So still in silence they rode, until they did in truth come upon the hawking-party, as hath been told. When Herr Frederich beheld how the damsel Fastrade rode in advance with her mistress while the Count followed, as it at that moment happened, he muttered under his breath a curse bitter and deep.
"Now they have beheld us!" he exclaimed in vexation; and involuntarily he turned his horse toward the deeper shades behind the spot where they rode.
Albrecht followed the other as he wheeled, and rode after until they were out of sight of the hawking-party. Then he drew rein.
"Hold thee still there!" he commanded.
Herr Frederich, with a sudden thrill of rage and no less of terror, checked his horse, feeling that his quarry had escaped him. He sat glaring at the baron with eyes from which blazed the hate he would no longer take the trouble to conceal.
"Thinkest thou," Albrecht said in a voice so perfectly calm and self-controlled that it stung his hearer like the lash of a whip, "that I am so dull as not to understand that thou hast brought me forth into the forest to play the spy?"
"You were brought here," Herr Frederich answered furiously, "to see how your lady and her lover--"
No more could he say, for Albrecht with a sharp thrust of the spurs made his horse leap forward, and caught the other by the throat. For an instant, as the two confronted each other with blazing eyes, it seemed that the death-hour of the cripple had surely come. Then the strong fingers of Albrecht loosened their hold, an expression of regret softened the splendid rage in his face, and Herr Frederich wrenched himself free from the grasp that was strangling him.
Albrecht reined his horse backward.
"Beware that thou dost not provoke me too far," he said. "I was prepared for the foul thing that thou wast minded to say, but I will not listen to the name of my lady from thy lips. Dost thou think, forsooth, that I am so besotted that I have not seen that thou wast minded to play a part too foul for one to name it, and to bring about my dishonor in mine own house to the intent that I should be--Nay, to what intent thou best knowest. I had fortified myself to the end that to-day for the last time I should bear with thee patiently, but if thou takest the name of my wife upon thy lips, I will not answer for my forbearance."
Herr Frederich, panting and dishevelled, leaned upon the pommel of his saddle and regarded his companion with looks of burning ferocity.
"I did but try," he sneered, "to warn you in time, that you might save yourself from--"
The threatening look which gathered blackly upon the brow of Albrecht warned him to be more guarded in his speech, and he broke off abruptly, leaving the rest unspoken.
"The faithful service of the best part of my life," he went on, endeavoring to cover his anger with a show of wounded zeal and faithful affection, "counts for nothing with you, and it is not strange that this endeavor to serve you should bring to me only abuse. It was to do you a service that I adventured the rage of Count von Rittenberg, and--"
Albrecht put up his hand with a gesture which once more cut the speaker short.
"Why is it," he asked, "that thou hast gone about to do me harm? What cause hast thou to hate me? If I was not over-thoughtful of thee in the old days, I was at least never cruel, and I took care that thou shouldst fare as well as might be. Thou wert set next to myself, and never did I let that one of those under my hand should so much as speak to thee lightly."
Herr Frederich threw the reins down upon the neck of his steed, and with folded arms he sat confronting Albrecht. The supreme hour of his life had come. Now at last would he pour forth all the wrath that for long years had been festering in his soul. There was not more a need of prudence, of concealment, of a cloak with which to hide the intents of his heart. He labored only how to frame his speech so that it should sting and burn Albrecht to the very soul, like the lightning shafts, or the poisoned spear of the Wild Huntsman that leaves an incurable wound at its lightest touch. He glanced about with an instinctive, cowardly desire to see whither he could flee if the other"s rage should overleap all bounds, and he muttered a spell to summon the sprites of the wood.
"Ah, thou art, then, in league with the folk of the forest?" Albrecht said, hearing him. "Couldst thou not trust thine own powers for evil, that thou hast called upon them to help thee?"
The cripple gave no heed to the interruption. He was lost in the fierceness of his feelings. He was determined that of the bitter joy of this moment he would lose nothing through craven fear. He cast all prudence to the wind.
"It is true," he began, in a tone which was at first low, but which increased as he went on, and the fierceness of his anger burst out more and more, as a fire that is opened to the wind blazes higher and higher, "that you had me treated well at the hands of the wild crew at Neiderwa.s.ser, since, forsooth, I was too valuable a thing to be lightly handled. If your underlings were forced to treat me with respect, were they ever allowed to forget that I was an underling also; I, who had been born a man and a freeholder? Oh, the fool of a kobold, that thinks himself able to understand men because, forsooth, he hath stolen a soul through his wife! Why do I hate you? You who kept me in thralldom among creatures no better than the wild beasts save that they speak and go upright! You, whose father stole me from freedom, from home, from the wife that belonged to me only, and from the children that were helpless without me! Why do I hate you? G.o.d"s wounds, I had much cause to love you!"
His bitter laughter rang through the forest. Albrecht shuddered, but he drew nearer to the cripple, and Herr Frederich saw in his face an expression of compa.s.sion. The fierceness of Von Zimmern"s rage was increased twofold that he could excite in the knight only pity and not the anger which he longed to provoke.
"Fool of a kobold!" he cried again, his voice rising ever higher till the hollows of the wood rang with it; "do you know why I taught you to long for a human soul, and why I spared no pains to fit you for the part you had to play to gain one, so that you should by no means fail? It was because till you had a soul my vengeance could have no hold upon you! It was that I was not content to hurt you for the short life which would have been yours in the forest; I would bring on you a punishment that should be eternal! When you were a lad I could scarcely keep my hands from tearing and maiming you, and I should have laughed had your accursed kobold father rent me limb from limb for doing it; but I waited for a better vengeance! The only thing that is wanting to my content now is that your father cannot know how I have paid my debt to his son."
He seemed to have gone mad, and Albrecht shuddered and crossed himself at the sight of fury so demoniacal. The cripple shivered and trembled with excitement; the tears gathered in his eyes, and the foam specked his lips. The knight"s own eyes were dim, as he leaned forward and laid his hand upon the other"s arm.
"I have indeed much for which to ask thy forgiveness," Albrecht said; "but I was, as thou hast said, only a kobold, and what could I know better than the rest of my race, save what thou didst teach me?
Meseemeth that if thou hadst but c.u.mbered somewhat to teach me mercy in my callow youth, all soulless as I was I might perchance have learned somewhat of it."
"Oh, without doubt!" retorted Von Zimmern scornfully, as he shook off the hand which lay pleadingly upon his arm; "but that was reason enough why I should not teach. I was willing to suffer if thereby I could the better compa.s.s my revenge in the end."
"And yet," interposed Albrecht, inquiringly, "when my marriage was about to take place, thou didst all but prevent it when thou gavest to the countess a ring by which she might know kobolds from men?"
"Yea," Herr Frederich replied, grinding his teeth; "for a moment the thought of your present bliss was too much for me. I saw you look on your bride with longing and delight, and I thought of mine from whom I had been stolen. To see you so blest was a trial too great for even my patience; and for a moment I was so weak that had you not interfered, I had spoiled all, and cheated myself of the vengeance wrought out by all those years of waiting and suffering. I thank you for that!"
There was silence in the wood for a moment while the two confronted each other with piercing eyes. Overhead the wind soughed in the pine tops, and to the mind of Von Zimmern the sound brought the memory of the many long, weary days and nights he had listened to this wail in the tree-tops of the Neiderwa.s.ser valley. A new frown of hate came over his black face.
"Year after year," he burst out, "I pined in that cursed slavery, and longed and longed for those I had left behind; and you offered me nixies, and promised that I should be free to return to my own when I had married you to a mortal wife."
"And that promise was kept," Albrecht responded.
"Kept!" the other echoed with fierce scorn. "You kept it when all that I loved was gone. You set me free to seek a row of graves; to carry my miserable, broken body about the world alone. G.o.d"s blood!" he went on, dashing the spurs into the bleeding flanks of his steed and still reining the animal back with a strong hand; "at the grave of my wife I took new oaths of vengeance, and I hastened back to keep them. It was not hard! The folk of the wood were eager to help me by bringing the count and the lady alone together in the forest, and he already had the work of winning--"
"Silence!" broke in Albrecht, in a voice of thunder.
The wild excitement of Herr Frederich was infecting him also, despite all his efforts at self-control. His cheeks were flushed, and he breathed deeply and pantingly between his teeth. The cripple was not slow to perceive these signs of growing pa.s.sion, and he fanned the flame with new taunts and deeper reproaches.
"Fool of a kobold!" he cried out yet again; "to think you could play with a soul and be safe! Was it then like a boar-spear with which your hand could have its own will? Oh, the wise wood-creature!"
He broke into shrill laughter and bitter, till all the forest resounded; and among the dark recesses of the pines it seemed that unseen lips joined in the evil peal of wicked scorn and merriment.
"Now," he cried, and in his voice was a new ring of triumph, "our kobold hath ruined not alone his own soul, lightly gotten and quickly lost, but hers which could by no means be satisfied with such a brutish, half-human thing as her husband. It is not a marvel that she must needs turn toward a human lover after--"
The knight sprang upon him with a face distorted with rage and jealousy, and caught the cripple by the throat. He dragged him from the saddle, and Herr Frederich was as helpless in the grasp of those powerful hands as if he were in the clutch of a lion. Albrecht dashed him to the earth.
His head was grazed by a stone, and for an instant everything swam before his eyes. The thick-growing ferns closed over him like the waves of the sea, and then they were parted by the face of Albrecht, who stooped toward him.
"Thou art a craven and a liar!" Albrecht hissed between his set teeth.
Then again with strong hands he seized Herr Frederich, and lifted him out of the bracken as if to dash him again to earth.
With a moan and a mighty effort to speak, the cripple, swinging in air, flung at the knight one last bitter taunt.
"It is bravely done," he cried, "to kill the man your father maimed!"
The clutch of Albrecht relaxed instantly. He lowered the other until he could lean against his horse, and then stood confronted to him with a face which kept Von Zimmern silent.
"Thou art right," he said. "G.o.d knoweth that I and mine have done thee evil enough already. I have need to ask thy forgiveness; and I would to G.o.d that there were reparation which man might compa.s.s, so be it that thus I could do by thee that which would undo what my father hath done unto thee. Only, since that may not be, I warn thee that thou come not in my sight again. I spare thy life when thou hast said words for which death were the only fitting meed; but I pledge not myself if I see thee again."
And as if he might not trust himself to say aught further, Albrecht vaulted into the saddle and rode swiftly away through the wood.
XXII
HOW ALBRECHT RODE HOME.
Mighty was the struggle in the mind of Albrecht as he rode swiftly through the forest when he had left Herr Frederich in the wood. His good steed of his own instinct took the way back toward the castle, and strained every sinew that he might the sooner come thither, for that his master sharply spurred him on. Albrecht had only the thought that it behooved him to put all the distance he might compa.s.s between his angry heart and the temptation from which he fled, and he heeded not whither he rode. The falling leaves of the beech trees, yellow as topaz, rustled downward in bright showers as he sped; the pitchy cones of the pines, glistening with unctuous drops, fell now and then with a dull thud upon the soft carpet of brown needles beneath his horse"s feet; the squirrels chattered indignantly at his intrusion upon their wild and quiet domain; and now and then some wood-bird flew startled from the thicket, oftentimes so close as almost to touch him.