good, all equally precarious. Will your honour leave it to me? said the old campaigner at last, as he sat, beginning to plate to not various lengths of our luggage ropes into an escape ladder. The settlement of the in-account, the post-horses, and the choice of the road, with this I was content. The wind had abated little, but the snow was still falling steadily when I set forth at length. The streets were, as I expected, very empty, and the few way farers whom I chanced to meet were so enveloped and so plastered with white, the chief thought of every one was so obviously how best to keep himself warm, how soonest to get within shelter, that I hugged myself again upon my luck. There was a glow within me which defied the elements. At the corner of the garden lane, at the appointed place, even as the tower-clock began the quarter-chimes, I saw a woman's figure rapidly approaching the tristing spot from the opposite direction. I hesitated for a moment, uncertain as to its identity, but it made straight for me, and I saw it was Anna. As we turned into the lane itself, she suddenly whispered, Put your arm around my waist! And the next instant, from the very midst of my amazement, I realized her meaning. We had to pass close by a sentry-box. Woman's wits are even sharper than man's. The sentry was stamping to and fro, beating his breast with his disengaged hand, but seized his bear-dance to stare at us as we came within the light of the poster-lamp, and launched at the dim couple so lovingly embraced, some rude witticism in his peasant tongue, accompanied by a grunt of good-natured laughter. My supposed sweetheart pulled her hood further over her face, answered back tartly with a couple of words in the country dialect, and followed by an ironical blessing from the churl, we were free to pursue our way unchallenged. This was the only obstacle we encountered. The lane was quite deserted. We stopped before a little poster-endore, half-buried in Ivy, which Anna, producing a key from her pocket, unlocked after some difficulty. At last it rolled back on its rusty hinges, with what sounded in my ears as an exultant creak, an ancient bird's nest fell upon my head as we passed through into the garden. Anna carefully pushed the door, too, once more, but without locking it, and we hastened towards the distant gleaming front of the palace, stumbling as we went, for the soft snow concealed the irregularities of the path. Without hesitation, however, my guide led me between two fantastically carved hedges of box and you, till we came to a statue, burying a blurred outline, ghostly white in the faint snow-light. Here she stood still and pointed to the south wing. There, she said, while all the blood in my body leaped, there are my mistress's apartments. See you those three windows above the terrace? The middle window with the balcony is that of Her Highness's bedroom. You cannot mistake it. The ivy is as thick as a man's arm, and you may climb by it in safety. Now that I have done what you bade me, I will go to the palace. God see us through this mad night's work. With these words she left me. I ventured to the foot of the terrace wall, and creepy alongside soon found the terrace steps, which I ascended with a tread as noiseless as the fall of the thick snowflakes all around me. I stood under her balcony. I groped for the ivy-stems and found them, indeed, as thick as cables. It was a plant of centenarian growth, and it clashed the old palace walls with a hundred arms, as close as welded iron, as strong and commodious a ladder as my purpose required. I swung myself up. I trembled now to think how recklessly, when one false step might have ended the life that had grown so dear. And next I found myself upon the balcony, Otterley's balcony, and through the parted curtains could peer into her lighted room. Then for the first time I paused, hesitating to pry upon her retirement like a thief in the night. For a moment I knelt upon the snow and cried in my heart for pardon to her. Then drawing cautiously aside from the shaft of light, I looked in. It was a large lofty apartment, with much gilding, tarnished it seemed by time, and with faded paintings and medallions on the walls. In an alcove, curtained off, I divined in the shadow a great carved bed, whose gilt curves caught now and again a gleam of ruby light from the open door of an immense rose-china stove. My eyes lingered tenderly over every detail of the sanctuary sacred to my lady. Outside upon the balcony, all in the darkness, the cold and the snow, my whole being began to swim in a dreamy warmth of love. It is like enough that had not something come to rouse me I might have been found next morning, stiff, frozen upon my perch with a smile upon my lips, a very sweet and easy death. From this dangerous dreaminess I was presently aroused to vivid watchfulness and energy. My wandering gaze had been for a little while uncomprehendingly fixed upon a shining wing of flowered satin stuff that trailed on one side of a great armchair, the back of which was turned towards me. This wing of brocade caught the full illumination of the candles on the wall, and showed hues of pink and green as dainty as the monthly roses in the garden of my old home in England. Now as I gazed, the roses began to move as if a breeze had shaken them, and lo, the next moment a little hand as white as milk fluttered down like a dove upon them and drew them out of sight. For a second my heart stood still, and then beat against my breast like a frantic wild thing of the woods against the bars of its cage. She was there. There already, my beloved! What kept me from breaking in upon her I cannot say. A sort of fear of looking upon her face again in the midst of my great longing, or maybe my good angel! Anyhow I paused, and pausing was saved. For in a second more a door opposite to me opened and an elderly lady, followed by two servants carrying a table spread for I repast, entered the room. The lady came towards the armchair and curtsied. I saw her lips move and caught the murmur of her voice, and listened next in vain for the music of those tones for which my ear had hungered so many days and nights. I saw the white hand cleave the air again as if with an impatient gesture. The lady curtsied, the lackeys deposited the table near the chair, and all three withdrew. I had trusted to fate to be kind to me this night, but I had not dared expect from fate more than neutrality, and now it was clear that it was taking sides for me, and that my wife had been strangely well inspired to sup in her chamber alone, instead of in public with her father, as I had been told was her wonk. No sooner had the attendance retired than I beheld her light figure spring up with the old bounding impetuosity I had loved and laughed at, fling herself against the door, and I heard the snap of the key. Now is my opportunity, and yet again I hesitated and watched. My face was pressed against the glass in the full glare of the light. Without a thought of caution, forgetting that, were she to look up and see me, the woman alone might well scream at the wild eager face, watching her with burning eyes from out of the black night. But she did not look up. Wheeling round at the door itself, as if she could not even wait to get back to her chair, aughtily, my aughtily, drew from beneath the lace folds that crossed upon her young bosom a folded letter, which I recognized by the coarse gray paper, as that which my own hand had scored in the little provision shop a few hours ago, an extraordinary mixture of emotions seized upon my soul, a sort of shame of myself again for spying upon her private life, and an unutterable rapture. I could have knelt once more in the snow as before a sacred shrine, and I could have broken down a fortress to get to her. From the very strength of the conflict I was motionless, with all my life still in my eyes. When she had finished reading, she lifted her face for a moment, and then for the first time I saw it. Oh, dear face, paled with many tears and dark thoughts, but beautiful, beyond even my heated fancy, with a new beauty, rarer and more exquisite than it is given me to describe. The same, yet not the same. The wife I had left had been a willful and wayward child, a mocking sprite. The wife I here found again was a gracious, a ripe and tender woman, upon whose lips and eyes sat the seat of a noble, sorrowful endurance. She lifted the letter to her lips and kissed it, looked up again, and then our eyes met. Then I hardly remember what I did. I was unconscious of any deliberate thought. I only knew that there was my wife, and that not another second should pass before I had her in my arms. I suppose I must have hurled myself against the casement. The lock yielding, and the window flew open. Enveloped in a whirl of floating snow, I leapt into the warm room, with dilated fixed eyes, with parted lips she stood, terror-stricken at first, yet erect and undaunted. I had counted all along on her courage, and it did not fail me. But before I had even time to speak, such a change came over her as is like the first up-spring of sunlight upon the colorless world of dawn. As you may see a wave gather itself aloft to break upon the shore, so she drew herself up and flung herself, melting into tears, body and soul as it were, upon my heart. In the next moment her lips sought mine. Never before had she so come to me. Never before had life held for me such a moment. Oh, my God, it was worth the suffering. End of Part 3, Chapter 4. Part 3, Chapter 5 of the Pride of Yenakal. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Sylvia M.B. in Washington State, The Pride of Yenakal, by Edgerton and Agnes Castle. Part 3, Chapter 5. A knock without aroused us. With a stifled cry of alarm the woman who had made no sound on the violent entry of an armed man upon her unprotected solitude now fell into deadly anguish. She sprang to the door and I could see the lace on her bosom flutter with the fear of her heart as she bent her ear to listen. The knock was repeated. Who is it? cried Adelie, in a strangled voice. I had said I would be alone. Tis I, child, came the answer in the well-known deep note. It is Anna alone. I thrust my sword back into its scabbard. My wife drew a long breath of relief and glanced at me with her hand pressed to her heart. Anna! Thank God! We can admit her. Anna is safe, she said, and turned the key. Anna opened the door, stood an instant on the threshold, contemplating us in silence, a faint smile hovered about her hard mouth. Then without wasting words on futile warnings she made fast the lock, deposited on the floor a dark lantern she had concealed under her apron, walked to the window, which she closed as best she could, and drew the curtains securely. Indeed, her precaution was not idle, through the silence of the outside world of night, muffled by the snow, but yet unmistakable. The tread of the first patrolling round now grew even more distinctly upon our ear, passed under the terrace, emphasized by an occasional click of steel, and died away around the corner. With the vanishing sound melted the new anxiety which had clutched me, and I'd bless the falling snow which must have hidden again, as soon as registered, the tell-tale traces of my footsteps below. Anna had listened with frowning brow. When all was still once more she turned to the princess and briefly, but in that softened voice I remember of old, I have told your ladies that you had bidden me a tend to you this night, and that you must not be disturbed in the morning. And then turned to me, all is ready, sir. We have till noon before being discovered. And now, child, she continued, as aughtily, still closely clinging to my side, looked up inquiringly, no time to lose. There is death in this for thy gracious lord, if not for us all, as well. What does she mean? asked aughtily, and seemed brought from a far sphere of bliss, face to face with cold reality. O basal, basal, to leave me again! Leave you? I will never leave you! cried I, touched to the quick at the change which had come upon the proud spirit of my beloved. But if you will not come with me, with your husband, if you fear the perils of flight, the hardships of the road, or even, said I, though it was only to try her and taste once again the exquisite joy of loving humble words from her lips, if you cannot make up your mind to give up your high state here, to live as the wife of a simple gentleman, I am content to die at your side. But leave you? Never again! Oh, my God, once was too much! She looked at me for a second, with tender reproach in her tear-dim dyes, and upon her trembling lips. Then she answered with a simplicity that rebuked my mock humility. I am content to go with you, basal, or it to the end of the world. Not this I could not, in spite of Anna's presence, but take her to my heart again, and the nurse, after watching us with a curious look of mingled pleasure and jealousy in her hollow eyes, suddenly and somewhat harshly, made us remember once more that time was short. You, she went on to her lady, parenterily, as if conscious of being herself the true mistress of the situation, drink you of that broth, and break some bread, and drink that wine, for you have not eaten to-day. And you, she added, turning to me, make ready with your ladder. Impatiently and sternly she stood by us, until we prepared to obey her orders. We owe a very great debt of gratitude to this woman. My wife sat down like a child, watching me, sweetheart, over every mouthful of soup, as one who fears the vision may fade. As for me, appreciating all the importance of immediate action, I threw from me the perilous temptation of letting myself go to the delight of the moment, a delight enhanced perhaps by the very knowledge of environing danger. Opening my cloak, I unwound the length of rope from my chest, cautiously slipped out again on the balcony, and fastened one in to the iron rail. Remembering the precious burden it was to bear, I could not be satisfied without testing every knot, and finally trying its strength with my own weight by descending to the terrace. It worked satisfactorily, and the distance fortunately was not excessive. Then leaving it dangling, in three leaps I was up again and once more in the warm room, just in time to see an exquisite gleam of silk stocking disappear into the depths of the fur boot, which Anna was fastening with all the dexterity of a nurse-dressing child. And, indeed, my sweet love submitted to be turned and bustled and manipulated with an uncomplained docility, as if she was again back in her babyhood. Although in truth I have reason to believe from what I know of her and have heard since that not even then had she ever been remarkable for docility, grimly smiling Anna completed her labor by submerging the dainty head in a deep hood. The sable-lined cloak and the muff she handed over to me with the abrupt command, Throw them out! Asguarfin! Anna should have been a grenadier-surgeon. Nevertheless the thought was good, and I promptly obeyed. Next she gave me the lantern. She had thought of everything, and commenced extinguishing the lights in the room. I took Oughtaly by the hand, the little warm hand, ungloved that it might the tighter feel the rope. Will you trust yourself, love, said I? She gave me no answer, but a shaft of one of her old fearless looks, and yielded her waist to my arm, and thus we stepped forth into the snow and the night. I guided her to the rope, and showed her where to hold and where to place her feet, and then climbing over the balcony supporting myself by the projecting stones and the knotted ivy I was able to guide the slender body down each swinging rung, for when the blood is hot and the heart on fire one can do things that would otherwise appear well nigh impossible. Safely we reached the ground, I enveloped her in the cloak which Anna's forethought had provided, and after granting myself the luxury of another embrace I was preparing to ascend the blessed rope again for the purpose of assisting Anna when I discovered that incomparable woman solidly and stulledly planted by our side in the snow. All is right, gracious sir! She said, in a hoarse whisper, but it would be as well to take away that rope since you can go up and down so easily without it. Recognizing in an instant the wisdom of the suggestion, it was well someone had a waking brain that night, I clambered up once more, and in a few seconds had flung down the tell-tale ladder and descended again. Anna took up the lantern which she hid under her cloak, and all three clinging together we hastened to the postern as noiselessly as shadows. The snow fell, but the wind had all subsided and the air was now so still that the cold struck no chill. Outside the postern, seeing no one in sight, we paused. I have told Janos to be at the bottom of the lane, said I to Anna, as she pocketed the key after turning the lock, and then to my wife, who hung close and silent to my arm, it is but a little way, and then you shall rest. Even as I spoke I turned to lead her, but Anna arrested me. I have thought better, she said, to leave the town in a carriage is dangerous. I have arranged otherwise. I was about, I believe, to protest, or at least discuss, when Othalie, who had hitherto permitted herself to be led with her I would, like one in a dream, suddenly cried to me in an urgent undertone to let Anna have her way. Believe me, she said, you will not repent it. I would have gone anywhere at the command of that voice. It shall be so, said I, but there is Janos, and we cannot leave him in the lurch. No, we must have Janos with us, said Anna. But that is easy. Follow me, children. And uncovering her lantern with her skirts well kilted up, she proceeded us with fearless strides to the secluded turn at the bottom of the lane, where, true to his promise, I found the highduck and his conveyance. For the greater security the lamps of the carriage had not been lit, but we could see its bulk rise in denser black against the gloom before us, and feel the warmth of the horses steam out upon us, with a pleasant stable odor, into the purity of the air. There was a rapid colloquy between our two old servants, Janos, the cunning fox, at once and appreciatively agreed to Anna's superior plan of action, and indeed his old campaigner's wits promptly went one better than the peasant's shrewtness, instead of merely dismissing the carriage as she suggested. He bade the coachman drive out by the east gate of the town, and halting at Kliwitz, a wait at the main hostelry there, the party that would come on the morrow. And in the dark I could see him emphasize the order by the transfer of some pieces that clicked knowingly in the night's silence. The point of the maneuver, however, was only manifest to me when, turning to follow Anna's lead again down a side alley, the fellow breathed into my ear with a chuckle, while Jorn was away I took upon myself to dispatch his carriage with her luggage to meet us, I said, at Dresden. That will be too false sense for them, and we, it seems, take the south road to Prague. We shall puzzle Buddhism yet. On we tramped through the deserted by-streets. It was only when we were stopped at last, in that self-same poor little mean lane, before the self-same poor little mean shop, faintly lit inside by a dull oil lamp, that I recognized the scene of my morning's interview with Anna. That interview, which seemed already to have passed into the far regions of my memory, so much had I lived through since. We met but few folk upon our way, who paid little attention to us. As we entered into the evil-smelling room, stepping down into it from the street, and as Anna shot back the slide of the lantern and turned upon us a triumphant smiling face, it felt that our chief peril was over. The shop was empty, but she was not disposed to allow us even a little halt. She marshaled us through the dank narrow passages with which I had already made acquaintance, across the courtyard into the back street. There stood a country wagon with a leathered tent. By the flash of the lantern I saw that, to it, were harnessed a pair of great rob-bone chestnuts that hung their heads patiently beneath the snow, yet seemed to have known better service in their days. No doubt at one time had felt the troopers' spurs. Beside them stood a squat man, enveloped to the ears in sheepskin, with a limp felt hat drawn over his brow till only some three quarters of a shrewd, impurpled, not unkindly fissage was left visible. The wagoner was evidently expecting us, for he came forward with drew his pipe, touched his hat, and made a leg. My cousin, said Anna to us, and added briefly and significantly, he asked no questions. Then in a severe tone of command she proceeded to address several to him. Had he placed fresh hay in the wagon according to her orders? Had he received from her sister the ham, and the wine and the blankets? Had the horse been well fed? On receiving affirmative grunts in answer she bade him then immediately produced the chair that the lady and the gentleman might get in. Between the closed borders of her hood I caught a glimpse of Odley's faint smile. As lighted by the lantern rays she mounted upon the wooden stool and disappeared into the dark recesses of the wagon, stirring up a warm dust as she went, and a faraway fragrance of hay and faded clover. Now you, sir, said Anna, and jucked my elbow. I believe at that moment we were to her but a pair of babes and nurslings for whom she was responsible and that she would have as readily combed our hair and washed our faces as if we were still of a size to be lifted on her knee. I obeyed, and truly as I crawled forward in the dark amid the warm straw, groping my way to the further end till I laid my hand on Odley's soft young arm extended towards me. When I heard her laugh a little laughed or self as we snuggled in the nest together. I felt a happiness that was like that of a child, all innocent of past and in provident future. Nevertheless, at one and the same time my whole being was stirred to its depths, with a tenderness my manhood had not yet known. In those foolish bygone days I had loved her, the sweet soul, with the unworthy mad passion of a lover for his mistress. When she left me I had mourned her as a man mourns for his wife, flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. Now, however, we seemed to be lad and made together. Our love after all the sorrow and the agony we had passed through seemed to wear the unspeakable freshness of a first courtship. It was written that good measure was to be paid me to compensate for past anguish. Good measure, heaped up, flowing over, I took it with a thankful heart. The cart swayed and creaked as Yannos and Anna mounted and settled themselves at our feet, drawing the hay high over themselves. Then came another creaking and swaying in the forward end. We heard a jingle of bells, a crack of the whip, and a horse shout. The cart groaned and strained to the effort of the horses, and then yielded. And at a grave pace we rumbled over the cobble stones, turning hither and thither through street after street, which we could not see. And in the midst of our hay we felt a sense of comfortable irresponsibility and delicious mystery. All in the inner darkness we were dimly conscious of the snowy pageant outside, the ghost-like houses and the twinkling lights. Oddly lay against my shoulder and I felt her light-breath upon my cheek. After a while it would be hard to say how long there was a halt. There came a shout from our driver and an answering shout beyond. I knew we had come to the town gates. That was a palpitated moment of anxiety as the two voices exchanged parlay, which the heavy beating of the pulses in my ears would not allow me to follow. Next the rough cadence of a jovial laugh fell loud upon the air, and then, sweeter music I have seldom heard, the clank of the gates-bar. Once more we felt ourselves rumbling on slowly, till we had passed the bridge and exchanged the cobbles of the town for the surface of the Great Imperial Road, more lenient for all its ruts. The cousin practiced his whip again and bellowed to his cattle. After infinite persuasion they broke into a heavy jog-trop. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, said Anna, suddenly from her dark corner, in a loud, vibrating voice, Give thanks to God, you children! She leaned forward as she spoke and pulled aside the leather and curtains that hung across the back of the cart. With the rush of snowy air came to us, framed by the aperture, a retreating vision of Buddhism, studded here and there with rare gleams of light. Thus did my wife, the young Princess of Lusatia, leave her father's dominions, her prospects of a throne, for the love of a simple English gentleman. End of Part 3, Chapter 5. Part 3, Chapter 6 of the Pride of Yenneco. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Sylvia M.B. in Washington State. The Pride of Yenneco. By Edgerton and Agnes Cattle. Part 3, Chapter 6. I shall carry to the grave as one of the sweetest of my life, the memory of that night-journey, coming as it did between the fierce emotions and dangers of our mating and flight, and the perilous and furious episode that yet awaited us. It seems doubly impregnated with an exquisite serenity of happiness, full of brief moments that brought me then a poignant joy. It brings to my heart as I look back on it now, a tenderness as of smiles and tears together. After a little while the flakes had seized falling, and in the faint snow-light beneath a clear sky we gazed forth together from our ambulant nest, here upon mysterious stretches of plainland, there upon ghosts of serred trees, trees that marched as it were past us back toward Buddhism. I remember how in a clear space of sky a star shone out upon us at last, and how it seemed a good omen, and how we kissed in the darkness. Then there was our meal. With Anna's lantern to allume the feast I was so lost in watching my beloved bite her black bread contentedly with small white teeth, and toast me with loving eyes over the thin wine, that I could scarce fall to myself, yet when I did so it was with right good appetite, for I was hungered and I never tasted better fare. Then Janos got out of the wagon to sit in front by the driver and smoke. My great-uncle had been such a confirmed tobacco-man that Janos had acquired the habit in attendance upon him, and it did not behoove me to interfere with an indulgence fostered by thirty years' service. Anyhow, on that night the stray whiffs of his strong tobacco mingled not unpleasantly with the keen cold scents of the night. In the sound of the two men's talk, with the monotonous jingle and rumble of harness and cart, made a comfortable human accompaniment to our passage in the midst of the great silence. Anna went to sleep and snored after her good day's work, waking down again with a start and a groan, and thence to oblivion once more, and then we too, oblivious of the world, fell into a long dream, hand in hand, a great, wide-eyed dream filling our silence with soaring music, our darkness with all the warm color of life. And thus we reached the first halting-place in the itinerary planned by Janos and myself on the Imperial Chaussée. The place, once we would best defy our enemies, and therefore our ultimate destination, was, of course, my own castle of Tolendall. Recent experience, having sufficiently demonstrated that in England we should be ill-protected from the machinations of Buddhism. This first stage was lobao. Never did town look so thoroughly asleep under its snow-laden eaves behind its black shutters, thought I, as our tired horses, steaming and stumbling, dragged our cart up the main street. A watchman had just sung out his cry. The twelfth hour of the night, and a clear heaven, when we turned into the marketplace, from the middle of which he chanted his informing ditty to those lobaoers who might chance to be awake to hear and thereby be comforted. Spear in one hand and lantern in the other, the fellow approached to inquire into such an unusual event as the passage of midnight travellers. We heard Janos, in brief tones, tell a plausible tale of his Lordship's travelling coach having broken down, on its way from Gorlitz, said he, who never missed a chance of falsifying assent, and of his Lordship who happened to be in a special haste to proceed, having availed himself of a passing country cart to pursue his journey to the next posting-town, and so forth, all the main points of this story being corroborated by an affirming growl from our Yehu. Were upon the watchman, honest fellow, nothing loathed doubtless to vary the perennial monotony of his avocation, undertook to awaken for our benefit the inmates of the post-house, the best house of entertainment he asservated in the town. It will be long, I take it, before the worthy burgers of Lobao, and especially my host of the cross-keys, forget the mysterious passage at dead of night of the great unknown magnate and his hooded lady of the tire-woman with the forbidding countenance and of the ugly body-servant, whose combined peremptoriness and lavish generosity produced such wonders, even had subsequent events not suffice to fix it upon their minds as a tragic epic in the history of their country. A few minutes of obstinate hammering and bell-ringing by Yanos, and by the deeply impressed watchman, awoke the hostelry from the depths of its slumbers. The bark of dogs responded first to the clanger, lights appeared at various corners, windows, and then doors were thrown open. At last Yanos threw back the leather curtain of our conveyance and hat in hand, with his greatest air of bon maison, assisted my lord in his cloak, my lady in the firs, both much ornamented with wisps of hay, to alight from their cart. My lady, veiled and silent, retired for an hour's rest and so away from the peering curiosity of the assembling servants. And my lord paced the common room, feverishly waiting for the coming of the new conveyance, which Yanos, after one of his brief requisitioning interviews, pandore style, had announced would be forthcoming with brief delay. The common room was dank and cold enough, but my lord's soul was in warm consorting. It was still exalted by the last look that my lady had thrown back at him, raising her hood for one instant as ascending the stairs she had left him for the first separation. In less than an hour the tinkling of collarbells and the sound of horses' hooves clattering with vigor of the best augury were heard approaching. Even as Yanos entered to confirm by word the success of his quest, my beloved appeared with a readiness which to me was sweeter than any words. She too had been watching the moments which would speed us onwards together once more. Through a pretty concourse of dependence, all of whom had now got wind of the rain of gratuities, with which the great traveller's servant eased the wheels of difficulty, we entered our new chariot. I can hardly mind now what sort of a vehicle this was. I believe in its day it had been a decent enough travelling chase. At any rate it moved fast. Once more we rolled through the silent street, on the hillside roads up hill and down dale, my bride warmly nestled in my arms, and both of us telling over again the tangled tail of the year that had been wasted for us. And thus, in the idle iteration of lover's talk, with the framing of plans for the future, changeable and bright as the clouds of a summer's day, did we feel the rapid hours which brought us to Zitao in the early morning. But Zitao was still within the dominions of the eloping princess's father, and at Zitao therefore much the same procedure was hastily adopted as at the previous stage. Another hour or so of separation, another chase in fresh horses, and once more a flight along the mountain roads, as the dawn was spreading gray and chill over the first spurs of the Lusatian Hills. This time we spoke but little to each other. The fatigue of a great reaction was upon us. Anna was already snoring in her corner, her head completely enveloped in her shawl, when, as I gazed down tenderly at my wife's face, I saw the sweet lids close in the very middle of a smile, and the placidity of sleep fall upon her. I have had, since the buddhism events, many joys, but there is none the savor of which dwells with so subtle, so delicate a perfume in my memory as that of my drive in the first dawn with my wife asleep in my arms. It was not yet twelve hours since I had found her, and during those twelve hours I had only seen her in the turmoil of emotion, or under stress of anxiety, or by some flitting lamp-light. Her image dwelt in my mind as I had first beheld it, through the glass of the palace window, lovely in the first bloom of graceful womanhood, stately amid the natural surroundings of her rank. Now, wrapped in confident slumber, squathed in her great robes of fur, the only thing visible of her young body being the little head resting in the hollow of my arm, the fair skin flushing faintly in the repose of sleep, fresh even in the searching cruelty of the growing light, like the petal of a T-rose, the rhythmic pulse of her bosom faintly beating against my heart. She was once more, for a little while, to me the otterly I had held in my castle at Tolando. And as for fear of disturbing her I restrained my patient longing to kiss those part of lips, those closed lids with the soft long eyelashes, I could not tell which I yearned for most, the princess, the ripe woman I had found again, or the wayward mistress, plain at wife, I had schooled myself to banish in the wasted days of my overweening vanity. But why thus linger over the first stage of that happy journey? Joy can only be told by contrast to misery. We can explain sorrow in a hundred pages, but if delight cannot be told in one, it cannot be told at all. It is too elusive to be kept within the meshes of many words. Sorrows, we forget, by a merciful dispensation, and it may be wholesome to keep their remembrance in books. Joy's ever cling to the files of memory, like a scent which not can obliterate. And since I have undertaken to record the reconquest of Yenneco's happiness, there remains yet to tell the manner in which it all but foundered in the haven. For this heart-hole ecstasy of mine could not last in its entirety beyond a few brief moments. As I thus grasped my happiness, with a mind free at last from the confusing vapours of haste and excitement, even as the fair world around us emerged sharp and bright from amid the shadows of dawn, all the precariousness of our situation became likewise defined. Between me and the woman I loved, though now I held her locked in my arms, arose the everlasting menace of separation. How long would we be left together? Where could I fly with her to keep her safe? I hoped that amid the futile state of my castle I could defy persecution. But what could such a life be at best? Thus, in the very sweetness of our reunion was felt the bitterness of that hidden suspense that must eventually poison all. Now, as I look back, nothing seems more dreamlike than the way in which my boating thought suddenly assumed the reality of actual event. In a little while, I was saying to myself as I watched the shadows shorten in the beams of sunlight grow broader upon the snow, in a little while the hounds will be started in pursuit. The old persecution will be resumed more devilish than ever. And at that thought, against my will a contraction shook the arm on which my love was resting. She stirred and awoke, at first bewildered, then smiling at me. I let down the glass of the coach that the brisk morning air might blow in upon us and freshen our tired limbs. We were then advancing, but slowly, being midway up the slope of a great wide dale. The horse is toiled and steamed. And then, as we tasted keenly the vigorous freshness of the morning air, and looked forth speechless upon the beauty of the waking hour of nature, that incomparable hour so few of us what of, there came into the great silence, broken only by the straining harness and the faint thud of our horse's hooves in the snow. Another noise. A curious, faint, little far off noise, like to no sound of nature, oddly glanced at me. And I saw the people of her eye dilate. She uttered no word, neither did I. But all at once we knew that there was someone galloping behind us. I thrust my head out. Janos was already on the alert, standing with his back to the horse's, leaning upon the top of the coach. He was looking earnestly down the valley. I can see his face still, all wrinkled and puckered together in the effort of period against the first level rays of the sun. Now, as I leaned out also, and the horse's gallop grew nearer and nearer upon my ear, I caught, as I thought, a faint accompaniment of other hooves, still more distant. I looked at Janos, who brought down his eyes to mine. But three old together, my lord, he said, and reaching as he spoke for his muscatune, he laid it on top of the coach, and thank God, he said, one can see a long way down this slope. He paid the driver draw up on one side of the road, and I was able myself to look straight into the valley. A flying figure that grew every second larger and blacker against the white expanse beneath us, was rushing up towards us with almost incredible swiftness. In the absolute stillness of the world locked in snow, the rhythm of the hooves, the squelching of the saddle, the labored snorting of the overdriven horse, were already audible. There were not many seconds to spare. And action followed thought as prompt as flash and sound. There was only time, in fact, to place the bewildered Anna, just awakened, by my wife's side at the back of the coach, to pull up the shutter of both windows and to leap out. I was hapless. I grasped my still she's sword in one hand and with the other fumbled for my pistols in my coat-skirts, whilst with a thrust of my shoulder I clapped the coach door too. There was not time even to exchange a word with Odley, but her deathly pallor struck me to the heart and fired me to the most murderous resolve. And now all happened quicker than words can follow. No sooner had I touched the ground than out of space as it were, roaring and reeking hugely black against the sunshine, the horse and his rider were upon me. I had failed to draw my pistol, but I had shaken the scabbard off my sword. There seemed scarce a blade's length between me and the flying onslaught. Suddenly, however, the great animal swerved upon one side and was pulled up, almost crouching on its haunches by the force of an iron hand. The rider's face outlined against the horse's steamy neck bent towards me. Prince Eugene's great indeed would have been my surprise had it been any other. In sanguine, distorted with fury, glowing with vindictive triumph, as once before I had seen it thrust thrust into mine. Thou dog, Yenakul, ill slurred in her loper, at last I have got thee. Out of my way thou goest this time. As it spat these words, incoherently the red face became blocked from my view by a fist outstretched, and I found myself looking down at the black mouth of a pistol barrel. I cut at it with my sword, even as the yellow flame leapt out. My blade was shattered and flew burying overhead, but the ball passed me. At the same instant there came a shout from above. The prince looked up and, quickest thought, wrenched at his horse. The noble beast rose, beating the air with his forefeet, just as Yannos fired over my head. For a second all was confusion. The air seemed full of plunging hooves and blinding smoke. Our own horses, taking fright, dragged the carriage some yards away, where it stuck in a snow heap. Then things became clear again. I saw, I know not how, but all in the same flash I saw a few paces beyond me. Yannos now standing in the road. My wife in her dishevelled furs behind him, and in front, free from the bulk of his dying horse, my enemy on foot, pistol in hand, and once more covering me with the most determined deliberation of aim. With my bladeless sword-hilled hanging bracelet-like on my sprained wrist, defenseless, I stood dizzily facing my doom. Then, for a third time, the air rang with a shattering explosion. The prince flung both arms up, and I saw his great body found her, head foremost, a mere mass of clay almost at my feet. I turned again, and there was my Yannos. With the smoking muscatunes still to his cheek, and there also my wife, with the face of an avenging angel, one hand upon his shoulder, and the other, with unerring gesture of command still pointing at the space beyond me, where but a second before stood the enemy, who had held my life on the play of his forefinger. End of Part 3, Chapter 6. Part 3, Chapter 7 of The Pride of Yannico. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Sylvia M. B. in Washington State. The Pride of Yannico by Edgerton and Agnes Castle. Part 3, Chapter 7. For the space of a few seconds we three stood motionless. The awful stillness of the shadow of death was upon our souls. Then, broaching from the distance, came again to our ears, the sound of hooves, the stumbling trot of a tired horse, and the quick wits of Yannos were awakened into action. Into the carriage, my lady, said he, and you, my Lord, we have loosed enough shots for one day, and so it is best we should move on again and avoid these other gentlemen. He smiled as he spoke, a grim triumphant smile. As for me, it was cert as nothing less than triumphant I felt in my heart. I would have Prince Eugene dead indeed. But not so. Not so. Let us at least, cried I a little wildly, see if he still breathes. No need, my Lord, and Yannos caught me by the rest. I am not so old yet, he added. Ion his weapon with a delighted look. But what I can still aim straight. Did I not know him to be as truly carrion now as his good horse itself, poor beast? But I would surely enough dispatch him as he lies there, biting the mud. But no need, my Lord, right in the heart. The man was dead before he touched the ground. And as he spoke, Yannos dragged us towards the coach. The driver, half risen from his seat, still clutching one rain, seemed struck into an imbecility of terror. The horses now quieted, stretching their necks luxuriously against the loosened bits, were sniffing at the snow, as if in the hope of lighting upon a blade of grass. Anna sat on the steps, her face blanched to a sort of gray. Up with you, said Yannos, and pushed her with his knee. Do you not see your lady as faint? The words aroused her, and they roused me. In true thought, only seemed scarcely able to sustain herself. It was time I carried her away from such scenes. After closing the doors, Yannos handed me the muscatune and the cartouche box, with the brief remark, His Lordship had better load again, the while I drive, for this coachman of ours is out of his wits with fright. And thus we started once more, and in the crash and rattle of the speed to which Yannos mercilessly put the horses, the stumbling paces of the approaching pursuers were lost to our hearing. The draught of air across her face revived Oughtaly, who now sat up with courage and tried to smile at me, though her face was still set in a curious hardness, whilst I, with the best ability of espraying to rest, reloaded and reprimed. Events, as I have oft thought since, have proved how happy a thought it had been of mine, some two weeks before, when we made our preparations to leave London and to gratify my good Yannos's desire for one of those admirable double-barrels I had seen him so appreciatively and so covetously handle, at Fargus and Manton's in Soho. When we reached the neck of the valley, I leaned out again and looked back. The scene of that crisis in my eventful life lay already some hundred yards below us. The second of our pursuers, a dragoon of lenience, as I now could see by his white coat, dirty yellow against the snow, was in the act of dismounting from his exhaust and steed. I watched him bend over the prostrate figure of his chief for an instant or two, then straighten himself to gaze up at our retreating coach, then, with his arms behind him and his legs apart, in what even at that distance I could see was an attitude of philosophical indifference turned towards the approaching figure of his comrade, who, some hundred yards further down, now made his appearance on the road, crawling onwards on an obviously foundered horse. It was evident that whatever admiration the mar gave may have commanded during his lifetime, his death did not inspire his followers with any burning desire to avenge it. I leaned out further and handed back the loaded musketoon to Yanos. You may spare our horses now, said I. There is no fear of further pursuit today. I, my lord, so I see, responded the high nut with a cheerful jerk of the head in our rear, and moreover, in a quarter of an hour we shall be across the border. Now, of our story, there is little more to tell. And well for us that it is so, for one may, as I have said, chronicle strange adventures and perils of life and limb, and one may pour out upon paper the sorrows of an aching heart, the frenzy of despair, but the sweet intimate details of happiness must be kept secret and sacred, not only from the pen, but from the tongue. It will not, however, come amiss that to complete my narrative, in which one day, if heaven will, my children shall learn the romance of their parents wooing and marriage. I should set down how it came about that the mar grave contrived, to his own undoing, to track us so speedily, how with his death came the dispelling of the shadows upon both our lives. Shortly after our return to Tollendall, a letter reached my wife from the other awfully. It was evidently written in the greatest distraction of mind, upon the very morning after our escape from Buddhism. Although conversation may not have been a strong point with Madame Lothar, she seemed to wield a very fluent pen. She took two large sheets to inform us how, upon her husband's return, on the previous night, his suspicions being by some unaccountable means awakened, he had forced from her the confession of all that had passed between us in the afternoon. I cannot here take up my space and time with the record of her excuses, her anguish, her points of exclamation, her appeals to heaven, to witness the innocence of her intentions. But when I read her missive, I understood Anna's contemptuous prophecy. She, keep a secret, the sheep head. I understood also my wife's attitude of tolerant affection, and I blushed when I remembered the time when, blinded by conceit, I had sought this great mock pearl when the real jewel lay in my hand. But to proceed. The doctor had instantly given the alarm at the palace, with the result that the princess's flight was discovered within two hours after it had taken place. Now the uproar in the Ducal household was, it seems, beyond description. Two detachments of dragoons were at once sent in pursuit of the two carriages which were known to have left the town that night, how we blessed Anna's shrewder scheme. When they returned, empty-handed, of course, the nature of the trick was perceived. Prince Eugen, whose fury it appears was something quite appalling to behold, not only because of the reassertion of the princess's independence, but because the man whom he had taken so much trouble to obliterate had presumed to be alive, after all, Prince Eugen, according to his want, took matters into his own hands. He sallied forth with his henchmen, the doctor, to make inquiries for himself in the town. The result of these was the discovery of the passage of one Han's Meyerhofer's cart out by the south gate after closing hours. This man was known to the doctor, whose stables he supplied with fodder as being Anna's cousin, and the connection of the princess's nurse with the scheme of escape was well demonstrated by her own disappearance. This discovery was sufficient for the Margraith, and very much it would appear against the real wishes of the Duke, whose most earnest desire was to proceed with as little scandal as possible. He with half a dozen troopers instantly set forth in pursuit on the road to Prague. Of these troopers, as we had seen, most had broken down upon the way, and none had been able to keep up with the higher metal mount of their leader, fortunately for us. It was after his departure that Madame Lothner wrote, she was convinced, as she characteristically remarked, that the Prince would be successful, and that the most dire misfortunes were about to fall upon everybody, all through the obstinacy of Monsieur de Yenneco, who really could not say he had not been warned. Nevertheless, on the chance of their having escaped, either to England or to Tolendall, and she addressed a letter to Tolendall, trusting that it would be forwarded, she could not refrain from pouring forth her soul into her beloved Princess's bosom, and so forth, and so on. In fact, the good woman had wanted a confidant, and had found it on paper. Our next information regarding the court of Lothites came from a very different source, and was of a totally different description. It was the announcement in the Vienna news sheet of the death of Eugen, Margrave of Lignitz Rothenberg, who had falled from his horse upon a hunting expedition. It was also stated that yielding at last to her repeated requests, the Duke had consented to the retirement into a convent of his only daughter, Prince Marie Ottley, such having been, it was stated, her ardent desire for more than a year. The name of the convent was not given. Here this memoir began in such storms and stress, within and without, continued in such different moods and for such varied motives, ends with the mantle of peace upon us, with the song of birds in our ears. Tolendall, that I knew beautiful in the autumn. Tolendall, the shrine of our young foolish love, is now beautiful, with the budding green all round it, under a dappled sky. But never had the old strong house looked to me so noble as when I brought my bride back to it in the snow. As the carriage at last entered upon the valley road, and we saw it rise before us, high against the sky, white-roofed and black-walled, stern, strong, and frowning, while the winter sun flashed back a warm red welcome to the returning masters from some high window here and there, I felt my heart stir. And as I looked at Ottley, I saw in her eyes the reflection of the same fire. Our people had been prepared for our coming by messengers from Prague. The court of honor was thronged, and we entered a mid-acclamation such as would have satisfied the heart of a king coming to his own again. We had broken the bread and tasted the salt. We had drunk of the wine on the threshold. We had been conducted in state, and at last—at last—we found ourselves alone in the old room, where my great-uncle's portrait kept its silent watch. Janos, who, his work of trust done, had fallen back into his place of highduck as simply as the faithful blade falls back into the scabbard, had retired to his station outside the door. Without rang the wild music of the gypsies to the feasting people, and the tremors of the cymbal arm found an answer in the very fibers of my soul. To such music she had first come to me in my dreams. The walls of the room were all ready with the reflection of the mom-fire in the courtyard. The very air was filled with joy and color, and there was my great-uncle's portrait. He was simpering with ineffable complacency, and there the rolled-up parchment, and there the table where we had quarreled, and where, since then, I had poured forth such mad regrets. Oh, my God, what memories! And there was my wife. Since the events which had first divided and then reunited us forever, I had not yet been able to find in the sweet, silent, docile woman I had snatched back to my heart the willful otterly of old. Her spirits seemed to have been sobered, her gaiety, her petulance to have been lost in the still current of the almost fearful happiness bought at the price of blood, and at times, in my innermost heart, I had mourned for my lost sprite. But now, as we stood together, she all illumined with the rosy radiance from the fire. She looked ever sudden from the picture on the wall to me, and a sigh's spark of the old mockery leap into her eyes. And so, sir, she said, the forward person who married you against her will is mistress here again, after all. But you will always remember, I trust, that it is the privilege of a princess to choose her partner. And then she added, coming a step nearer to me, tomorrow we must fill in the pedigree again. What say you, Monsieur Jean-Nigaud de la ferre d'ondin? Now, as she spoke, her lips arched into the well-remembered smile, and beside it danced the dimple, and I know not what came upon me, for there are joys so subtle that they unmanned, even as sorrows, but I fell at her feet with tears. End of the Pride of Yenneco.