"Marco, you must answer me! You see that I shall not be deterred by any excuse; you seek to deceive me, according to the Signora"s commands.
Once more, when did she go, and where?"
Marco was evidently not initiated into the secret, as he was not at all prepared for this question. However, he may have listened to part of the scene which took place the preceding evening between his mistress and Signor Rinaldo, and explained to-day"s affair in his own way. It was quite in keeping with Beatrice"s violent character, that she should now have left the town for a few days, if only to render it impossible to continue the performance of Rinaldo"s opera, and that the latter should be beside himself with anger was easily comprehended. It was not, indeed, the first disagreement between the two, and all quarrels so far had always ended in a reconciliation. With the prospect of such a readjustment of affairs, the servant was clever enough not to injure himself with the ruling side, and therefore intimated that Signora had left the house early this morning, with the distinct order that all enquiries were to be replied to "that she was ill." She had driven away in her own carriage; where, he did not know.
"And where did she drive to?" asked Reinhold, breathlessly. "Have you not heard what address she gave the coachman?"
"I believe--to Maestro Gianelli"s house."
"Gianelli! then he, too, is in the plot. Perhaps he may still be reached. Marco, so soon as Signora arrives, or any news of her, let me know at once! At once! I will pay you with gold for every word. Do not forget this!"
With these words, almost thrown at the servant in his flight, Reinhold hastened away. Marco looked astounded after him. To-day"s scene was enacted much more tempestuously than any former ones under similar circ.u.mstances, and Signor Rinaldo"s excitement surpa.s.sed anything he had seen before. What then had happened? The maestro could not possibly have eloped with Biancona? It really almost looked like it.
In Consul Erlau"s house naturally intense confusion and excitement reigned. Captain Almbach, who had hurried there without delay, undertook at once the management of the enquiries which had been already set on foot with the greatest energy and caution, but even he could not discover anything. In the meanwhile, the one fact was clear--that the child had disappeared tracelessly, and so remained. As to whether it had left the garden voluntarily, whether it had been tempted out, all supposition was at a loss. No one had noticed anything unusual, no one had missed the little one until the moment when Annunziata returned to fetch him. The poor little Italian was dissolved in tears, and yet she was quite blameless in the occurrence, as her young mistress herself had called her into the house. The boy was old enough not to require constant supervision, and he often played alone in the perfectly enclosed place. Hugo had not yet dared to give words to the suspicion which he shared with his brother, and which every moment became more lively. He had only hinted slightly at an abduction, and was at once met with utter incredulity. Robbers in the middle of the street, in the most aristocratic quarter--impossible! A misfortune was more likely. Once more they began a search, notwithstanding the approaching darkness, in the neighbouring gardens and the rest of the vicinity.
In the meanwhile, Erlau essayed in vain to pacify his adopted daughter, and to point out to her the possibilities and probabilities which still might let her hope for a happy termination; Ella did not hear him.
Silent and deadly pale, without shedding a single tear, she sat by his side now, after having taken part for hours in the vain researches, which she even to some extent had conducted herself. Although Hugo had not alluded to that possibility by a syllable, the mother"s thoughts took the same direction, and the more inexplicable the child"s disappearance remained, the more irrepressibly did the recollection of her yesterday"s encounter force itself upon her, the recollection of Beatrice"s wild hatred, and burning threats of vengeance; and clear, and ever clearer arose the presentiment that this was no case of accident or misfortune, but that it was one of crime.
A carriage dashed madly up the street, and stopped before the house.
Ella, who started at every noise, imagined in every arrival a messenger bringing news, flew to the window; she saw her husband descend and enter the house. A few minutes later he stood before her.
"Reinhold, where is our child?"
It was a cry of deadly fear and despair, but also a reproach more wounding than could be conceived. She demanded her child of him! Was he alone to blame that it had been torn from the mother?
"Where is our child?" repeated she, with a vain attempt to read the answer in his face.
"In Beatrice"s hands," replied Reinhold, firmly. "I came too late to rescue it from her; she has fled already with her prey, but at least I know her track, Gianelli betrayed it to me; the rogue was cognizant, if he were not literally an a.s.sistant, but he saw plainly that I was in earnest with my threat to shoot him down if he did not tell me the road she had taken with the child. They have fled to the mountains in the direction towards A----. I shall follow them at once. There is not a moment to be lost, only I wished to bring you the information, Ella.
Farewell!"
Erlau, who had listened to all much shocked, wished now to interpose with questions and advice, but Ella gave him no time for it. The certainty, fearful as it was, restored her courage; she stood already at her husband"s side.
"Reinhold, take me with you!" implored she, determinedly.
He made a gesture of refusal. "Impossible Eleonore! It will be a journey as for very life, and when I reach the goal, perhaps even a struggle between it and death. That were no place for you; I must fight it out alone. Either I shall bring you your son back, or you see me now for the last time. Be calm! The possibility of his rescue is now in his father"s hands."
"And the mother shall, in the meanwhile, despair here?" asked his wife, pa.s.sionately. "Take me with you! I am not weak--you know it. You need fear no tears or fainting from me when action is required, and I can bear all, only not the fearful uncertainty and inactivity, only not the anxious waiting for news, which may not arrive for days. I shall accompany you!"
"Eleonore, for G.o.d"s sake!" interposed Erlau, horrified. "What an idea!
It would be your death."
Reinhold looked at his wife silently for a few seconds, as if he would examine how far her strength went.
"Can you be ready in ten minutes?" asked he, quietly. "The carriage waits below."
"In half the time."
She hurried into the adjoining room. The Consul wanted to forbid, beg, entreat once more, but Reinhold cut him short.
"Leave her alone, as I do," said he, energetically. "We _cannot_ give way now to cold consideration. I do not see my brother here, and I have not time to seek him. Tell him what has happened, what I have discovered. He must take the necessary steps here at once to ensure us help, which we may perhaps require, and then follow us. We shall first take the direct route to A----. There Hugo will find farther information about us."
He turned, without waiting for a reply, to the door, where Ella already appeared in hat and cloak. The young wife threw herself, with a short tempestuous farewell greeting, on to her adopted father"s breast, to whose protest she would not listen; then she followed her husband.
Erlau looked out of the window as Reinhold lifted her into the carriage, entered it himself, shut the door, and the horses started off in full gallop. This was too much for the shaken nerves of the old gentleman, especially after the alarm and excitement of the last few hours; almost unconscious, he sank into an arm-chair.
Hardly ten minutes later Hugo entered; he had already heard from one of the servants of his brother"s sudden arrival and equally sudden departure with Ella. At his first hasty questions, Erlau recovered a little. He was beside himself at his daughter"s decision, still more at the independence of her husband, who had borne her away without any more ado. Arrival, explanation and departure, all had taken place as in a hurricane; this mode of action resembled a regular elopement, and what could the poor wife do on such a journey? What might not occur, what happen, if they really overtook this dreadful Italian? The Consul was nearly in despair at the thought of all the possibilities to which his favourite was exposed.
Hugo listened silently to the report, without betraying especial surprise or horror. He appeared to have expected something of the sort, and when Erlau had ended, laid his hand soothingly on the latter"s arm, and said quietly, but yet with a slight tremor in his voice--
"Let it be, Herr Consul! The parents are now on their child"s track; they will, it is to be hoped, find the little one and--each other also."
A carriage moved up the steep twisting road of the pa.s.s, which led through the mountains to A----. Notwithstanding the four powerful horses and cheering cries of the driver, it proceeded but slowly. This was one of the worst spots in the whole chain of hills. The occupants of the carriage, a lady and gentleman, had descended from it, and struck into a foot path, which shortened the road almost by half; they stood already on the summit, while the conveyance was still some considerable distance behind them.
"Rest yourself, Ella!" said the gentleman, as he led the lady into the shade of the rocky wall. "The exertion was too much for you; why did you insist on leaving the carriage?"
His wife still kept her fixed, comfortless gaze turned to the pa.s.s, which on the other side descended into the valley, and whose windings could be partly overlooked.
"We are a quarter of an hour sooner at the top, at any rate," said she, feebly. "I wanted to look out over the road, perhaps even discover the carriage."
Reinhold"s glance followed the same direction, in which nothing, however, could be discerned but the figures of two men, looking like peasants, who coming down the hill l.u.s.tily, sometimes disappeared in the turns of the road, soon again to reappear.
"We cannot, indeed, be so near them," said he pacifyingly, "although we have flown since last evening. You see, at least, we are on the right track. Beatrice has been seen everywhere, and the child beside her. We _must_ overtake her."
"And when we do--what then?" asked Ella, listlessly. "Our boy is unprotected in her hands. G.o.d knows what plans she will pursue with him."
Reinhold shook his head--
"Plans? Beatrice never acts upon plans or calculations. The impulse of the moment decides everything with her. The thought of revenge has suddenly overcome her, and like lightning she has carried it out, like lightning fled with her prey. Where? To what end? That is not even clear to herself, and for the moment she does not enquire. She wished to strike you and me in our most vulnerable point, and she has succeeded; more she did not wish."
He spoke with great bitterness, but with most perfect certainty. They stood alone at the summit of the pa.s.s; the carriage was still far below them, and just then disappeared at the last turn of the road. The mountains here bore an abrupt, wild character; almost naked the sharp rocks rose upwards, now in mighty groups, now wildly split and broken.
Only aloes could take root in the clefts of the yellow grey stone, and here and there a fig tree spread its meagre shade. Yonder, on the other side of the valley, a building hung in dizzy height on the mountain"s wall, a castle or monastery, grey as the rock itself, and barely to be distinguished from it at this distance. Lower down at the edge of an abyss, a little hill-town had nestled itself, which built in and upon the rock seemed almost to form part of it, and its deserted decayed appearance harmonised with the loneliness around. Still lower, whirled the broad rushing stream, occupying almost the entire width of the valley, so that there barely remained s.p.a.ce for the road by its side.
Over the whole scene, however, lay that glowing sunlight of a southern autumn day, which is not inferior at all to the power of a northern midsummer one; although the sun had long left its noontide height, the air was still quivering with heat; sharply and harshly illuminated, every single object stood out almost painfully clear to the sight, and the heated stones literally burned under the scorching rays to which they were incessantly exposed.
"It would be folly to precede the carriage, even only by another step,"
said Reinhold. "It would overtake us in a moment on the downward route.
Now we have a view over the whole."
Ella did not contradict him; her countenance bore plainly enough an expression of the most extreme physical and mental exhaustion. This drive of twenty hours without rest, added to the deadly fear at heart, the ever renewed agonising excitement when the track sought for now appeared and again was lost--this was too much for the mother"s heart, and the woman"s strength. She sat down on a piece of rock, leaned her head silently against the mountain"s side, and closed her eyes.
Her husband stood by her and looked down silently at the beautiful pale countenance, which in its deadly exhaustion appeared almost alarming.
The sharp points of the rock buried themselves deeply in her white forehead and left red marks there. Reinhold slowly pushed his arm between the stone and his wife"s fair plaits; she did not seem to feel it, and encouraged by it he put his arm quite round her, and attempted to give her a better support against his shoulder.
Now Ella started slightly and opened her eyes; she made a movement as if she would withdraw from him, but his look disarmed her--this look which rested upon her with such painful, anxious tenderness; she saw that he did not tremble less for her at this moment than he trembled for his child. She let her head sink back again, and remained motionless in his arms.
He bent low over her--
"I fear, Eleonore," said he, with an effort, "you have had too much confidence in your strength. You will break down."
Ella shook her head denyingly--