"But I entreated you for the poor man!--and you, too, promised."
"I did to the utmost of my power whatever could be done, and as far as it could be done without your injury: your father, too, the same.
Thrice did the council apply to the emperor in Goldmann"s behalf, and the last time was dismissed ignominiously for their pains, and forbidden farther interference. Defendant was not to be saved. Some one must have killed Bieler: Goldmann confessed upon the rack that he had struck at the young man"s head; about you he was honestly silent, and thus, therefore, devoted himself for an atonement."
"Horrible!" cried Francis, and paced about the room, wringing his hands. On a sudden the clang of the funeral bells vibrated hollowly and slowly from the tower of the guildhall; when, in obedience to the signal, from every turret throughout the city, the metal heralds lifted up their solemn voices, producing a singularly sad and awful echo in the silence of the morning twilight.
"What means this tolling of the bells so early?" asked Francis, with a fearful foreboding.
"It is the funeral toll of the poor Goldmann," replied Heidenreich, leaning himself against the window. "To show publicly that the council deems the imperial sentence too severe, it has allowed this last honour to the condemned; the body, too, will be followed by the whole college to the burial-ground of our Lady _im Walde_."
"A melancholy kindness!" exclaimed Francis, shuddering; and after awhile he added, "first the hand, then the rack, and at last the head.
Oh, it is horrible!"
"See, there comes the procession!" cried Heidenreich from the window; and in spite of the horror that seized him at the news, Francis yet felt himself irresistibly attracted to look on that which he dreaded.
Just then the old Onophrius was pa.s.sing before the window. Free and unfettered, he walked with calm confidence between the city soldiers who accompanied him, while no marks of the fear of death were to be seen upon his venerable, pale, cheerful countenance; and a garland of white roses adorned his silver locks, which were fluttered by the morning breeze.
Loud weeping was heard from the a.s.sembled people; even the iron Francis sobbed bitterly. At this moment the old man lifted up his eyes and maimed arm to him, and cried out with a strong voice, "I have forgiven you all! Only make good as much as you are yet able, and you shall not find me amongst your accusers before the judgment-seat of G.o.d." With this he went on cheerfully to the place of execution, while Francis howled and pressed his face against the iron grating of the window.
The sufferer"s head had fallen. The noise of the people returning from the burial, and the sudden silence of the bells, awoke Francis from his mental lethargy. He looked up, and found himself alone.
"It was an evil hour!" he cried, rousing himself; "G.o.d be praised that it is over.--How! not yet torture enough?" he added the instant after, seeing Agatha, who just then closed the prison door behind her.
In deep mourning, with hollow eyes staring out of a pale, meagre face;--in her hand the garland of white roses which her father had worn on his last travel, she stood for a long time at the door, a threatening Nemesis. She then glided nearer with a light step, and planted herself close before the terrified Francis, whose hair began to stand on end.
"My father is no more," she murmured in the tones of death. "I have even now seen him to his final place of rest, and am come hither to execute his last commission. He has been silent: he has died to save you; and he has saved you that you may restore to his only child the honour of which you robbed her by crafty seduction. In his last farewell he said, "I will believe that, with the best inclination, Francis had it not in his power to rescue me; but let him take you home as his wedded wife, which is his duty, and which he has promised me with deep oaths: thus he will at least have made good as much as he was able, and my shadow is reconciled." Now, then, I am here to remind you of your oath."
With infinite confusion Francis stammered out, "Yes,--that,--dearest Agatha--for the present, at least, that cannot be done. I do not depend upon myself alone."
"You are a widower, and childless," said Agatha, with great composure.
"But my proud stern father will never consent to such an alliance,"
objected Francis.
"You have long been of age and wealthy, and therefore independent,"
said Agatha, in the former unimpa.s.sioned tone; "give me better reasons for your perjury."
"I suppose I can"t be married to you in the Hildebrand!" cried Francis, with the angry impatience of mental agony.
"Oh father! what you have asked of me is hard," sighed Agatha, struggling with her feelings; "but I must obey." And, as in that dreadful night, she flung herself before Francis, and embracing his knees, besought him--"Give me your hand, and with it give me back my honour."
"Let go of me, woman!" he cried, tearing himself with violence from the kneeling Agatha. "By heavens, I cannot do what you desire!"
"You cannot?" she returned in a terrible tone, and rose up; "You swear by Heaven that you cannot?--You are right. What does a perjury, more or less, signify to you? It is quite well so, perhaps better than if I had softened you for the moment. Now then I may confess it to you: it was only obedience to the martyr that compelled me to this measure. I had other intentions with you; but my father"s command tied up my hands, which your utter unworthiness has again unfettered. Think of what I told you in the night of torture. My father has now really died for you--you have rejected the atonement which he offered you through me, and vengeance can now take her course, softly, slowly, and securely.
May this thought scare sleep from your bed and drop wormwood into the cup of your joy, till you one day see me again adorned with this blood-besprinkled garland, as your bride for the life yonder in the torments that have no end."
She glided out of the room; Francis stood there for a long time as if petrified, when, collecting himself, he called out for the guard.
"Goldmann"s daughter," he said to the city servitor, who then entered, "has been uttering dangerous threats out of rage for the execution of her father. Every thing is to be feared from her malice,--fire and murder, poison and uproar! for who knows what abettors she may have already gained by her strumpet artifices? Arrest her, therefore, immediately, and announce it to the council. I take upon myself all responsibility with my father."
The servitor ran off; but in a little time returned with information that Agatha, after quitting the Hildebrand, had disappeared so quickly, that no one knew which way to follow her; her dwelling was quite deserted, and it was probable she had turned her back upon the city.
"That"s bad," said Francis thoughtfully; but his old, daring recklessness soon returned, and he exclaimed, "What does it signify?
the malicious wench will take good care, I should hope, not to come back to a city in which my father governs: no one yet ever died of mere threats, and I doubt not to reconcile to my conscience the not having allowed the daughter of the beheaded city messenger to talk herself into the honourable family of the Friends."
It was in the beginning of the July 1572, that Althea sate at a splendid dinner-table with her uncle Schindel, her brother-in-law Netz, and a few ladies of distinction; but the rich dishes seemed to be there merely for show, for the sun was already low in the west, and still the meal had not yet begun.
"Your betrothed stays long," said Netz, gaping, and tapping with his knife upon the silver goblet before him. "He was to have been with us about the middle of the day, and now the evening will soon be here. You must break him in better for the holy state of matrimony."
"His protracted absence begins to alarm me," replied Althea. "I trust no accident has happened to him on his long journey."
"Who would begin fearing the worst so soon?" admonished Schindel.
"Recollect, niece, how much he had to do at Tirschkokrig, and Prague, and Vienna. Such a change of habitation for life brings with it a heap of business. The explanations with a beloved father, whom one would not pain, the quitting of the service of a powerful master, who unwillingly parts with the true servant--all these are things that are not easily got over. It is very possible that he may yet have to stay a day or two over."
"Well, G.o.d be thanked!" cried Netz--"He has been a year in Bohemia, and so has had time to manage his removal to Silesia."
"Only a year?" sighed Althea; "to me the time has seemed much longer."
"Not a complete year yet," interrupted Schindel. "It was in the September of the foregoing year that Francis Friend was released from his confinement, and it was the very day before that Tausdorf went to Bohemia."
"Don"t mention a word to me about these Friends," growled Netz, dashing the goblet on the table. "You drive the gall into my stomach, and then the wine does not prosper with me. It will stick with me all my life long, that this villain, who alone was cause of the mischief, should have crept, with a whole skin, from under the sword of the executioner!"
"It must have been because they could prove nothing against him in respect to Bieler"s death," objected Schindel, "or else the emperor had made a severe example of him also."
"I have ever heard," said Netz, "that in such investigations all depends upon the manner of questioning; and the judge, if he rightly understands it, can interrogate a rogue into an honest man, and an honest man into a rogue. With me Francis will always be Bieler"s murderer, and if I had not given my knightly word and hand to the lord bishop to let the matter rest, I would yet call him to account for it."
"Still Tausdorf comes not!" interrupted Althea with affectionate anxiety.
"And in the mean time," said Schindel, "we have lost the guests who were invited for his reception. Ra.s.selwitz and Seidlitz were to be gone for an hour only, and neither of them is returned yet."
"I wish Ra.s.selwitz may not be dangling after the fair Netherlander,"
replied Netz, "and have forgotten Tausdorf and his welcome!"
"You must always be wagging your tongue at me," cried Ra.s.selwitz, who just then entered, and had caught the last words.
"Well, and do I lie?" asked Netz: "Are you not led in a string by the fair stranger?"
"Would to Heaven she only thought it worth her while to lead me! but at present she cares little about me."
"And yet you are always dangling after her, and paying court to her when and how she pleases. What a great fool should I be if I were to suffer myself to be so trotted about, and all to no purpose! Love"s pay must follow love"s service, or else I care nothing for love, or all the women of the earth."
"Time brings roses. I don"t yet give up all hope."
"Holloa, gentlemen!" cried Schindel; "this is a conversation for the tavern when you can no longer tell Hungary from Rhenish. How can you think of amusing the n.o.ble ladies here present with your courtesans?"
"You are in a gross error, Herr von Schindel," said Netz warmly. "The lady, of whom we speak, by no means belongs to that loose craft. Since she has lodged with the Dutch nurseryman at the Park, she has led so still and retired a life, that she may well be set up as a model for other women. Besides, the splendour of her clothes and furniture betokens great wealth, as her dignified manners are a sign of her high birth."
"And yet lodges at the Park?" retorted Schindel; "and allows the young men free access to her? That is strange! But who is she, and what would she here? It does not at all please me, when a handsome female wanders about the world in this way without protection."