"That was quite unnecessary," said Sandow uneasily, and displeased at what he foresaw would be a last and decisive attack. "The thing could have waited till to-morrow. What have I personally to do with the wanderers? They can receive every information at the office. You have really brought them all here?"
"Yes all, excepting the agent of Jenkins and Co. He was here yesterday with the object of speaking to you; I put him off till this morning, and arrived just in time to rescue these people from him; for he seemed resolved not to let them go till he had given them the fullest particulars. You will of course receive them; I promised them positively an interview with you."
And without leaving his brother time to refuse, he opened the door of the adjoining room, and invited the men who were waiting there to enter. The two girls were about to retire when they found a business interview was to take place, but Gustave held Jessie"s arm fast, and said softly but impressively to her and his niece--
"Stay, both of you. I want you, but particularly Frida!"
Meanwhile the strangers had entered. There were three men, robust country folk, with sunburnt faces and toil-hardened hands. The eldest, a man of middle age, appeared highly respectable in manner and dress.
The two others were younger and looked more necessitous. They stood awkwardly near the door, while their leader made a few steps forward.
"There is my brother," said Gustave, directing their attention to him.
"Speak quite freely and fearlessly to him. Under the present circ.u.mstances, he only can give you the best advice."
"G.o.d be with you, Mr. Sandow!" began the leader, with the touching German salutation, usual in his province, and with a strong, harsh provincial accent. "We are thankful to find Germans here, with whom we can speak an honest word. At your office where we at first sought you, we were ordered here and there, and were quite bewildered, till fortunately your brother appeared. He immediately took our part, and has been very rough with the agent who would not let us see you. But he was right then, for long ago we lost all confidence in the whole band."
Sandow rose; he felt the storm approach, and cast a threatening, reproachful glance at the brother who had thus entangled him. But the merchant well knew that he must not allow the strangers to have any idea of his position, but must preserve his usual business air. He asked--
"What do you want with me, and what am I to advise you upon?"
The peasant looked at his two companions as if he expected them to speak, but as they remained silent and made energetic signs for him to continue, he alone replied--
"We have fallen into a horrible trap, and know no way out of it. Before leaving Germany we were recommended to Jenkins and Company, and on arriving in New York were received by their agent. They promised us a mine of wealth, and at their office one seemed to believe that in the far west lay an earthly paradise. But on the way here we accidentally met a few Germans, who had been several years in America, and they told another tale. They bade us beware of this Jenkins and his western paradise. He was a regular cutthroat, and had already brought many to misery. We should all be ruined in his forests, and what all his other fine things might be. Then we felt stunned! The agent, who was travelling in another compartment, was furious when we plainly told him what we had heard, but as I said before, we had lost all confidence in him, and wished to consider the thing again before we travelled so many more hundred miles westward."
Gustave, who stood beside Jessie, listened with apparent calm. She looked rather frightened; she did not know all the circ.u.mstances, but could easily feel that this meant more than an ordinary business affair.
Frida, on the other hand, listened with breathless excitement to the words which bore such singular resemblance to those which, weeks ago, she had spoken to her father. But what could he have to do with this emigration scheme?
"We were directed to your bank, Mr. Sandow," continued the man, "for the signing the contract and payment for the land. We heard in the neighbourhood that you were a German, and indeed out of our own province. Then I called together the others and said, "Children, now there is no more difficulty; we will go to our countryman and lay the thing before him. He is a German, so will, no doubt, have a conscience, and will not send his fellow-countrymen to their destruction!""
If Sandow had not before realised to the full extent, what a sin his speculation was, he learnt it in this hour, and the simple, true-hearted words of the peasant burnt into his soul, as the bitterest reproaches could not have done.
It was torture that he endured, but the worst was to come. Frida crept to his side. He did not look at her at that moment, he could not, but he felt the anxious, imploring look, and the trembling of the hand which clasped his own.
"Now it is your turn to speak," said the man, turning half angrily to his companions, who had entirely left the management of the affair to him. "You, too, have wives and children, and have spent your last penny on the journey. Yes, Mr. Sandow, there are poor devils among us who have nothing but their strong arms, and can count on nothing but their labour. Some of us are certainly better off, and so we thought one could help the other in the new colony. There are about eighty of us, besides a dozen children, and for the poor little ones it would indeed be bad if things over there are as we have been told. So give us advice, _Herr Landsmann_! If you say to us, "Go," then in G.o.d"s name we shall start early to-morrow, and hope for the best. It will be G.o.d Himself who has brought us to you, and we shall thank Him from the bottom of our hearts."
Sandow leant heavily on the table which stood before him. Only by exerting the utmost force of will was he able to appear collected. Only Gustave knew what was raging in his heart, and he now decided to break the long and painful pause which had followed the last words.
"Have no fear!" he cried. "You see my brother has himself a child, an only daughter, and thus he knows what the life and health of your little ones is to you. His advice can be implicitly followed. Now, Frank, what do you advise our countrymen to do?"
Sandow looked at the three men, whose eyes rested anxiously, yet confidingly, on his face, then at his daughter, and suddenly standing erect, he cried--
"Do not go there!"
The men started back, and looked at each other, and then at the merchant, who had given them this strange advice.
"But you are connected with this company?" cried the one, and the others confirmed his words. "Yes, indeed, you are one of them!"
"In this affair I have been deceived myself," explained Sandow. "It is only lately that I have learnt exactly the nature of the land, of which I am certainly one of the owners, and I know that it is not suited for colonization. I will, therefore, make no contract with you, as I intend to withdraw from my obligations and give up the whole undertaking."
The Germans had no suspicion what a sacrifice their countryman had made for them, or at what price their rescue had been bought. They looked quite helpless and despairing, and their leader said with startled manner--
"This is an abominable business? We Lave made and paid for this long journey, and here we are in America. We cannot return, we must not proceed; we are betrayed and sold in a strange country. Mr. Sandow, you must advise us again, you mean well by us that we can see, or you would not deal such a blow at your own interest. Tell us what to do?"
A heavy, troubled breath came from the breast of the merchant. Nothing was spared him to the last detail, but he had gone too far to retreat.
"Go to the German Consul in this town," he replied, "and lay your case before him. As far as I know there is a German company in New York, which has also undertaken the colonization of the West, and which is under the special protection of our Consulate. Their possessions are not extremely distant from the original object of your journey, the route is almost the same. More particulars you will learn of the Consul himself; you may place implicit confidence in him, and he will a.s.sist you by every means in his power."
The faces of the poor men cleared wonderfully at this intelligence.
"Thank G.o.d! there is some escape for us!" said the leader. "We will start immediately so as to lose no time, and we are much indebted to you, sir, and to the young gentleman here. It is brave of you to retire from this swindling affair, as though you would not say so, we can see that it is a great loss to you. May G.o.d reward you for what you have done for us, and for our wives and children!"
He offered his hand to the merchant, who took it mechanically, and the words of farewell with which he released the people were just as spiritless.
But Gustave shook them all heartily by the hand, and rang the bell violently to summon a servant, whom he ordered to accompany them to the German Consulate and only to leave them at the door.
When they were gone, Sandow threw himself into a chair; and the agitation which had been so sternly repressed now claimed its rights; he appeared crushed beneath it.
"Father, for G.o.d"s sake what is the matter?" cried Frida, throwing her arms round him, but now Gustave re-entered, his face actually beaming with triumph.
"Let him be, Frida, it will pa.s.s. You have indeed right to be proud of your father! Frank, from the moment when our countrymen stood before you, I was certain that you would in the end warn them against your own speculation, but that you would have recommended them to the other company, against which Jenkins quite lately published a most violent article in the _New York Revolver Press_, that I did not hope, and for that I must shake you by the hand?"
But Sandow waved him and his proffered hand away, and pressed his daughter to his breast. A bitter expression rested on his lips as he said--
"You don"t know what Gustave has done to you, my child, nor what this hour may yet cost to your father. From to-day Jenkins will be my most unyielding enemy, and will never rest from attacking me. I have placed myself only too entirely in his hands."
"Throw the whole thing over and come with us to Germany," cried Gustave. "Why should you allow yourself to be tormented and hara.s.sed by these honourable New Yorkers, when you could live happy and comfortably in your native land. When Jessie is married there will be an end of the name of Clifford, why not also wind up the firm. Of course you will lose by withdrawing from the thing, but for German ideas you are still rich enough, and there is plenty of room for activity at home."
"What are you proposing to me!" exclaimed Sandow, irritably.
"Just what you proposed to me when you called me here. I think the best way is to turn the thing completely round. Look how Frida"s face lights up at the thought of home! Naturally she will never again leave her father, wherever he may be, but it may be your lot to see her die of home-sickness some day."
Gustave had cleverly set the most efficacious spring in motion. Sandow gave a startled look at his daughter, whose eyes certainly beamed when her home was mentioned, and who now resignedly drooped her head.
"Come, Jessie," said Gustave, taking the arm of his betrothed, "we will leave them alone. I must explain all this to you, for I see that you only half comprehend it, and besides I feel an urgent necessity to be again admired by you. Yesterday you did me an extraordinary amount of good."
He led her away, and father and daughter remained alone. Frida required no explanation, he had long ago divined the circ.u.mstances, and clinging close to her father, she said with the deepest affection--
"I knew very well when we were standing that time by the sea that you could never send any one into misery!"
Sandow looked long and deeply into the dark eyes, which now beamed with love and admiration. It was the first time he did so, without reading a reproach in them, and he felt as if redeemed to a new life.
"No, my child!" said he softly, "I could not do it, and now whatever may come, we will bear it together."
Meanwhile Gustave and Jessie strolled arm-in-arm through the garden, but at first their talk was very serious. He told her all, screening his brother as much as possible, whom he represented as the victim of a deception which had only just become clear to him. When he had finished, Jessie said eagerly--
"Gustave, even if my money had been mixed up with this, it is unnecessary to say that we will leave it to the uncontrolled management of your brother as long as he wants it."
"Your money has never been concerned in it," Gustave informed her.
"Whatever Frank may be as a speculator, as a guardian, he is conscientiousness itself. He has respected your father"s will to the fullest extent. You are and remain still an heiress, Jessie, but in spite of that uncomfortable peculiarity, I am resolved to marry you, and in four weeks, too."